Moving to Scotland - Education Help!

[Pixie2012]

Hi all, We are in the process of selling up and moving to Aberdeenshire which will most likely be spring 2025. My daughter is 15 (September born and year 10.) She is due to sit her GCSE’s in June 2026. I am worried that she will struggle with the change to the Scottish education systems. How does it work? Will she has to repeat a year so she doesn’t miss any coursework etc? Any advice would be appreciated. - Amy

It depends on the school. GCSE equivalent is Nationals. National 5 they sit an exam and it is graded A-D / No award. National 4 is coursework based. Some schools teach National 4/5 over two years, others over one. The number of Nationals a school has pupils do can vary between 6-8, so you may find that your daughter may do less if the school she is attending has taught it over two years, as it might be a lot for example to catch up on 8 National 5s in one year.
However she will likely find there is a fair amount of overlap in some of her subjects such as English, Maths, Modern Languages, Sciences.
That being said I have taught a number of pupils who have transferred from England to do National 5 and managed perfectly well but did need to do a little bit more work to catch up.
As soon as you have your new address sorted, get in touch with the school, have your child pick the subjects she is doing and maybe use the summer to catch up a bit.

Best of luck

It’s a terrible time to move her, do you really have to? Are there any private schools in the area that follow the English curriculum?

Spring is the worse time to move. Exams are late April to late May. Then move up to the next year group in early June to start Highers.

Scotland doesn't do GCSEs.

They have their own system.

You'll need to find out about that. From memory there are national 4's and national 5's.

They also have their own curriculum which is not the same as the English one.

Obviously there is significant overlap in maths, science etc.

Sorry misread that. She won't do her exams till 2026.

Should be fine. Ignore my previous post.

If she moves in the spring, she'd be halfway through the National 5s (GCSE equivalent) but will not have had any experience of National 5s (content is different from GCSEs). After the summer, she will enter Highers (similar to A levels) and most of these you can do without having done the N5. Some subjects, such as English, may have a Scottish Literature angle. I would recommend getting tutors to help her TBH as its a different educational system. @MinervaMcGonagallsCat forgets English kids do their exams different years from Scottish kids eg our primary 1 is reception in England (so technically still nursery down there when our kids have finished it already) so as another poster said, you are moving your DC at absolutely the wrong time.

If you want her to sit GCSEs then you'll have to find a private school that does them.
The Scottish equivalent is National 5s, which is a 1 year course and her age groups will be sitting next May.
So if you want her to do Nat5s she will need to go into the year below (S3) so she starts the course in June 2025 and sits them in May 2026.

Otherwise as PP has said she could skip them all together and go straight to Highers

I really really really wouldn't move her at that stage. If she was in Scotland, assuming she's just turned 15 now, she would be in S4 and sitting Nat5 exams next spring. The first exam is on the 28th April in 2025. The exams go on until end of May, then schools move on to the next year at the start of June for one month before the summer holidays.

I'm not sure what her chances would be of being allowed to start S4 next June in the state system, as by age she should be going into S5 (I think it would be fine in most private schools). There's no way she'd be able to arrive in Scotland at eg Easter to start sitting new exams in a new system 2 weeks later. It would make much more sense to stay in England until her GSCEs are finished, then move up to start S5 either in June (ideally) or August, if that's at all possible.

My daughter would have at least a full year before taking N5’s. Are they not one year courses? Sorry, I am confused.

If she has just turned 15 she will be in S4 and due to do her Nat 5s in Spring 25

Ok, so potentially if we push back when we move to June/July she would go straight onto highers with no N4’s N5’s or GCSE’s unless I pay for her to do GCSE’s independently.

At my kids school the learning for Nat5s starts in S3 as they choose their options at the end of S2 so they have 2 years to do all the work.

Your dd was born 2009?
If she was in Scotland just now she'd be in S4 and due to sit Nat5 exams in 2025
Highers would be sat in 2026

Pupils spend two years doing Nat 5s in our area, but the difference in when we start school here and the age cut off means your daughter will be a year behind.

for example I have a DC who has recently turned 16 and just completed Nat 5’s (our nearest equivalent to GCSE’s) and is now in S5 doing highers. I have a DN who turned 17 this week in England, just over a year older and did their GCSE’s before the summer (which would be the case for your daughter in 2026).

If your daughter had gone through the Scottish system, she would be in S4 now and sitting her Nat 5s in April/May 2025. She would then be going into S5 and starting her Highers in June 2025, before the summer holidays.

if you move her in spring 2025, she’s probably need to join the tail end of S3, go into S4 in June, then sit her Nat 5’s in April/May 2026, which is when she have been sitting her GCSE’s. So it would kind of work out, it’s just that she’ll be a year old than lots of her year group. She would have missed a year of the Nat 5 curriculum, but there will be crossover with the work she’ll be doing in her GCSE’s.

After Nat 5s, people do Highers in S5 (one year course) and then many stay on to do Advanced Highers.

it’s not a great time to move, but if it’s unavoidable, I’d be looking at study guides for the Nat5 courses and see how they compare to GCSE curriculum. Bear in mind also that schools here do 7 or 8 Nat 5s, which is fewer than the usual GCSEs.

Hope that helps!

That would really depend on whether the school would allow her to do her highers without any Nat5s or GCSE’s. Highers are a bit like AS levels. It’s the qualification that counts for uni applications. And if she didn’t choose Maths and English at Higher, would mean that she had not school qualifications in those subjects which may or may not be an issue down the track.

Personally, I’d put her into the end of S3 so she does her Nat 5s. She’d still leave school at the same time as she would in England.

To add to the mix, the deferral system we have here for 4 year olds means that it is very likely that there are kids in S3 just now who will turn 15 between November and February, so if she did join S4 next June she’s not going to be a full year older than everyone, it wouldn’t stand out as much as it would in an English school.

It can vary between schools.
In Scotland p1-s3 pupils should study a range of subjects and they refer to that as the Broad General Education (BGE). Some schools continue this in S3 and then do Nationals in S4 (normally giving 4-5 classes per subject per week) HOwever before the Nationals system was introduced and they used to Standard Grades, the norm was for pupils to pick their subjects at the end of S2 and study their chosen courses over two years roughly having 3 classes per week. A lot of schools have stuck to this model. That means that if your daughter starts a Scottish school in the spring of 2025 towards the end of S3, she could potentially have missed 1/3 to 1/2 of the course content. It would mean she would have a fair amount of catching up to do, however as I said in a previous post, there is likely to be some overlap in what she has covered in her English school and what she is taught in Scotland, so I doubt she would be having to entirely catch up all 7/8 subjects.
Pupils I have taught in the past have managed it but many of them just chose to do 5/6 Nationals so the catch up workload was not too much coming up in Spring would be better than July/August as atleast it gives her a fhance to make some friends and then spending the summer catching up. LECKIE AND leckie Course Notes for a range of subjects along with BBC bitesiE are handy for that.

Assuming you are looking for a state school place, I think you need to speak to the likely school and the local education dept (either Aberdeenshire or Aberdeen City Council depending where you are planning moving to) to see if they would accept her starting S4 in 2025 or not. If they would that's probably the best option. If not (as if she was Scottish she'd almost certainly be starting S5 then) I think it would be really difficult, sorry.

It might be challenging for your daughter to move directly into Highers without first completing National 5s or GCSEs. Here are a couple of potential options:

• Complete GCSEs independently, then progress to Highers in Scotland.
• Start with National 5s in fifth year (S5), followed by Highers in sixth year (S6). However, this could result in having fewer Highers compared to students who spread them across both fifth and sixth year.

The Scottish system is flexible in that National 5s can be taken any time from fourth year onwards and are typically completed within a year. Highers can be done in either fifth or sixth year, depending on what works best.

Can I ask what’s motivating your move? Is it for work, family, or perhaps the opportunity for free university tuition? If it's the latter, I believe you need to have lived in Scotland for around three years to qualify. Just something to keep in mind.

Additionally, if your daughter follows option 2, she might end up with fewer qualifications than most university applicants unless she excels academically, which could be a bit more challenging when transitioning from the English system. National 5s don't count towards university entry.

Advanced Highers in sixth year are required for English universities but if your DD does option 2 above, they wont have time left to do Adv Hiighers.

Also if you’re considering private school, not all of them admit new pupils in important exam years, and there are entrance assessments.

She might not be allowed to sit highers without N4/5 or GCSE grades to prove she is capable. You should try and speak to a potential school asap. The best would be to attend a private school following the english cirriculum at least until she conpleted GCSE's. Its mostly the boarding type schools that follow this path.

Thanks, my daughter is a high achieving student and has always got good grades. From everyone’s posts, it sounds like she should sit her GCSE’s either at a private school or online before enrolling in a state school for highers. It gives me an avenue to investigate to get it right before we move. I appreciate yours and everyone else’s comments on this thread.

It's so complex ...good luck...and the stress of moving..I wouldn't like to be you.

I came on to say that she could do GCSES when she is due to do them but the higher courses start in June which is when the English exams are so you'd need to take this into consideration.

Also bear in mind the next teaching year starts almost as soon as the exam diet finishes in May. All year groups will move up and timetable changes. You will want her started by May at the latest so she doesn't miss the start of any of the higher courses, which could easily be 6 weeks teaching time.

Many schools would be reluctant to put her forward for highers without Nat 5s or GCSEs. Phone the catchment school and ask about this.

Nat 5s are 2 year courses at my DC school. So they start in S3 age 13/14 and sit the exams in S4 age 14/15. Then highers in S5 age 15/16.

Depending on when her birthday is, if she's 15 she would be sitting her Nat 5s this spring and starting Higher courses in June.