Moving from England to Scotland

[everydaysaschoolda]

Has anyone moved their child after GCSEs to Scotland? Are they compatible?
we are Scottish, DCs were born in Scotland and went to primary school there. We would like to move back. DD 16 is sitting GCSEs this year, we thought this might be a good time to move straight after her GCSEs so she’d get a couple of weeks in before summer holidays in S5. Other DC would be going into S3 so would be making subject choices. Been in touch with the school and they have no problem with it

i just want to hear from anyone who has moved between the 2 and the biggest challenges/differences please?

The Higher course starts in late may, early June so before GCSEs finish so she would miss a few weeks of the higher course which could be a disadvantage especially for something like maths which does move on at quite a pace, in fact some of the maths sets start the syllabus before the Nat5/4 exams. So this is worth taking into account.

My DS is currently studying for his National 5s and the exams start on 22nd April. Some of his classes have already started teaching higher subjects (maths I know for sure) so this may be an issue for your DD. The school have stressed to all parents how much of a step up higher maths is compared with national 5 so I presume this is why they have started teaching now. I would maybe consider a tutor for her to catch up if this may be an issue for her.

Thank you. She wouldn’t be taking maths as higher. I’m aware courses start end of May and she’d miss the first couple of weeks, the school have said they’d give her work to catch up on over the summer. She’s a dedicated student so I know she’d work hard to catch up

Yes maths is probably the biggest concern so good she's not doing it! The rest I'm sure she could catch up on. It's a short sharp year but doable.

If I were you I'd look at the option of not taking Highers and just going into S6 and taking 3 Advanced Highers. I suspect your DD would be bored to tears by Highers. Advanced Highers are more interesting. But check that the Scottish universities would accept 3 Advanced Highers in lieu of 5 Highers (English universities do). She'd then finish school at 17 (common in Scotland) and could either go straight on to university or could take a gap year. Depending on the subject, she might well find GCSE higher level than a Higher, and in any event she'd be repeating work she's already done, plus Highers are in themselves very boring - it's an awful system and one that's best avoided if at all possible in my opinion.

I did GCSEs and then Highers. It was absolutely fine to transition between the two. I also missed the teaching before the summer and caught up no bother. I remember doing stuff for English over the summer, caught up History in a weekend, Maths was absolutely fine as I had been planning on Maths&Further Maths.

We also ended up revising that stuff as the people who had been there had forgotten most of it.

I also really would not recommend skipping from GCSE to Advanced Highers 🤣. Highers are a decent step up from GCSE. It also puts you in the lovely position of getting unconditionals from Scottish universities while studying AH.

I'm afraid I disagree with Highers always being step up from GCSEs (which are a 2 year course, remember). It very probably was a step up in your day, but the curriculum and exams in Scotland have been dumbed down a lot since then. But as I say, it will depend on the subjects. A family member did GCSE and then A'level music. They had a look at a Higher music paper and said that it was ridiculously easy - far easier than GCSE. And at Higher there's a big emphasis on teaching the children where to mention 2 points and where to mention 3, and what exact word to use to get a mark (rather than a different word which has the same meaning). It's dire, and would be even worse having already done GCSEs.

Thank you for the replies. I’d rather she did 2 years post 16 education, even if it is boring. She was one of the youngest when we previously lived in Scotland and personally I feel it’s better to be one of the oldest. I also think an extra year at home and school deciding what uni/course to do would be beneficial

Re: your younger child, my ds chose his courses for nat5 in S2 and they began the teaching for those in May of S2, something to be aware of. Although there is more time to catch up at nat5 level, than for Higher where the courses are short but very intense.

Teaching usually starts in June for Highers, your DD would still be sitting her GCSEs at that point so probably miss around 3 -4 weeks of teaching. The jump to higher can be very challenging for some students, those who flew through nat5s can all of a sudden struggle with higher.

There are Edinburgh private schools who go from GCSEs to highers and get good results. The main gist is that learning the new mark scheme is the tricky part.

I can’t honestly believe that the teaching of teens post exams pre summer holidays is high value. It would be the rare one that paid attention!
If you could arrange to get the notes before the holidays..

Hi, I’m going to come at this from a different point of view. I went to numerous high schools and it really impacts everything - what subjects you take and how you study. Never underestimate the impact of being a new person trying to fit in. My question would be - do you need to move now or can it wait? And although your daughter is a good student, the move could still have a detrimental impact on her. It’s an enormous upheaval at a crucial time.

We moved in August 2025 from Surrey to Glasgow. DS2 completed GCSE’s and started in S5 taking 5 Highers. He is very happy he completed a fifth year, has made great friends as well as performing very well in his exams. He has university offers from Bristol, Nottingham and an unconditional from Glasgow but is still waiting for news from Edinburgh.
We have two other sons S1 and S4 and both have settled brilliantly. We are really glad to have made the move.
Please DM if you’d like more information.

I’ve never heard such rot!! You cannot go from gcse, which is essentially nat5, to advanced higher. No school will facilitate that. Universities require highers. So the OPs kid should be doing highers. Highers are not boring at all. You have a bizarre view on Scottish education which is wrong and misinformed.

GCSE is much harder than Nat 5 but the next step up is highers, it would be very difficult go straight to Advanced Highers. My Scottish children went GCSE to Higher to advanced higher. Your DD will be ahead of the Nat 5 class so should find it straightforward to join in.
Be aware that free tuition fees only kick in after you have lived in Scotland for three years before you go to uni.

My DC has been through Highers and Advanced Highers and we also have relatives in the English system so my opinion is probably at least as valid as yours is. I don't think that Highers to Advanced Highers is more difficult than GCSEs to A'levels, and from what I could see Advanced Highers were far more relaxed than A'levels, with far less class time, despite it being a one year course. I completely disagree with the 2 year GCSE course being the equivalent of Nat 5s (which my DC's school did in one year). As I've said, some GCSEs are harder than Highers . I was astonished at how little my DC did for Higher English, for instance. They didn't even read a book on their Higher course, just watched a film. The Scottish curriculum is very dumbed down, whereas the English curriculum seems to be going in the other direction at the moment. Personally I want my DC to feel challenged and excited by their education, not just to spend years on a boring treadmill to get a certificate to take them to the next stage. I'm not surprised that children who've done GCSEs find moving on to Highers easy. That's why I think that a bright child would be better off moving on to Advanced Highers, rather than having a boring, repetitive year for the sake of it. And there's a reason why good English universities require Scottish applicants to have 3 Advanced Highers and don't accept Highers.

And I have on plenty of good authority from young people who've been through the system that Highers are boring, with a lot of focus on how to pass the dire exams. What makes you think they're interesting?

Unless you are a teacher your opinion is invalid and absolutely wrong

Yes coz pupils opinions are always correct.

It's the pupils who are doing the course so I'd have thought that their opinion on whether it's boring or not is relevant, isn't it? If your pupils all or nearly all find your lessons boring, but you as the teacher find them interesting, you may have a problem. Whether that's with you as a teacher or with the curriculum (or very likely both).

How much do you know about GCSEs? Come to think of it I think that in addition to watching a DVD of a film, my DC's English Higher also involved reading a short story. That must have been the Scottish set text. But DC told me that they didn't read a whole book at any point and that the teacher gave the impression that he or she didn't think that the pupils were capable of doing so. And when watching the film they only had to discuss / write about a tiny section of it.
I've had a look at the Edexel GCSE curriculum for English (which you say is a lower level qualification than Higher English). It includes 4 texts. These are:
Study a Shakespeare play and a post-1914 British play or novel + Study a 19th-century novel and a poetry collection.
It's very clear from this that GCSE requires far more (and more difficult) literature than Higher English does.
I'm frankly tired of Scottish teachers claiming that the Scottish curriculum is great and Scottish qualifications are on a par with or better than qualifications in England or in fact the rest of the world, while burying their heads firmly in the sand. Let's see you talking to teachers in other countries, actually reading their curriculums, actually doing a comparison of different exam papers. Then come back and have a grown-up conversation.

Advanced Highers are harder than A-levels and are done in one year so you need to do the Higher first not for content but for skills.

I disagree with that. Do you have much experience of both A'levels and Advanced Highers? And of both GCSEs and Highers? I saw my DC do 3 Advanced Highers in a year, with a surprisingly small number of lessons in school and the other pupils not taking the course very seriously (because they already had what they needed for uni). Yes, they have to do a long essay, but the whole thing was pretty light touch and far less full on than A'levels, where the pupils may be doing shorter essays but they do loads of them, and really have the chance to develop strong essay-writing skills and to gain a lot of knowledge too - far more than is gained in Advanced Higher. GCSEs are, depending on the subject, more advanced than Highers too, and seems to be less about ticking exactly the right box in exactly the right way to get a point in the exam (though there is some of that). As I've mentioned, the music Higher is apparently very low level compared with the music GCSE, and the same appears to be true for English.
And England doesn't have a wonderful international reputation for its school system either. Around the world, pupils are getting far better educations than is available here.

Yes I do have experience, I did A levels and I have two DDs who have recently taken a mix of A levels and Advanced Highers. I’ve seen the grades that they were offered for uni based on their advanced Highers and Highers and compared them to offers given for students taking A levels. They took GCSE’s first.
I think you are giving out poor advice to this poster and she should make her decisions based on what Scottish schools are offering and advising rather than a fantasy notion of what you think is best.
Also good Highers get you Unconditional offers to Scottish Universities which makes the AH year either optional or more comfortable. In the OPs situation she should work the benefits of the system that exists and work with the school rather than against it.

You are bob on there. Pure green is giving out appalling, misinformed advice. None of which would ever be facilitated by a local authority school. It’s unbelievable they think you can jump from gcse to AH. And that Hs are boring. Scottish universities take highers. Having friends in admissions departments and having posed the question, they wouldn’t take AHs alone especially gcse then AH. Even they laughed at that!!

I did O-levels and A levels, taught GCSE and A level, have DD in S5. Moved to Scotland halfway through primary. There are good and bad elements in both systems. I'm glad I got DD out of the new Gove English system in primary and she did much better here, but I do think exams over two years at the end of secondary is a less-pressured system. I may change my mind again in S6 when the pressure is off.

They do study a book. My DD would not hate The Great Gatsby as much as she does if she wasn't doing Higher English 😂. It's worth noting that English is two separate GCSEs in England, both taught over two years, whereas in Scotland Nat5 is a combined language and literature exam taught over 1 year. Of course, Nat5s and Highers are one year and GCSEs and A levels are 2 years, giving more than double the learning time because there's no pause for exams within that. So obviously they won't do as many texts at Nat5 and Higher as at GCSE and A level. Doesn't mean the level is lower in what they do, just that it is less broad.

Depending on where you live, you might not even be able to do three AH in S6. DD can only do two next year because her school doesn't offer them in her other 3 S5 subjects, and it's not even two she would necessarily have chosen had others been available. I thought that was a small rural school issue, but I asked about it on a thread here a few weeks ago and there were posters in the same situation in urban areas. Posters also confirmed only 2 AH plus Highers needed for university in England.

GCSE is broader than Nat5, but not more difficult. Some topics not taught in S4 are taught at GCSE and these may come up at Higher, albeit at a greater level of difficulty.

Every school is different, but one big difference for DD's school is homework. Barely any at primary (rightly imho), compared with six pieces a week in England, right from Reception. Hardly any from S1-S3, and mostly done on an app on the school bus. I think it would be better if they had more at this stage. Then a mega switch is flipped in S4 and the amount of home study required is a huge shock to the system. DD was burnt out by the time exams happened in S4 and had no energy left for the final revision push and I fear this year will be even worse. Transfering from GCSE is probably less of a shock as they will be used to doing a lot of work at home. Only doing 7 subjects from S3 and not having to do a science or language beyond S2 is another big difference from England. There is an expectation that all pupils do Higher English if they want to go to university, regardless of subject. I've heard some schools also insist on Higher maths.

Agree with other posters that S5 is the right route. There is a thread on here where someone was in the position of having to fight for their DD to go into S5, as their age put them in S6. I read it last week but not sure if it was a recent or old one.