Prestwick Academy vs Wellington School

[APM1999]

Hello fellow mums, this is a very specific question but here it goes... we’re moving to Scotland this summer. I have a daughter who will start her Highers and another one who will be year 10 next school year. We will live in Prestwick. Schoolswise we have the option of Prestwick Academy or Wellington School. Does anyone here know enough to advise me on these 2 schools? I’m Turkish, my husband is Scottish while our daughters are more like English. I don’t want them to be bullied because of this. Any thoughts?

Prestwick seems to be an active happy school. This year they started by having the new first years piped into school by a bagpiper in the full regalia, herded by senior pupils and teachers.

www.prestwick.sayr.sch.uk/

Wellington School is fee-paying and I know a teacher who works there. It is a successful school with a good academic record. My friend moved her daughter there for her 2 final years because she needed intense work and the "good school vibe" to get into medicine at Aberdeen. She did her first 4 years at Prestwick. Her brother did all 6 years at Prestwick Academy and went on to do a PH.D. in Maths at Glasgow.
www.wellingtonschool.org/

Prestwick is a good school but has issues like any other. The children are a mixed bag from all walks of life.

Wellington is certainly smaller, as most fee paying schools are, but that comes with different issues.

Both schools have decent sports facilities, wellingtons are great but offsite with children bring bussed there.

If a subject is unavailable in Prestwick a class at other secondaries is sometimes optional. Subject choice is more limited at wellington.

Thank you for your replies. The proximity of Prestwick Academy (literally 5 minute walk) is quite alluring from a life quality point of view for the girls. They can come home for lunch if they wanted to and won’t spend ages getting to and from school. I want them to find good friends, roots etc in this town. I wonder if Wellington would have more like minded pupils, striving hard to get to good unis etc. My daughters have had both private and public schooling and they’re very well grounded. It’s such a hard decision to make.
I head Wellington offers a limited range of subjects. We will find out about these important details in February when we visit the school.

Is there a reason you are set on living in Prestwick? Anything south of Park Circus to Doonfoot is walking distance to Wellington.

@simplyput my husband is from Prestwick and his family lives there. He’s been living away from Scotland most of his life and would like to return there.... Already have a house and all at the wrong end of town to Wellington. I understand there’s a bit but the girls would need to walk to the bus. They’re not liking that idea!!!

Prestwick Academy is a big mixed catchment school with year groups of about 200. In contrast Wellington has year groups of just over 50 drawn from a very small subset of Ayr / Prestwick society. If it were me I would be more concerned about "not fitting in" at Wellington rather than Prestwick.

I’d be seriously worried about going straight into highers without doing nat 5s first.

Have you discussed these issues with the schools?

When you say year 10 do you mean 3rd year?

My eldest daughter will have completed her GCSE exams at the end of May. She will then do the Highers in Sep. My other daughter is in Y9 now. Going onto y10 in Sep. The schools are advising us about these.

The Scottish kids will have started their highers at the start of June (or some esp private schools start before the nat 5 exams, in jan-March). She will be at an extreme disadvantage not doing any higher work until August. GCSEs are English exams, they are very different from the Scottish nat 5s and don’t provide the best foundation to start highers.

What months are their birthdays?

Could they go into different year groups?

The cut off are different in the English and Scottish systems so year 9/10 could go into second third or 4th year in Scotland

I think "extreme disadvantage" is overstating the case.

Yes they do start the Higher timetable in June after Nat 5 exams but by the time they have fitted in school shows, sports events and trips this equates to less than 2 weeks actual teaching time. Also there is quite a lot of subject shuffling once the actual exam results come out during the holidays.

There is a big leap up between Nat 5 and Higher anyway so I am not convinced GCSE instead of Nat 5 would make much difference. Be aware that almost all Scottish children do Higher Maths and English and 3 other subjects in S5. The SQA has syllabus guidance online for all subjects if you are concerned and want to address potential gaps.

We have meetings with both schools in Feb and we will take the school’s advice. Thanks very much for the information you’ve contributed! 👍🙏 I am hoping both daughters will settle quite well and hit the ground running as they are quite good academically.

All the best with the move. Living at the seaside has a lot going for it.

I don’t think you can compare nat 5s and GCSEs when dcs do 6 N5 s but 10-12 GCSEs. Then there’s the differences in English and science. The Scottish literature in H English... the list goes on. I would never change a child between the systems after s2.

Op there are Scottish schools that do a levels but not near Prestwick

Sarah that is not really an accurate reflection of the situation. Most English schools are doing 9/10 reformed GCSEs. This includes 2 English and 3 science for academic DC. Therefore it is directly comparable to the 7/8 format South Ayrshire follows.

A DC with a Dad from Prestwick will cope fine with a bit of Norman McCaig etc for the Scottish text. Not sure if they push the boat out and do Burns but total immersion in him is pretty much the order of the day if you move to Ayr / Prestwick anyway.

It would help your children if you could move to the area and start them in school by late May / early June.