Anyone move to Scotland from England away from family?

[arewescotlandbound]

Please tell me how it has been?

it’s a dream of ours to move to Scotland. We are looking at Aberdeenshire.

We know someone who moved there a year ago and is loving it, so we would not be completely without a safety net, but wouldn’t want to rely on them. Since they moved we have visited them a few times and it’s really stirred the feeling and desire to move.

We love the outdoors and if we move we can reduce our mortgage.

The only thing stopping us really is that we are close to our parents, and they look after our youngest so I can work part time. The childcare worries me less than leaving them behind - both sets of parents are retired.

Tell me about the good, the bad and the ugly.

Yes, schools can’t go rogue and introduce policies that go against local authority guidelines, but suggesting that a governor system is better is laughable. If your face doesn’t fit, it doesn’t matter what you want, it often won’t get done. The LA guidelines are there to safe children. I’m happy they do that.

All schools in the U.K. have issues with discipline, I don’t think any nation does better or worse, but if a local head teacher is saying they can’t do anything because the local authority won’t let them, that’s a poor head teacher passing the buck for something they are not dealing with well. There is also nothing stopping you raising a complaint with the local department of education if there is a problem in your school.

This is an incredibly rare scenario, and far more likely to be an issue only in larger cities. If you are choosing a rural school, there is no world where the Local Authority would refuse a place and provide transport to the next closest rural school.

If you are in a town or city where there are closer alternatives, looking for say, 3 places in a school, they would keep the children together and put them in the same school. The LA are also responsible for transportation in that scenario so they will want to put in one taxi, not 3.

Schools are rarely oversubscribed. Careful planning goes in to projected school rolls and ensuring spaces are available. Planning departments will restrict housing if school places are unavailable. Very occasionally, things will happen in a year that are surprising, but there are back up plans in place to deal with that. For example, the projected roll at our local high school in 5 years time has unexpectedly increased due to there having been a lot of families moving to our area for various reasons. However, there has been a fall in the roll for the next school to our area so they have adjusted the catchment area and two villages closest to that school are now in that school’s catchment.

“Waiting lists” are usually full of placement pupils, not catchment pupils. You will be at the top of the list if, in the extremely unlikely event, there is no space available in your catchment school.

I would agree with this. Our LA is proposing something which will make it worse, too.

I would ask, however, is there anywhere you can think of which is supporting children with ASN well?

I was talking about English grammar schools in the north of England!! “Up north” to me is still the north of England even though I live in Scotland, particularly when someone is comparing it to England.

In terms of year group, a child turning 15 next summer would be in S3 now. You take Nat 5s (equivalent of GCSEs) in S4. The CforE in secondary sets out S1-S3 as ‘broad general education’ and just study Nat 5s in S4. This means there is only time to do six Nat 5s so you are narrowing down your subjects very early. Lots of schools now recognise this as too narrow and start Nat 5s in S3 (so do Nat 5s across S3 and S4) and study seven or eight instead. If you are moving at the end of S3 you would be better off at a school that follows the original plan and does six Nat 5s in S4 (it looks like Alford does this).

The other complication is in secondary everyone shifts up a year group after exams (you return to school for a month or so after S4 and S5 exams), so S4 starts at the end of May/beginning of June.

It's well known that in Scotland headteachers' hands are tied behind their backs where discipline is concerned. Far more options are available to headteachers in England. It's very close to impossible to expel a child in Scotland.
Information published online by the Scottish Government shows that in 2002-3 292 pupils were permanently excluded (expelled). In 2020/21 only one pupil was permanently excluded. I know that it was also only one pupil in 2022/23. There's also been a very steep fall in temporary exclusions (suspensions). This is due to Scottish Government policy - its Guidance to schools states that exclusion must only be used as a last resort, and I have to assume that there's a lot of political pressure in that direction. Meanwhile, exclusions have gone up in England, and in 2022/3 there were 10,885 permanent exclusions (expulsions). It's well known that there is a great deal of violence in Scottish schools. I personally know of an incredibly serious, deliberate and planned incident which was not reported to the police and did not result in expulsion. The children concerned got a short suspension. The victims know that they are absolutely on their own, however badly they are bullied, as schools seem to be happy to blame the victims for being bullied, while taking no action against the bully.

My family moved to Scotland when I was in late primary school (my parents are Scottish but had lived in England for years) so I can give you a child’s perspective. As many PPs have said, the education system is much worse. I started doing way worse in school and my secondary school was awful. Got rubbish Standard Grades. However, when I went to college after that I did a lot better and got good Highers. Also got teased constantly for having an English accent. I made lots of friends but it got so annoying constantly being teased for being English

There is 1 permanent exclusion (expulsion) a year in Scotland. Meanwhile, over 10,000 pupils a year are expelled from English schools. Do you really think that there is only 1 serious incident a year in Scottish schools? They're renowned for pupil violence. Great pressure is put on councils and schools not to exclude, in almost any circumstance. This leaves pupils and staff defenceless.

A note on Inverurie traffic.

It’s ‘bad’ by Aberdeenshire standards. I can still do the 18 mile journey home from work including through the ‘worst’ bit of Inverurie at rush hour in less time than it used to take me to do 4.5 miles in Surrey.

Everything is relative.

Exclusion statistics are not the only measure of what’s going on. An authority has a legal obligation to provide education so in the small cases where children cannot bee educated in their original school they will be educated elsewhere. Local authorities have access to alternative education provision that would not result in a permanent expulsion statistic.

Police most certainly are called and are involved in the most serious of incidents. If there are individual schools with poor management who do not do this then that should be taken up with your education officers. You seem to be suggesting that wholesale removing pupils from school with the English statistics is a good thing- often kids causing issues are needing the most help and shouldn’t be written off. They need the correct support and correct location to be educated. But this is derailing the OPs original question.

We regularly had riot police at our secondary school, with batons and shields, due to large groups of violent & out of control pupils. This was in Glasgow (between 2005 & 2009) but the school was in one of the most middle-class areas of the city

The constant push for mainstream means there isn’t alternative education provision. I know two children who were repeatedly excluded - neither should have been in mainstream schools but there was nowhere else to put them.

The age of criminal responsibility is 12 in Scotland and under 25s are treated much more leniently by the courts (scandulously so).

There's a very, very, very big difference between the English and the Scottish statistics. So no, I don't think that's all attributable to English schools expelling pupils unnecessarily. So if English schools are expelling around 11,000 pupils, taking into account population numbers we'd expect Scottish schools to be expelling 1,000 plus pupils. They are expelling 1 pupil. I don't believe that none of those additional 999+ pupils merit expulsion. Bearing in mind that Scottish schools have a big reputation for their violence.
You say that "in the small cases where children cannot bee educated in their original school they will be educated elsewhere. Local authorities have access to alternative education provision that would not result in a permanent expulsion statistic." Please explain, because everything I've read and heard tells me that there is very little alternative education provision. As I understand it, there is far more alternative provision in England. This is a big part of the problem.

FactCheck: violent injuries against school staff most common in Scotland – Channel 4 News

I’m quite surprised by this.

I’m Scottish and the education system used to be much better than England. I know that recently there has been a decline in Scottish education and it isn’t what it used to be. I also think the system in England has improved.

but I’m not sure it’s as awful as you say. Kids tend to go to school later in Scotland ( my DC are year above their Scottish cousins of same age) so are you comparing like with like?

Yes, I am. In our case DC joined the same year group in Scotland as was in in England. That was a lucky break, as if DC had been born in a different month then they would have had to go down a year. As DC was a very long way ahead of the other children when they joined the Scottish school, going back a year would have been really unbearable for them. It was bad enough as it was. It's worth knowing that Scottish children have 1 year less of school education. There is only 1 year of 6th form, and in the case of our DC there were far fewer teaching hours in 6th form than there are in England. 6th form isn't compulsory, and for lots of children it's a very relaxed year.

Don’t be so ridiculous! Heads are allowed to exclude children but not permanently. Thry are supposed to have restorative conversations with kids instead of actual meaningful consequences, and restorative consequences do absolutely nothing. I think it’s fire council that have stopped even doing that as it was so useless, and have brushed tackling bullying totally and utterly under the carpet.

i can see if your child hasn’t been directly failed by the inability to address violence in Scottish schools you’d think it’s all roses, but my child and others were beaten up daily by a gang of violent thugs that the school had been left totally powerless to address. The safeguarding of my child and others was totally ignored due to inclusion!

If you think I am exaggerating and it’s not really an issue at all, you are very much part of the problem.

Perhaps you think teachers are exaggerating too?

And oh yes, believe me we raised a complaint with the local council. They took 6 months to investigate and y that time we’d taken matters into our own hands. 6 months of a child self harming, having panic attacks, school refusing. But yeh the council think it’s acceptable to treat a kid like that because “inclusion”.

A friend moved from England and is staggered at the lack of permanent exclusion. Child throwing chairs is just trying to communicate apparently. Why the hell aren’t they removed permanently for the good of the other kids. Inclusion. I don’t know how Jenny Gilruth sleeps at. Ight I really don’t!

Absolutely! Open more specialist schools where they will be properly supported. Keep mainstream only for those that can sit in a class of 30 and learn quietly without kicking off. The education and safely of the other 29 children in the class is ruined every time a child kicks off. In what way is this acceptable? What on earth are the Scottish government thinking???

These dangerous, violent children need to be removed from the other kids as basic safeguarding. Surely you can see that? If someone punched me in the face at work they’d never enter my work building again. Why can’t we afford the same safeguarding and respect to our children and teachers? Do they not deserve it?

And yes the gang of thugs that attacked our kids at school were charged with assault regularly by the police, who also- as the head teacher did - admitted that their hands were tied due to Scottish government policies. What do you expect the consequences are for one 15 year old assaulting another in Scotland. The assailant ought to go to a young offenders institution at best, if not excluded to a pupil referral unit. In Scotland they get a letter sent home to their mum.

i can see if your child hasn’t been directly failed by the inability to address violence in Scottish schools you’d think it’s all roses

Whilst I don’t disagree about problems with violence, I do think it important to say most children do manage through school in Scotland without being a target of violence.

Thank you for pointing this out - and looking it up! I think that makes sense.

Thank you!
I tried to pm but could not see how to in the app, because I am intrigued why you would not choose Alford?

Alford wouldn't be my first choice either.

It's not that it isn't nice, more inconvenient. The journey to Aberdeen, lack of train station, long bus journey etc are all okay if your life is already up here.

But if you are going to be regularly travelling south it adds an extra hour in the car over the south of the county. It makes getting to the airport or train station a pain.

It also limits you to Aberdeen as the main centre for work options (and it will be an hour plus in rush hour). I know lots of people who travel to Dundee or even Glasgow and Edinburgh on a hybrid basis but that's only an option if you are close to a train station.

I have been looking for the thread mentioned about the school - year 10 moving to Scotland and I cannot find it.
Would someone be able to link me to it please? 😊