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!

I support school with outside the classroom learning and have worked with english and scottish primary schools. In my opinion there's no issue with subject knowledge going from england to scotland as the scottish curriculum is far more flexible so there's less expectation that all children know a certain fact at a certain age. They might do a project on a topic they've covered (e.g. romans) but that could happen moving from one scottish school to another as they don't all do the same thing at the same time anyway. They won't be universally ahead in all subjects, and they will (if august birthdays) be in the middle of their year group age wise. In my experience there's as much differentiation within a year group than between them so unless they were already pushing above the top of the ability band in their english school they'll be within the normal range in their new scottish year group.
In theory the scottish curriculum has more emphasis on skills for learning but that depends on the school.

Also if it helps, current P2 children would mainly be born between March 2013 and February 2014 but the January and February children can defer if they choose so the oldest in this years P2 are in fact born in January 2013 (maybe even Nov/Dec 2012 if there's a reason) and the youngest will have been born late February 2014. So you can see that the system is very much more flexible and the range in each year group quite broad.

My DD is 6.5 and in p2, she'll be 7.5 when she starts p3 next August if that helps. They won't be repeating anything as the curriculum is so different- lots of Scottish and local history etc taught. Judging by my friends in England's dc of the same age, yours might well find it easy at first, there seems a lot more pressure and formal learning early on but the whole point of the curriculum for excellence is for each individual to work at their own level so they will learning at their own pace pretty quickly

Their birthdays are May. Both had a few "higher than expected" on the last years report, so we are in two minds- want to keep the momentum going, but then don't want them to be 1.5yrs younger than some of the classmates (based on the comments about deferrals in Scotland). Thank you all very much for your comments and advice.

What's their years of birth? They would some of the eldest children in their year with a May birthday and would have been 5 when they started school. My dc have October and November birthdays and are towards the younger end and were still 4 when they started school

@OtraCosaMariposa, it's not as bad as the media make out. I was really worried about all the bad press about exams and stress in primary school down in England but it has been absolutely fine. DS could not read or write at all by the end of P1 but no one told us there was any problems (possibly because he had 3 different P1 teachers!). We arrived in England and he immediately got extra help, and there was much more variety in the curriculum. Probably more a reflection of the schools than the system. He knows he will do something called SATs at the end of this year because he's heard other people talking about them but he's more interested in the end of SATs party! He's unlikely to pass the reading or writing SAT but the school is not putting any pressure on him.

My experience of primary in Scotland is that it is a glorified kindergarten. That may be a good thing or a bad thing, but I think it is a factual description. I would expect that people crossing the border will be pretty shocked at seeing how it works next door.

I would like to add that my school has been inspected and rated excellent and it is the only one I have seen with this kind of grade, which means that it epitomises the CfE. Whether it is a bad or a good thing, it remains to be seen.

@Arkadia I have to agree with you about the glorified kindergarten. I often question how they are actually learning anything but so far, they seem to be (eldest p6)

@happycamper11, but do they? It is difficult to get hard evidence and what I see it is not encouraging at all (I would like to stress that my kids p4 and p6 are top of their class, or so the teachers say).

One thing I forgot to add in my previous message is that school is very politically driven and in my opinion it has a clear agenda. Suffice it to say that in 5+3 years of school NEVER (as far as I can tell) Great Britain or England have been mentioned, with the exception of the Queen. NEVER has a topic involved England, with the exception of "the wars of independence".
My eldest (I remind you, she is top of the class) for example didn't really know what London was. She told me the other day that she thought "it was a country or something".

Ours do 'play is the way' until p3. Basically the emphasis is on learning through play.

My son is in P1 and there are no desks in the classroom and no formal 'lessons.' it's very much free play approach, they are taken out in small groups for focussed 'learning time' of 10-15 mins at a time. He's a month into school and they've covered SATPIN and moving onto other sounds and blending, so they definitely are learning but there's no formal teaching as we would recognise it. They spend a lot of the day outdoors and are free to come and go from the classroom and outdoor area.

My p5 child had a more traditional approach in p1-p3 but my younger one seems to be learning just as quickly.

That is totally different to the Primary school days in Scotland my 2 had although they are at secondary school now. They had desks and chairs from P1 and no free access to outside.

@Arkadia yes it's difficult to know, I guess time will tell when they get to high school. It's a lovely idea if it does pay off - the children are very happy. Our p6 (and p7) is free flow like nursery they have a key teacher but move throughout the rooms and teachers in the day for different subjects (p1 and p2 the same). They don't have normal desks at all and loads of outdoor learning. It's claimed that they are inspired from the Scandinavian model of teaching but in reality i think it's because they don't have any other way to manage the constantly rising school roll. Dd 1 is quite severely dyslexic but also incredibly bright. It was obvious to me from half way through p1 but took til p5 for anyone to agree with me because everything was still 'normal for her age' it seems expectations are low.
Ours definitely know london exists as their last topic of p5 was Brexit!

My oldest was pre CfE, middle was at start of CfE and youngest has CfE plus move to ever less formal learning.

The youngest one is progressing and learning more quickly than her older siblings. She is far happier and more relaxed at school than they were. When I visit on open afternoons my impression is that this is the case for the class as a whole.

CfE was only implemented formally when ds was in P6 but actually nothing changed in the way that his school taught as that was already the way that they operated.

This might be partly because of its "disadvantage" of having such a high proportion of EAL pupils (over 60% ), so it already "team taught" with the Bi-lingual teacher and EAL teacher. This was the this throughout the school. Plus the head teacher and depute head also got involved in teaching to add to the resource. So they were used to moving between groups and for example, learning language while doing history or maths.

The "good" Maths group of one year (they were usually split into 3 groups and taught according to their capability; ditto with "language" aka reading & writing) might be combined with the "medium" one of the year above.

They did learn about London and England . They also did the industrial revolution, which was used at an Open Evening as an example of how CfE worked, with them demonstrating how they'd learnt English, French, Geography, Science, History and Maths while they were doing the topic.

I can recall him covering the Romans, Castles and personal areas of interest (ds' did one on cycling/the Tour de France) which he had to do talks on while he was at primary but it's mostly now a blur.

Whatever he did, it obviously stood him in good stead when he went to secondary!

Children in Scotland normally start school within 6 months of their 5th birthday (school year groups birthdays are from March to Feb rather than Sept to Aug, like in England) Contrary to what you may believe, this does not mean they are not as advanced as their English counterparts. In fact they are often far more open to learning as they are that bit older when starting school so don't struggle as much as younger children might with the long school days and busy environment.
If your children were to go into the primary classes appropriate to their age they would be among the oldest in their year. If they are to go into the classes you seem to want them to go into then they could be up to a year and five months younger than their oldest classmates (due to the deferral option available to Jan and Feb born children in Scotland). I think if I were you I'd rather my kids were among the oldest in their year as that would be far more advantageous. It's unlikely they will cover exactly the same work they have already done, and even if they did, it would only help them in future as they won't struggle to keep up, which they might if they're very young for their year. Besides, you need to think longer term, and give them every advantage you can ahead of high school.

It's certainly better starting out as the oldest in class, if as you suggest they are 'better than expected' there may be option to move up a class (something my sister did when we were at school).

There is a child in my Dd's class who moved from England into primary 1 (having sat reception already) she was at the highest level in her class and was given work to suit her needs.. by P3 it has evened out and she is included in a handful of top achievers.

I am actually all in favour of the cfe approach. I was just thinking this morning how fabulous it is that my 8 year old literally skips into school and cannot wait to tell me about her topics or stuff she learnt that day ( except Maths). She is bright but not especially academic so the project based approach to lots of subjects really suits her. Her friends all seem really keen on school too.

I also don't think it holds them back academically over the long term. One of my elder daughter's friends moved from P7 into year 2 of secondary in England and is at the same level as her peers in all subjects except French.

@Aliceinwanderland,
well, what you describe seems to me the core problem with the CfE. What does it mean "not especially academic"? Does it mean that the school has already given up on her being "academic" (whatever that might mean) because this is the way she is NOW (aged 8) inclined? So that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy leading, potentially, to an individual who does not come even close to their potential (which by default I am quite sure is pretty high). You don't feel "academic", the school tells you you are "not academic", you end up believing you are "not academic".
Are we not selling our children short by accepting so easily that one is "not particularly xxx"?

Also, the question that she doesn't like maths is pretty worrying too. Why is that so? Is the teaching not good? Are they going too slowly or too fast? Considering that they do sod all in maths, it is question that is worth asking.

She's not especially academic in that she is a bright, intelligent child with lots of interests and a learning style which favours doing rather than reading. This in contrast to my own style at that age which was very bookish. I excelled academically (which was very valued at my school) but at the expense of developing other skills. I feel my kids are getting a much more rounded education which is actually developing all their potential. The school haven't given up on her ( and I don't think they do on any kids) and she is seen as a high achiever. There are children in her class who I would describe as more "academic" as I have styled it and who are also thriving.

As for maths, I think that she juat doesn't enjoy it. An interesting contrast to my eldest who had the same teachers and loved maths.

Not sure I agree that they do sod all in maths either.

I'll give you an example. My eldest (bright (but who isn't, really...) ) is awful at writing and SPAG in general. I feel this has been fosterd since P1 when she wasn't really challenged in the way she was writing. Quite the opposite, she was told up until P3 to write in whichever way she felt like (thou shall not impede one's path of personal discovery). Now she is in P6 and things have not improved greatly. I can see he going into secondary school and being unable to string together a readable sentence.
As the school canNOT really correct and instruct, children are left to "discover", but there are times when early intervention would be beneficial.
She had problems in maths too, but in that case I intervened, so the problems went away.
I should have had the patience to work on SPAG too, but alas I didn't.

I understand what you mean but I think my kids' primary do correct and instruct, although not so much in the early years. That said my eldest is dyslexic so really cannot write a piece free of spelling errors. She benefits from the focus on content and style rather thank punctuation and spelling.

Also, DD2 came home to say she enjoyed maths today so something must be working well.

I think CfE very much depends on the school, though. My DS was doing SATPIN in the first couple of weeks, a letter a day and reading by Christmas and he is not particularly ‘academic’ compared to his older sister - he was reading billboards, for example.
I also think it depends on the teacher - his P3 teacher brought him on really well, whereas his current teacher I feel is a bit slacker.
But I agree 100% with the comments about being keen to go to school and doing a wide range of things - I am quite impressed so far with that. Less so with the neatness of his writing which has gone downhill since P3, but then these days they will use computers and touchscreens ....

I think handwriting naturally declines in P4. That's about the time the ones who like story telling start leaving the ends off their words and scrawling because their brain is thinking quicker than their pen. Pens do catch up a bit by P7 ime. The time to worry is when they are at secondary concentrating on producing beautiful colour coded notes and revision plans instead of actually doing the work.