Moving home with my English family

[Sushijackiechan]

Hi Scotsnetters

Looking for some advice or experiences of relocating to Scotland.

I grew up in Glasgow, moved away when I was early 20s and lived in a variety of places before finally settling in London. DH is from n England.

We never planned to stay in London but have been here years now. We have two primary aged ds. Recently we had a few weeks touring around Scotland and I'm really wanting to move home now.

DH has never been keen on staying in the SE and has agreed to consider a move north of the border. However it's a big upheaval for us all. Need to find jobs, consider best place to go etc. I still have friends and a few distant relatives in Glasgow area, but I realise we would be pretty much starting from scratch.

How do we make a start with this? Would want to be near Glasgow, somewhere with good schools, where my kids English accents won't be a big problem for them.

I work in secondary education, DH in social services. I guess first thing would be to register to teach in Scotland and find work.

Has anyone else made this move? What other things do we need to Consider? Any advice welcome!!

Thanks. I've just had a look at the GTCS website. It appears pretty straightforward. You can complete the application form and upload certificates online.

Interesting what you say about degree subject. My degree is in design but my PGCE in Art and design. I've only ever taught Fine Art!

Howabout. That's great to hear 🙂 Where did you move to?

It's quality of life we are moving for really. And space!

With social services, would he need to retrain? do you think can he transfer easily from English system?

We are outskirts of Glasgow. Commuter belt (not East Ren / Dunbartonshire). Most places West of the M8 are less than an hour from the coast. Outside Central Glasgow and the usual suspects your budget should be fine for 4 bed detached in decent school area.

Don't know about retraining but I do know there are shortages throughout social services in Glasgow and surrounding (from friends in the field) so there are vacancies.

May also be worth considering Renfrewshire

Would you consider somewhere like Inverkip? Commutable to ggow quite easily! www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-64279084.html

Where would you recommend in Renfrewshire?

I'm off to google Inverkip now! What are schools like?

There's a village school for primary not sure of exact number but under 300 in full school for capacity as far as l know, no recent knowledge though!

Kip Marina is very pretty. Is it a long train journey to Glasgow?

Do you know which secondary school is nearby?

If you fancy the sea Largs Academy has a good reputation and has just had a new campus built. You could buy in Fairley, West Kilbride, Seamill Largs or even the Isle of Cumbrae with your budget and commute to Glasgow or North Ayrshire (although not sure where the Largs Academy catchment ends) West Kilbride has an up and coming artist vibe so that might suit you OP?

I think Kip's nearest secondary might be Greenock, which isn't great. If you can go the other way to Largs, that's better but might be out of catchment.

Hi OP (waves).
I'm in your DHs position as the English partner to a Scot. We lived together in London before getting priced out and moving to Glasgow. Our kids are 6 and 3 and we're born here.
Anecdotally--I've heard about teachers from England having difficulty getting registered with the General Teaching Council in Scotland. Maybe look into that.
Social services are pretty well funded though so your DH shouldn't have a problem finding work.
When we were moving up I just applied for everything in the central belt and ended up moving to the first place that would have us which turned out to be Glasgow!
Just as well- I remember almost applying for a job in Barra, assuming it was a suburb of Edinburgh.
We live in Maryhill now which suits us as housing is cheap but we're close to all the cool stuff in the west end should we want it.
The catchment school wasn't the best so Ds is at the Gaelic School which is a challenge (whole family are learning) but worth it.
I make him go to the drop-in kids stuff on the estate as well, so he has local friends to play out with. Both kids sound like Billy Bragghave ended up with my accent and haven't had any teasing so far.
I love living here. It was the right decision for us.

Erskine, Bishopton, Houston, bridge of weir

This is all so helpful 🙂 Yes I definately need to check out how I can teach in Scotland. Good to hear that DH should be able to find a job easily.

West Kilbride looks interesting. Thanks for that suggestion.

I'll definately get in touch with GTCS tomorrow. Sounds like they have very high standards, which bodes well for my dc s education🙂

I thoroughly recommend Stirling and surrounding area as a great place to raise a family. get more for your money than in the city but only half an hour by train, easy access to the countryside, can be at Loch lomond by car in 40 minutes if you want. Get to the beaches of Fife in the same time, handy for Edinburgh too. Good schools, mixed communities, and an english accent wouldn't stand out. In our street we have scots, english, south african, indian, pakistani, italian, canadian and welsh!

Myjobscotland is the site that Scottish State Schools use to advertise teaching vacancies. Watching availability and spread of posts over a school year might inform where you choose to locate. As a secondary teacher I second Wax's suggestion of Stirling as you can commute )with varying degrees of ease) to all of Stirling, Falkirk, Clacks, North Lan, Perth city, West Lothian , Glasgow and Edinburgh. Is there is any element of product design to your degree? I ask as my friend is a Tech teacher and her degree is Product Design and she says that vacancies are going unfilled .

Get your GTCS registration completed before you move. It can take a long time and they sometimes pick up on wierd things to be fussy about. You will need more documentaion than you realise!

I've heard GTCS registration can be difficult - think some of the local authorities are sometimes willing to get involved due to teacher shortages.

Helensburgh is def the town with the most english accents, and most of the navy families are now settled due to the change in status of faslane. It's on the sea/near a loch. Balloch is nice as well but secondary school is the Vale Academy which isn't quite as naice as Helensburgh's... Milngavie/Bearsden are nice but prices are through the roof.

If you have a look at the myjobscotland website you'll be able to see who is currently advertising but with the jobs you are looking for i think you could probably move just about anywhere.

Thanks for the info on Myjobscotland and what a good idea to monitor it for a while see where the jobs are.

DH likes the look of Helensburgh too but it all going to be job dependent. There seem to be quite a few we could apply for even at this time of year, in both fields.

Ive completed GTCS online application so we shall see. I'm pretty sure my degree and post grad qualifications will pass muster even without the 20 years teaching experience. Scots are not daft!

One thing that is a potential hurdle is selling our house in England and buying in Scotland with two very different legal systems. Has anyone experience of doing this? How did you approach it?Two different solicitors? Would it be better to sell up down south and rent do you think?

Timing is going to be important as my eldest starts secondary next Autumn. Do schools up there do in year entry?

Lidlfix sadly not.
My degree is Art Textiles. I'm adding Stirlingshire to the list.

😂Unlimited that's halarious! (Although Barra is a very beautiful island and the gaelic would have come in handy!)

I've heard great things about Gaelic education.

Never sold a house in England as we rented in London. However Ideally you need a Scottish solicitor with local market knowledge of exactly where you are buying in Scotland. This is because the Scottish system is different and if you are in a closed bid situation local solicitors are best placed to advise on how much to offer.

I would advise selling in England first. The process is generally quicker in Scotland and most sellers won't accept offers from someone not in a position to exchange and complete within a couple of months or so. You may also want to rent first to make sure you are happy with your chosen area and it makes house hunting much easier once you are local - good houses in our area go on and off the market within a couple of weeks atm so long distance viewing would be challenging.

We considered proximity to the airport and the M74 for keeping contact with friends and relations in SE. Otoh you might want to consider how close you want to be to Scottish family.

In year transfers shouldn't be a problem and P7, S1, S2 there is quite a lot of jostling about anyway. It becomes harder after that due to increasing focus on exams etc. Get yourselves comfortable with the Scottish education system as soon as you can. My DH is really hard of thinking on the subject and struggles with the concept of S5 being more important than S6.

We sold in England and bought in Scotland in the same transaction - we needed two lawyers. It was a bit of a nightmare, tbh.

You're so right howabout - S5 is the key year. While you can make up some ground in S6, you're playing catchup.

"I've heard great things about Gaelic education."

Its pretty good. I think the Gaelic school had the second highest results in Glasgow this year. This year and last year everyone who applied got in and the school is expanding to accomodate demand.