Moving back to the UK

[expatbrat]

Hi all, After years of travelling we are thinking of moving back to the UK and settling in one place for a while for the sake of DD's schooling. Schooling has been more a case of which BC International school is available than choosing academically good schools.
I've just had her year 8 snap shot report and was wondering how we will get on finding her a good school. Whole new thing for us.

Spanish 4a
English 5c
French 4b
Humanities 6
ICT 4b
Maths 7c
PE 5a
PSHE A
Science 6b
The Arts 6

I'm new to the forum and have been reading every thread over the last couple of days and cooking my brain. Feeling like a bad mum and completely unprepared.
Any advise welcome.

State or private?
If private I wouldn't be looking at the most academically selective if those scores are a true reflection.
If state, where do you want to live? I would suggest you don't look at a grammar school area; first it's harder to get an in year place at a grammar school, second with those scores I would be doubtful is she is grammar school material. I would look for an area with good Comprehensives, and be ready to appeal to get her a place.

The expected level for a child on leaving primary school is Level 4. A generalisation perhaps but to get into a selective school one needs to be of Level 5 standard. For a non selective state school Level 5 is where one should be at the end of Year 7

If your scores are a true reflection then DD is either below the national average or on par, depending on the subject. Unfortunately, being at the national average isn't going to get DD pass the entrance exam for a selective school.

You don't say which part of the UK you are thinking off. In the London area good non-selective state schools are invariably oversubscribed. While in other parts of the UK one hear stories of good schools being undersubscribed because of the relatively sparse local population. How you find one of these latter schools is a question I can't answer :)

Thanks,
We are in a position to move anywhere we wish really. DH will be rotating and we have family in England and Scotland. I was educated in Scotland and this is the first time I've looked into the options available in the UK and feel like I should have been studying this since she was born.
Another thing that we have been looking into is full boarding. A lot of her friends will be doing this. I'm just not sure I'm ready to cut the apron strings just yet.

You cannot apply for a state school until you have a UK address (unless you are a returning Forces family in which case special arrangements may apply). You will be allocated a school depending on where there is an available place, and how well you fit the admissions criteria, which are more based on distance than achievement.

You can weaken the distance criteria if you look at state boarding - information here perhaps living near the school so she could attend as a day pupil initially and move to a boarding place.

Private schools all have their own admissions criteria, which may include academic assessment. You would need to find out the criteria from each school - or consider using a consultancy service (try someone like Gabbitas, or the Good Schools Guide) who might be able to narrow your initial requirements down to a manageable list for your own research.

If you are thinking of a selective school - try downloading a sample paper and see how she gets on with it timed. You can then always ask the school what their levels for entry normally are. For example QM near York requires competence in english and maths - papers seem quite straightforward to me, exceptional kids get 10% scholarship, but seems to be alot about the child, how they will contribute to the school and their willingness to learn. I've heard that they support and extend bright kids really well. I also understand that many selective schools have two sets of papers, depending on where the children have been educated.

Assuming children start languages later, I would have thought level 4 is a pretty good level for her languages, and it wouldn't be expected to be as high as maths or english. But that's just my logic - I'm not a teacher.

Move to Scotland! Assuming you can afford a house in a "nice" area, then she will almost certainly get a place in a "nice" local school. In general, secondary schools keep a small number of places for people moving into the area, and won't give those places to children from out of catchment, so you are in with a very good chance of a place in the catchment school.

And since most people up here send their DC to the catchment school (or the catchment RC school), the DC tend to be pretty typical of the kind of area they are in. Which comes back to areas and their school being "nice" - your relatives up here are likely to be able to tell you what areas to look at in their towns and nearby ones.

My impression is that the poster is looking for a British Council Accredited international school rather than an ordinary state school but agree that many independent schools would have experience of children coming from other countries. Sounds as if your child has been taught lessons in English and has followed a compatible programme of assessment which sounds as if transfer to the UK will be more straightforward.
You really need to check whether the type of school you have in mind also attracts local children with parents living locally and the age group of children in the school. Some international schools in the UK (I used to teach in one of these) only teach exam classes such as GCSE, A level and IELTS and take students from Y10 onwards and are mainly aimed at overseas students whereas others take the whole age range.
HTH

OP - Are these grades out of 7, as per the IB system, rather than UK levels?

Thanks all for the input. Those were her current mid term levels and not her predicted levels which she is either on target or above target for. Much preferred A-F grades as at least then you knew exactly where you stood! Why is it such a human trait to complicate life?
Think we have come to the conclusion that a boarding school that has a high ratio of international student incase we have to move again in a couple of years is our best option. Either Scotland or Kent area.
Will start looking at consultants and keep our fingers crossed.

Have a look at Fettes, lots of expat students and full time boarders.

Not in the area you mentioned, but I can highly recommend the United world colleges, having met many Successful alumni, they have a few very good schools across he world, there is one in Wales too
www.atlanticcollege.org/?force=1