Glasgow or Edinburgh v Birmingham UK

[UrsiHun]

Hey there, not sure it’s the right place to start a thread. I would like to find out about family life in Scotland. I’m British but have lived in Germany for 12 years and we want to go back next year. We have friends inn Birmingham but are thinking of moving somewhere quieter and greener an led yetnwith enough to offer children and parents.
Many thanks for any advice in advance.

This house is probably a similar distance from the motorway - so I don't think you'd hear anything at all intrusive. (thinking about it, there are also at least 2 hills between it and the motorway).

Dh and I go past it regularly when we go for walks (usually around the pond in Maxwell Park). It has the most mixed up of rhododendrons in its front garden which flowers intermittently all year round

I'm actually surprised how "cheap" it is.

https://www.corumproperty.co.uk/property-view/aytoun-road-pollokshields-glasgow~id21663333

And Linlithgow looks lovely, Givemestrengthorgin! Do you know catchment is usual in the area? Some houses seem to be over a mile away from the next primary - will that suffice to get in? Many thanks for this new idea!

Oh prettbird, this is quite splendid! Thank you for the link and info. I can tell that I am growing very fond of your area, more and more each day.
What catchment is usual for primaries? How do I find whether the nearest school to the property is good?
And also, is it true that school year in Scotland starts in March?

My husband is Scottish and dying to get back to Scotland. I would pick either Scottish city over Birmingham any day.

That particular house is in the catchment for Glendale Primary, which is the school that ds went to and has an excellent reputation .It's an exemplar of good practice for dealing with multiple languages. It is now in a brand new building (built after he left) and shares the campus with the Gaelic Medium Primary. But anything below No 20 iirc (the other side of St Johns Road) in that road is in the catchment for Pollokshields Primary, which is not as good.

The cut-off date is March (but there is flexibility in that, which I will explain) but the school year starts in mid August.

Children who turn 5 on or after 1 March up until the following February start school that August. So in August 2019, those that were born between 1 March 2014 and February 2015 would be starting P1 (there is no Reception year in Scottish state schools). Registration for that is about to start. However if they are not yet 5 by the time the school term starts in mid August, they can defer entry to P1 until the following year. In practice only January and February birthdays (but not all) and a few November and December birthdays (and very very occasionally, October - but the one case I know of had entered the Scottish education system much later from a foreign country) choose to defer, and only the January and February birthdays are guaranteed nursery funding.

Ds's birthday is in September, so in theory he should have been in the middle of the age cohort but in practice he was towards the young end of the year. (If he'd been in England he's have been one of the oldest in his year and still in Y13/Upper 6th rather than in 1st year of Uni ). He had one friend in his year who turned 18 in January this year and another - equally legitimately in the same year - who won't turn 18 until this coming February and he was the brightest by far in the year

Oh dear, that means buying a property should be all about getting into a good school. Good to know pretty bird. Shame we can't move now or the house would have been an excellent opportunity .

My second DS is turning 5 in August which means we won't start school in the summer this year. That means moving to Scotland forces him to start school with other children who can read and write whilst he won't be able to . I have no idea how to do this. The eldest is going to hate me for depriving him of his friends and the little one is going to be massively behind in school.

What do you mean by nursery funding pretty bird?
Many thanks for all your info - extremely helpful!

Mrskeats - I can totally understand that. Can you say exactly why? Becuase it is is home? Or the scenery? Are people different?
Many thanks :)

My daughter started school a year "late" due to living overseas and it was fine. I downloaded the reception year curriculum and ensured she could read the words on the list, could write her name and knew shapes and colours etc

Even if, say, you move back next summer so your ds ends up starting straight into P2, the schools (especially the multi-cultural ones) are used to dealing with kids at different stages of development.

Ds didn't learn to to read properly until the Easter of P2 . Until then he'd just been learning the books off by heart , but the school was relaxed, as they said that some kids especially boys are just not developmentally ready until they're about 6. They were right - he was 6.5 when he finally "got" blending. He went on to do well in his English Higher and is doing a "reading/writing heavy" degree (International Relations)

Houses like that come up regularly in Pollokshields, Newlands, Langside and Strathbungo, all of which are in the catchments of good primaries. Some of them might be "conversions": half (or less) of a larger stone villa, converted from the original "whole" house. We live in one such house - dh calls it a horizontal semi , in that it's the 1st and attic floor of a bigger version of the one for sale. The ceilings in our "main" floor are 13 feet high - and the gardens are still enormous, even if they've been split with the "other" half/third etc of the house.

Re nursery funding: Scottish school kids get at least 12 hours nursery funding from the term after they turn 3 (might have gone/will be going up to 30 hours??? Out of touch now given that ds is 18 )

I think in most cases the hours get used at a Council run nursery - but you can(?) get the appropriate contribution to a wrap around private nursery.

Edinburgh is lovely.

Central Scotland is a great place to live, plenty of places you could afford outwith the city and have some land, decent house. Stirling is good for travel to Edinburgh, Glasgow and Perth. Stirling is a nice town, decent number of shops and some good schools and uni.

Trains to those mentioned above very frequent and also good bus services if needed.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/find.html?locationIdentifier=REGION%5E1266&maxPrice=500000&includeSSTC=false

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/find.html?locationIdentifier=REGION%5E61342&maxPrice=500000&includeSSTC=false

Thanks a million! Great input .

I assume that more rural areas won't have schools with more open approach to children from abroad who started school later. Or am I wrong?

Prettybird - thanks sooo much for your thorough descriptions. Invaluable. do you have an idea where I am best to start a thread on moving abroad with children? I am of course insecure about making a decision my 7 year old is not happy about (he knows we're talking about it but wants to stay where his friends and current school are...

I have no idea: you know your own dcs. They will resist change whenever you go, but will adapt.

We emigrated when I was 13 (actually, we'd also immigrated when I was 3 but I was too young to remember/protest ). I sulked for a whole year as I didn't want to leave my school friends (start of S2, so I'd had a year at secondary) but then made new friends After another year, my parents decided to come back (ironically enough, for my sake, in time for "O" grades shows how old I am ). I sulked for another year and was even better at it as I was 15 and had had practice once we emigrated back as I didn't want to come back - although mum and dad did do their best to smooth transition by arranging for us to go back to our old school.

You really need to have a better idea of when/where you are moving to get more specific advice.

School in my local area tend to start DC who've moved from abroad in the year below their age group to give them a chance to settle but it's really quite flexible in Scotland as there will be at least 18 months between the oldest and youngest in a class anyway. MY DSs have a friend from India, who arrived from school in Africa and was put in my younger DSs class and then he moved up to my older DSs class (mine are only a year apart) before going to High School.

Every house in Scotland has an allocated primary and secondary (sometimes also a catholic provision school as well as those). You are then meant to be guaranteed a place in that school (not always completely true and if you move in to the area you may possibly have to wait for some of the busier schools in Edinburgh and Glasgow too I should imagine) but it works in the vast majority of cases.

On top of that you have the option of submitting a placing request to another school if you'd prefer. This isn't guaranteed to be successful depending on the school but lots are. My own DSs attend an out of catchment high school.

Thanks for all the info - fantastic :)

@prettybird that house has so much potential. If it was in my budget I’d be moving! I drive along Nithsdale road a few times a week and that whole area is beautiful.

It’d cost quite a bit to do it up but it looks perfectly liveable in the meantime. My main concern is that there’s no mention of any central heating and a lack of photos of all the rooms...it’s defintely been an older persons home who have downsized or sadly passed away (bath board in the bath). From looking at Glasgow properties, I’ve learnt that if the listing doesn’t specifically say “double glazing” or “gas central heating” then it doesn’t have it!

You could be right. Be even so it is a stunning property and it makes it more affordable to be able to do it up oneself at any pace really since the refurbishment doesn't look urgent.

If I were able to I'd buy it in a beat of heart. Unfortunately we have to wait about 10-12 months before we can...

You're right TakeAChancey : the very old guy who used to live there I think has died (we saw a hearse going along the road). We used to chat to him if he were working in the garden. His wife is the one that is in the wheelchair, so I suspect that now he has gone, it is too much for her to live there on her own

I agree about the double glazing (we suffer from that ourselves: the only double glazed window we have is the "new" window that was put into our kitchen, so it had to be double glazed ). And our central heating system is ancient (but never breaks down - and every time we try to get a quote, the respectable heating engineers say it is a brilliant system and to wait until it does finally bite the dust should replace the radiators though for more efficient ones )

if your son is 5 in august 2019 he should start school in august 2019 very few children can read or write when they start school apart from their own name,

I was brought up near Birmingham and went to Birmingham university but now live north of glasgow, I like Glasgow and Edinburgh Glasgow is cheaper, don't know enough about Stirling to comment

Glasgow has a lot of green space for a city in fact it is known as the "dear green place" lots of culture 6 free museums and easy access to the sea and mountains and lochs

My one caveat would be it rains a lot more than England average rainfall around Loch Lomond is 2000mm per year around Birmingham it is 700mm, it is not really colder in the wetter but it is not as warm in the summer, the ayrshire coast is much drier that up towards Helensburgh

University Education is free but when I first moved to Scotland over 20 years ago Scotland was ahead of England in International tables for language and Maths unfortunately this has now reversed and the results in England are better, not many people have much good to say about the so called " curriculum for excellence"

I am wondering whether because of education we should move back to England before DD reaches secondary level, there are no SATS but teachers going on strike soon over something so in terms of education it is not all smiles but in a good school in decent area your children should be fine, just like they would be in a good school in decent area in England

in a rural school you may find smaller classes help

I also went to Bham Uni and have visited since then and I must say the city has developed very positively. It is too busy for my taste though. Also the catchment problem makes it almost impossible to buy a property! Hence the idea with Scotland. I've heard Edinburgh doesn't have as much rain as Glasgow, is that true? Or perhaps Perth or Dundee, Aberdeen? I've never been to those places though..

Not sure I understood your last comment about rural schools. Do you mean they might be better?

Rural schools are unlikely to have the diversity of a city school but because of low population the class sizes can often be nearer 20 than 30 pupils

The east coast is drier than west coast but colder