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

How many teaching months are there for highers + advanced highers compared to a levels though? Perhaps 6 months for each of that? June, mid August to Mid Dec, a couple of weeks for prelims, all done by the end of Feb to allow for done revision before Easter?

A levels you have a full uninterrupted academic year and then the exams don’t start until June. Lots more time for teaching and to go more in depth.

A level exams start in May, not June. And you don’t have any A level teaching after GCSEs until the new academic year. They also do mocks and summer exams to establish predicted grades for university. However in Scotland you do do five Highers in S5 generally rather than three A levels so possibly less time there (though not the free periods that I got with my A levels). Doing more subjects does mean more students study maths and English to a higher level than in England.

The difference more hit home when my DC was sitting UCAT for medicine - he came straight off doing his higher exams which are critical for university entry into starting his advanced Highers and having to study for the UCAT. Whereas A level students doing UCAT had not had the that intensity of revision and exams and were able to have an Easter holiday and May half term holiday. I was really worried about the sustain period of stress he was under.

I think England does the extremes better - more varied special needs provision, pupil referral units for disruptive students, grammar schools in many areas and many super selective private schools - but most children don't need that and will do fine whatever.

If Advanced Highers build on Highers, surely A'levels build on GCSEs in the same way. That doesn't turn the Advanced Higher course into a 2 year course any more that it turns the A'level course into a 4 year course. They are totally separate courses.

And in respect of Oxbridge you're failing to take into account that, bearing in mind the very small number of Scottish applicants to Oxbridge, a significant and probably substantial percentage of those applicants are from Scottish private schools. Some of those private schools offer GCSEs and A'levels, and probably all of them and the top Scottish state schools are familiar with the Oxbridge application process. If you're excluding English private schools from the comparison you need to exclude Scottish private schools too.

You'll find that applicants from Northern Ireland fare much better when applying to Oxbridge, despite their independent education system. The Northern Irish education system has a very good reputation, reminiscent of the reputation the Scottish system had before the introduction of the Curriculum for Excellence. Could the success of Northern Irish applicants to Oxbridge be attributed to that?

Even years ago few people went from Scottish state schools to English universities. My view was why bother going so far away when there were four ancient universities in Scotland who weren't snobby about Highers. I did go to Oxford as a postgrad and loved it but at 18 it was far too far away from home. I now live in the north of England and the vast majority of my DCs friends have stayed in the north (if you have options like Durham, Manchester, Leeds why consider Bristol, Birmingham or Warwick), just like the majority of their cousin's friends stayed in the south. Most people want to stay within a coule of hours of home.

It's the effect on other children that's the huge issue in Scottish schools.

You. If there were Grammar schools where academic kids could learn in a calm, safe environment education would be fine in Scotland. Resources could be focused in the comprehensives and the bright could get a good education m. As it is the education received by the bright is endlessly hampered by violence and disruption. That’s ‘inclusion’ for you.

Or just have normal school news safe spaces for everyone like they used to be.

It’s not only bright and academic kids who behave well and want to learn. There are plenty who would be left behind in that scenario and I don’t love that either. There is a definite need for more special schools and additional support for kids who struggle to behave, but children aiming for apprenticeships and college also deserve a safe and nurturing environment.

In theory, I like the comprehensive school system. But in my opinion it doesn't work for brighter children unless there is setting, across a wide range of subjects. Without setting, the more able children are bored and frustrated and don't reach their potential, and the less able struggle to keep up with the group at all. And there are different teaching techniques which work well for the more able or for the less able. And a good thing about setting is that a child can be in the top set for English and the bottom set for maths - depending on their ability - and they can move up or down over the years (a negative is that there tend to be behavioural issues in the lower sets). The grammar school system is more rigid. There are in fact only a small number of areas in England which still have grammar schools, and even in those areas the vast majority go to comprehensive schools.

Exactly. DD has a friend who was bottom set in secondary, she hated school because her classes were so disruptive and they were only taught the 'easiest' parts of the curriculum so she had no hope of getting top grades. She went to 6th form and did a mix of BTECs and A levels. She got A star, Dist star, Dist star and is going to University to study a vocational degree and will be an important and valuable member of society.

It sounds as though she was put in the wrong set, or improved over time and should have been put up a set. I'm sure mistakes happen all the time.

My kids left a while ago, so I don't have recent direct experience.

But I think narrowing to 6 subjects for Nat 5s, as most schools do, is awful. You take them in S4, so you choose in S3, aged 13/14. English and Maths are compulsory, so you're only left with 4 choices. If you want to do 3 sciences (not always even possible because of timetabling), you only get 1 other choice. Or, if you're good across the board, how to narrow it down? 1 science, 1 social science, 1 language, 1 other? It's not great, is it, when it seems normal in England to do 9 GSCEs.

Also, as others have said, there is little choice of school. In a city, you go to your catchment school, or catchment Catholic school, and in a more rural area there is only one school anyway.

As for bad behaviour, this seems to have exploded in the last few years.

Most schools do 7 Nats and a few do 8. My DB’s kids did 8 GCSEs but two of those were English Lit and English Language.

My DCs did Maths, English, 3 sciences, a language and a social science. Neither wanted to do Art/Dance/Music (both played an instrument outside school).

Our school has 8 subjects in s3 and 7 in s4 - so theoretically 7 Nat5s. I wish she could keep all 8 actually as it’s a nice range and I wouldn’t mind if she could drop PE or PSE etc. In s5 for highers they’re encouraged to drop to 6 max.

There are schools in East Ren with 0% deprived pupils, on the outskirts of a city with the highest child poverty levels in the country.

Children are less than 500m from some of Glasgow’s most deprived areas in some parts of the county, but don’t socialise, go to school with or have any contact with each other.

There live in a completely different, almost apartheid world of rich and poor.

So yes, sheltered is a fair description.

Take the comments on here with a pinch of salt. Every local authority is doing something different with nationals. Some start in S3 (which they shouldn’t, and qualifications Scotland do not like nor encourage that as S3 should remain part of the broad general education). We don’t have SATs, we don’t have attendance targets, we don’t have fines for taking term time holidays. As a parent of an early primary child, I’m very pleased with the education they are getting. They are thriving and progressing. And they are happy. As a secondary teacher I’d know more about what’s going on than the parents commenting on this thread. A motivated and supported child will do well regardless of the school rating. OP also needs to stop asking for school names and recommendations. That is really subjective. Look at the HMIE inspection reports and visit the schools. You won’t get a balanced opinion on mumsnet.

You are massively jumping the gun here. By the time your children go to secondary school, staffing will have changed and the results will too. We are not England. We are not driven by league tables. I work in a school way down the rankings. Yet I personally have a 7 year 100% pass rate in my subject. This year 80% of my pupils got an A. This is not reflected in whole school stats.

Take all comments on Mumsnet with a pinch of salt, including this one.

I'll leave OP to work out what happens when schools don't have tests, don't have fines for taking holidays during term time and don't have attendance targets. And when we were looking at schools all that seemed to be available were figures on the percentage of pupils to pass 5 Highers (at whatever grade).

I'm afraid my experience on Scotsnet has been that teachers in the Scottish system have absolutely no idea how far behind Scottish children are, and are very resistant to the idea of finding out. There was a thread where parents who had come to Scotland from abroad compared their education systems with the Scottish system. Every parent said that the Scottish system was way behind theirs, including an American parent (the American system has a bad reputation). Scottish teachers tend to come onto a thread, tell us that only teachers know what they're talking about, and when that's disproved, they flounce.

I’m surprised about the American comment. Everyone I know who has moved from the Scottish to the US system has been ahead/felt it to be easy and my DC had an American kid join their maths class for a few months who claimed to be one of the best at maths in his own school but didn’t perform at a high level in DC’s class. There must be huge difference in schools between and within US states thought.

Behind what?? Come on, give us thicko Scottish teachers an idea of what you educated parents think your children are behind on. The only thing I see we are behind on is having unsupportive parents who don’t value education and teach their children very little, if anything, at home. Leaving us to teach things like basic manners, potty training, how to hold a pencil and how to use a knife and fork

Since when do schools not have attendance targets? I get an email every term with my child’s attendance and the target. I read the reports available online about my DCs school and spoke to local parents. It’s an odd one, my DCs school, as those who don’t have kids there assume it’ll be bad while those who do really like it.

My perception is that I appear to have confident happy fun children with excellent social skills, responsible attitudes and DC1 who is half way through a maths-heavy STEM degree at a well regarded university with lots of English students has at no stage felt behind their peers. It does sound frim this thread that others have been through the Scottish system and ended up behind their peers in terms of where they ended up next but that hasn’t been my DCs experience.

Just as an example, my DC did English Higher, which would have qualified them to study English literature at university, and the course didn't include a single book. Yes, the teacher could have chosen a book, but didn't have to. Instead, they "studied" the first 3 minutes of a film. They also read a Scottish short story. My DC commented that the teacher appeared to think that the class wasn't capable of reading an entire book.

A friend the same age as my DC, at school in a different country, was studying English as her 2nd modern foreign language. Her class had read 2 or 3 full Shakespeare plays, lots of classic poetry and Pride and Prejudice. And English wasn't even their main foreign language. Yes, this was in a grammar school type system - the bright children worked very hard and were encouraged to reach their full academic potential. They had frequent tests.

Guess which16 year old was buzzing with enthusiasm about school? And subsequently went on to do her degree at London University because her English, her second foreign language, was good enough.

I'm told that the most popular book among teenagers at my local school is the Heartstopper series. I've read one of the books - out of interest. The reading level was probably that of a 6 year old, and not the type of 6 year old who's already embarking on Harry Potter. I'm also told that there are children moving from primary to secondary who can't read.

We're constantly being told how well Scotland will do if it becomes independent. But successful countries need well-educated people. Scotland has deliberately dumbed down the education its children receive.

That’s a shame, definitely not the experience of my 2 (I know DC1 did Romeo & Juliet for Higher English). My DB’s DC1 passed English Language GCSE but failed English Lit. It’s a miracle they passed all bar that one of their GCSEs as they did no work at secondary school and no revision but DB said passing English lit would have been an impossibility as you did need to at least know the plot of the literature covered and a few quotes. Got a 7 for Geography to their parents’ astonishment.

My DCs both read, DC1 reads way more than I do now. I’m sure there are some children who can’t read but neither of my DCs have ever mentioned this about people they know and iI think it’s would have come up as an observation, particularly if it was commonplace. I’d be interested to know what the pupil in the post above was doing for literature study in their own language of that is what they were doing as their second foreign language. I used to work with 2 German women and one was very impressed with the type of secondary school the other had attended as it seemed to be a tier above the one she had been in. They both seemed to have ended up doing similar degrees and were in similar jobs so a slightly different path to get to the same place.

I don’t feel that my children have had negative outcomes from the education system they have been too and I know my DB in England feels at least one of his children has (not the one above, that kid gives zero fucks and is now v happ at a good university after fine but not spectacular A level/b-TEC).