Possible move to Scotland from England but should we be concerned about education?

[Wouldliketomove]

Hello Everyone,

As the title says, DH and I are carefully researching a possible move to Scotland for our family (two toddlers currently) but I am constantly reading worrying things about education in Scotland. I'm aware there are also soon to be significant changes, which complicates things further and introduces more unknowns.

Can anyone with experience either as teachers or parents offer a perspective on education in Scotland at the moment please or any further insight into what is to come? I have tried to read what is widely available.

Thanks very much in advance

One hundred percent correct

This is my experience of primary school too. DD had music weekly - with a music teacher. No Art teacher AFAIK but they do a lot with the class teacher. PE twice a week - once with a PE teacher and and once with class teacher.

Violence was very unusual but was dealt with by Senior Management - and same with bullying.

DD is reading at an advanced level and for maths the class was split by ability to ensure children were being both supported and pushed.

I think it is fair to say that you'll have a huge range of ability in any given class and that this can present challenges. But would be surprised if this is a Scotland only issue.

Staffing is done on school rolls. They get a set number of teachers per number of pupils.

Composite classes are more common because of the obligation to take pupils in their catchment. Scottish schools can’t just decide to have 30 spaces or 60 for P1s. If 96 get enrolled then 96 have to be found space for which also adds to the number of composite classes as you can end up with uneven numbers in each year group.

The other side of that is that if you buy or rent a house you know your child is guaranteed a place at the official catchment schools.

Having worked in both (we live on the border) a lot depends on which school you end up at. And which HT you have. They can really make or break a school.

If you discount English unis you are severely limiting your options - Scottish universities have quotas for Scottish students because they can’t afford to take that many of them.

The Scottish system is very much the poor cousin of the English system. Hopefully the new curriculum review recognises this.

I’m not sure about that. I hear this quoted all the time and yet I’ve rarely met anyone who didn’t get an offer at their first choice university when they had the stated grades. Issues with access to Law at Edinburgh and Glasgow is well publicised, medicine obviously, one person who wasn’t accepted for engineering at Edinburgh (so went to Glasgow) and a couple rejected by St Andrews. A big proportion of students I know have a largely debt free existence. My DC is at Edinburgh and there are a lot of English students who seem to have made that choice. DC has been told by English students that their choice to come to Scotland was partly due to the four year degree as standard as they wanted to study abroad in the third year.

I've never lived in England - my kids were born in Scotland and have gone through the system here, currently P6 and S3. My husband and I are both American immigrants so we are learning as we go and comparing against the American system a lot.

We live in a very mixed catchment so the school is equally - maybe even more (due to the very high rate of private school attendance on the more wealthy side of the catchment) mixed as well. So there are some associated challenges as a decent proportion of the children at both primary and secondary are living in really complicated situations. Which affects their attendance and motivation for school of course.

Primary school was a delight for my daughter, less so for my son who is probably quite gifted and not particularly challenged. He has friends and hobbies and all sorts, but the teaching has a lot of repetition in it for the children learning English / struggling to sit still / etc. etc. and he has absolutely no patience for it. We try to give him lots of learning opportunities outside of school and he's a prolific reader, but I do wonder if we're doing the best for him. My daughter was 100% happy even throughout some pretty awful bullying (we are the only Jewish family in either school which has come with some challenges over the last few years)

High school has been interesting. My daughter struggled at the start but is thriving now. She's autistic (well, we know she is but she's nowhere near the top of the list for an assessment but the school doesn't need a formal diagnosis thankfully) and the support and concessions she has are unbelievable. No uniform stress, bathroom pass, 5 minute pass to leave early or late to avoid the hallway rush, extra worksheets from teachers as she sometimes needs extra support at home... they genuinely can't do enough for her. And she's learning so much and having some wonderful experiences. They just moved into a brand new building and the facilities are amazing - including a beautiful dance studio that she uses almost every day (she's doing her Nat5 and higher in dance).

Due to lots of factors, about half the children leave after S4 and another half of those leave after S5 - so the 200 or so kids who started in S1 will be down to around 50 for S6. Her older friends rave about this year - loads of small classes, tons of individual attention. The school gets extra funding so has a careers advisor to help them apply for apprenticeships, college or Uni and my daughter has already met with her to help her choose her subjects for S3. It's been amazing.

And yes - lots of music and art. My son started trombone in P5 and my daughter started flute in S1. Private weekly lessons during school. My daughter dropped art this year but still has music plus the extra flute lessons. And dance of course. My son does more singing than he's interested in, they have a music room with recorders and ukeleles and a couple music clubs too.

Depends how well they do obv, mine had all A at higher and unconditional offers for his chosen courses at likes of Glasgow, Edinburgh, St A

It often doesn’t matter how well they do. Many courses are capped at a very low level, either only a couple of places per Scottish student per course. Straight As are absolutely no guarantee. And then there’s the time where Edinburgh Law binned all applications from anyone other than those from Scotland poorest 20% of postcodes due to widening access targets and capping.

Always put an English uni on your application.

Neither of my kids have ever experienced violence. 😳

We live in a town where genuinely every single school is good.

I’ve been extremely happy with both our primary and secondary. Our eldest who has adhd got excellent support from school and has just smashed his Highers and is off to his first choice uni.
he had offers from 5 Scottish unis.

We have no complaints.

Having read so many threads on MN the English system fills me with horror and Im very grateful not to have to use that.

That said there will be rubbish schools out there. It will depend on where you chose to live.

Unless you want to work for a magic circle
law firm who only hire from specific universities and so you want to go to Edinburgh or Glasgow, or you want ti do medicine/dentistry/vet med I’ve never heard of anyone struggling to get a university offer at somewhere they were happy to go to. These people must exist because I’ve been told on here it happens but I’ve never heard anyone say it in real life.

A Scottish uni offer that is.

As the parent of an A level student…. A levels are not the norm for everyone. Maybe a majority choice, but a good chunk of DS’s school cohort are doing apprenticeships or BTECs.

Well from reading this thread it’s clear that there is massive variation across Scotland and within local authorities.

One big difference is that in England there is a national curriculum, in Scotland there is only guidelines and it’s up to the schools and teachers what is taught e.g. at primary schools might not all teach the victorians, but if they do they might focus on things that are local to their town or area. High school teachers in Scotland must have a degree in that subject as well as a teaching qualification. Schools/ local authorities don’t get a choice in which exam board they buy exams off of, the exams are national.

Never seen or heard of any violence and mine is nearing the end of his time at schools. Teachers at his school are very on the ball to curb any misbehaving - not draconically and not for silly stuff like wrong uniform items but definitely any disruption etc gets dealt with. I hadn’t realised but yes, absolutely no money making activities like pyjama days, gala evenings etc. I haven’t missed all that one bit!

On the climate side - it was actually one consideration I had when deciding whether to accept a job offer. The downside is the weather. It really is … rather damp. Everyone is basking in the sun down south, and here we’re considering whether it’s too early in the year to put on the heating.

despite that, quality of life is so much better. More people are friendly and relaxed, where we are in Glasgow everyone chats to everyone, it’s really noticeable. And my son loved that children have more freedom at younger ages. Everyone walks to school by themselves younger, and no pre-arranging play dates. They just pop around and live in each others houses, and are out and about on their own much younger.

sorry, realise that’s no longer about education!

If you wanted to go to a magic circle law firm, you'd do an English law degree surely? But in those cases you'd be looking at top tier grades, so I wouldn't expect it to be an issue.

My bigger issue is with kids who don't get top tier grades. If they want to go to university in England they have much less flexibility.

Have you experienced kids with poorer grades attempting to get into English universities and being disappointed as an issue? This isn’t something I have come across.

Out of interest, I just picked a random course at the University of Bath (modern languages). Typical A level offer is ABB, Scottish exam offer is AB at Advanced Higher with a prefer for AABBB at Higher. That looks ok.

Edinburgh law is targeted by students who want to work at MS law firms (I know some), avoiding fees is still the main consideration for these students. IME the fee issue is the main one.

Ok, so I chose a random university (Birmingham) for a modern languages course and it doesn't include Scottish grades in the entry requirements (but it does have the IB and BTEC requirements).

But I bet there isn't a Scottish university that doesn't publish the A level requirements.

And yes fees will be playing some part in that, but it's also that Scottish qualifications are not well understood outside of Scotland and the system isn't geared up to allow students to study outside of Scotland.

Thank you so much everyone who's taken the time to give such thoughtful answers. I really appreciate it and am currently reading back through them all. This is all really helpful.

Those of you who've commented on increased quality of life in Scotland, I'd love to hear more about that please.

Is anyone happy to post names of schools (or pm me with them) that they think are particularly good or to advise on what specifically to look for (and how) when searching for a good Scottish school please? Sorry one year old has woken early from their nap :/ so will return later.

Many thanks again!

Don’t they have the UCAS points equivalent? Most have a drop down list of ‘other entrance qualifications’ that show the Scottish equivalent.

From my niece and nephew and their friends experience it seems much easier for Scot’s to get into some English unis - some ask for advance highers at the same grades as A level which I think is an unfairly tough ask - compared with English trying to get into Scottish unis who seem to struggle. I think that’s down to Scottish unis trying to decide which English kids to give offers to when people have fairly similar personal statement and they only do 3 A levels so don’t have much to differentiate between people.

Birmingham have a general statement:

”Qualifications we accept

• Three GCE A levels (including International A Levels)
• The International Baccalaureate Diploma
• SQA Highers and Advanced Highers (many programmes will accept Highers without additional Advanced Highers)
• The Cambridge Pre-U (minimum three separate subjects)
• A mix of A levels and Cambridge Pre-U subjects (minimum three in total)
• The Irish Leaving Certificate Higher Level
• The European Baccalaureate
• Advanced Skills Baccalaureate Wales (the grade required will be the same as from an A level and must be combined with 2 A levels.)”

Loughborough is similar:

“If you are studying Scottish Highers and Advanced Highers, you will usually need at least two subjects at Advanced Higher, sometimes in specified subjects, alongside Highers in three other subjects.”

I hadn’t seen that before, it’s usually under an “other requirements” drop down along with Welsh Baccalaureate etc.

I often feel the Scottish offer requirements for English uni courses is surprisingly low, compared to the A Level requirement.

I had a look at History at Newcastle and the difference there seems much bigger than usual as they for AAB at A Level yet for Highers:

“AAABB at Higher Grade including History. Combinations of Highers and Advanced Highers accepted. Scottish qualifications can be taken in more than one sitting.”

AAABB at Higher if taken over 2 years (so
not at one sitting) is obviously a good achievement but not the same ordeal as AAB at A level.

Objectively, are Advanced Highers known to be harder than A levels? I would expect the number of top grades to be lower than the A level equivalent as IME, most kids have firmed their offers by then and they have either got an unconditional or a condition that only involves, say, 2 of the 4 courses they are taking so the foot comes off the gas. Even medicine and dentistry conditions (for kids who have passed the UCAT after 5As in S5) for S6 seem to be 2-3 Bs at AH at most. So I would expect the levels of A grades at AH to be much lower than at A level because the incentive to knock your pan in often isn’t there to the same extent. DC increased their hours working at their PT job during study leave and was very pleased to have extra money for uni.

As a bit of advice OP, you need to take many criticisms of Scottish education here with a pinch of salt.

A lot of the criticism is ideologically driven because the SNP has managed it for quite some time, every single child could graduate with straight A’s and you’d still get some people complaining that there was a crack in the school window.

That’s not to say some of the criticisms aren’t valid but most of them exist throughout the UK.

The truth is, whether you’re in Scotland, England or Timbuktu, the schools are immensely variable.

The results and the majority of children’s experience depends on how many affluent children attend the school, it may sound harsh, but it is fact.

This is especially pronounced in Scotland where because children have 2 catchment schools to choose from, the highest performing schools are in the wealthiest areas.

East Dunbartonshire & East Ren have 6 schools in the top ten (according to league tables) between them, despite being small councils.

This in turn feeds a crazy local property market where people are paying silly amounts of money for houses in catchment.

It has created an environment similar to NI and English Grammars where the majority of children are from wealthy backgrounds who have the support to succeed in education.

Ive written here before though that if I had the choice again I wouldn’t have sent my children to East Ren Schools for various reasons, they, and I imagine also East Dun and Boroughmuir, are high pressure bubbles.

Most high schools do get good results for supported, motivated pupils though, but the stats are set up in a way which doesn’t tell the whole story.

I agree. A work colleague was telling me that the “high performing” school her DC attended actually had a reputation for poor maths teaching but the school wasn’t under much pressure to address it as they knew a large % of families were affluent enough to afford tutoring which boosted the results. My DC went to a “lower performance” school but did an AH at a nearby top 10 school and was underwhelmed by the teaching, felt they didn’t put in as much effort as their own school and assumed that was due to being able to rely on more kids being tutored.

My main criticism is the very prescriptive nature of what the kids are expected produce in some subjects - the words “marking scheme” have been said to me many many time by my DCs. However, my nephew has had a terrible time in the English system (his A level results are still unopened) and my DB (who is a professor at a highly regarded English university) feels the Scottish system would have been much better for him.

Your children are pre school age and Youre asking for recommendations of schools in all of Scotland?