School curriculum- England vs Scotland

[Mum2422]

Hi there, could anyone please advise on the differences between English and Scottish primary school curriculum? Our children are in Yr 2 and Yr 3 in England (youngest in the classes) at the moment and we are told they will be P2 and P3 in Scotland (will be oldest in their classes). I had a look at the Curriculum for Excellence and it seems that they will have to resit the same year if we move. Has anyone had experience with moving schools from England to Scotland? What's your view/opinion? Thank you in advance!

In Scotland DC spend 7 years at primary and 6 years in secondary education. The cut off point for admission to primary school is the 28 February. So to start school, a DC must be 5 by then at the latest to be able to start school in the August before. Reception class as it exists in England does not exist, children move up from nursery straight to P1.


The issue you have, may well be because of the difference between admission cut off points - February versus September.

Y2 is the same is P2 (ditto with Y3/P3) - the complication is the 5+ months difference in cut-off dates (and the fact that we don't "do" Reception in Scotland).

So your dcs wouldn't be "repeating" a year.

Your Y2/P2 child will still have up to 12 years left at school: in Scotland 5 more years at primary, then 6 at secondary; in England, 4 more at primary, then 7 at secondary (or 5 at secondary, then 2 at 6th Form college).

I think you are confused.

P2 and P3 are equivalent to Y2 and Y3. However a "young" Y3 in England would be a June / July birthday. They would end up as an average Y3 in Scotland. (School entry dates in Scotland run from 1 March). An "old for year" child in Scotland would have a March / April birthday.

You are confused. It is a challenge to get your head round but when you do you will realise they will not be repeating a year. Apart from anything else the curriculum is very different.

Try to look at the positive. It will mean your DC can spend time and energy focusing on the transition rather than finding that everyone else has already covered work your DC know nothing about.

They won't "resit" anything.

You cannot draw exact comparisons as there is a 6 month difference in the school intake cut off - February in Scotland, August in England. So the year your child will be in will depend very much on when their birthdays are.

There could well be a crossover between what they've already done in school, but that would be the same if they were moving from another school somewhere else in Scotland. There is not a centralised curriculum in the sense of "P2 we study Vikings, P3 Romans, P4 World Ward 2" or whatever. Each school does their own thing.

Plus if your children are currently the youngest in their years with a July/August birthday in England, they will be in the middle of their year group age wise which is a good thing.

Thank you all very much for the messages. We are aware of the point raised, just wondering what the curriculum vs English system, given that Scotland does not have Reception. So if it is going to be an "easy" year for them, we know it and manage their expectations for the following year. Has anyone had any experience moving from England to Scotland? How did the transition go?

As a semi flippant point, they/you won't be needing to be worried about learning about "fronted adverbials" and other such nonsense for SATs.

Seriously though, the year that they might have noticed a difference is P1, which is, as I understand it, more like a cross between Y1 and Reception, with a mix of play-based learning and more formal teaching.

Thereafter, the differences should be minimal - especially if it is a decent school and differentiates its teaching according to the child's level. For example, ds' old primary school, right from P1, had 3 different groups for "language" and "numbers" time, depending on the level they were capable of. Ds was slow to read but bright: he started off in the top group for "language" (but I ended up telling the school he was just learning the books off by heart and not actually blending), moved to the middle group in P2, finally "got" reading at the end of P2 but took until some time in P4 to move back up to the "top" group - and was in the top set for English throughout secondary.

(They weren't called the top, middle and lower groups iirc, they were musical instruments but the kids know ).

Op I definitely would not set them up with an expectation that it will be "an easy year" or that they will "be ahead". My DD3 is in P4. The curriculum is structured such that she is always stretched but there is very little in the way of overt testing. There is a danger of coasting if a child is used to testing and targets, which they deem themselves as already meeting.

Howabout - you always manage to put across what I was trying to say so much more succinctly

Yes, we did it when the DC were at the end of Y4, Y2 and YR. We chose to put DC3 into P1, and are glad we did. She had a horrible time dealing with a nightmare teacher who would not accept she had been at school for a year already and was an able reader. Otherwise, it worked out brilliantly. The one thing they all struggled with was history. Discovering about the Picts blew their minds. 😂

That would tie in with the suggestion that the main year(s) where there might be an issue with transition is Reception/Y1 and P1. Sounds like you made the right choice

Thank you so much everybody, this is very helpful! ArcenicChip, did they give you an option to put DC3 into P1? or was it based entirely on the DOB?

When are their birthdays? March/April would make them the oldest children, January-february would make them the youngest in the year unless they had been deferred for a year.

Op there is more flexibility around year of entry in Scotland than England. However this tends to mean children being deferred so that they are in the year below their default. If your child has a Jan / Feb birthday they are automatically offered deferral where I live. This means that although it is possible to go forward a year (I was offered this for my Spring DD1) it would mean a child being more than a year younger than their peers. That is a lot at age 7/8.

The other thing to think about is the impact at the other end. My DD2 has just finished S5 (lower 6th). This is the exam year which Scottish Universities base offers on. She has friends going to Uni now. She could have chosen to do so. She is an Autumn birthday and so is only 16. Even after she cools her heels for a year in S6 she will still only be 17. If she were in England she would be in the year below and would complete upper 6th before heading off to Uni aged 18. This is an issue for us because it makes it a bit fool hardy to be considering English Unis (her Dad is English and English educated and all her cousins are in England).

DD1 is 18 and 18 months older than DD2. Ime there is a big difference between 17 and 18 in terms of maturity.

The extra year at primary and the fact that the vast majority of children transfer automatically to their catchment comprehensive secondary mean that there is much less pressure on the primary years in Scotland. This inevitably gives scope to catch up, fall behind or jump ahead.

(DD2 hated school aged 4 and a half and was at the end of P2 before she was reading anything like confidently. You would definitely have viewed her as behind. She actually has a classmate who transferred from England in P2 and his Mother more or less told me as much. I would even have agreed as he had to write me a beautifully crafted note of apology after accidentally tearing my DD's jacket. Now they are both in S6 and he is no longer ahead of DD2 academically).

there is much less pressure on the primary years in Scotland

Completely agree. I read the threads about SATS, stressed children and compulsory revision sessions with a face like this.

Mum2422 mentioned in her OP that her dcs were "youngest in the classes" at the moment. That would suggest August or July birthdays or possibly June.

That would put them solidly in the "older" end of their respective years in Scotland, but by no means the oldest, especially once you factor in deferrals.

Ds has a September birthday: that made him technically slap bang in the middle of the cohort in Scotland, but in practice, because of deferrals, he was actually at the young end of the year.

It also meant that even though he did S6, he was still 17 when he started Uni (turned 18 when lectures started, having not been able to drink officially during Freshers Week).

If he'd been in England, he'd have been one of the oldest in the year below.

To illustrate the range in Scotland, one of his friends in his class (who had deferred), turned 18 in the December of S6. Another friend in his class (who was the cleverest in the year), who hadn't deferred, only turned 17 in the February of S6 (so ended up being 17 for almost his entire 1st year of Uni ).

I was 16 when I started Uni in Scotland as I went straight from S5 with a November birthday. Still got into pubs ok!

Different times demented. Spent half my secondary school years in pubs .

As a sixth year we hired a room above a pub with a bar once a month. We were Young Liberals :)

No one minded as long as we weren't breaking things.

Thank all! Now I understand why their dad claims he was at uni at 16 (he does not recall that there was an option to carry on into S6 though)

You can go to uni technically at 16bin Scotland but kids tend to stay on till 6th year so they go in September and they are 17 so your DH probably left school in 5th year.

I ran out of school in 4th year I was 15 !

Op I was given the choice for my DD, she didn't want to repeat but I do wish I had kept her back, don't get me wrong she's on track but she had to catch up and has gone from being top sets to middle.

@combatbarbie what year was your DD in England? And what class did she go to in Scotland? Did she have to catch up with foundation subjects like English, math or more country related like history etc?

She finished y5 due to start y6 when we moved, she went into P7.... It was all subjects but she caught up quite quickly x