Moving to UK - how to apply for school

[Hadda1973]

I am moving from Iceland to UK in august, it just came up, my husband is being relocated in his job. We have a 14 year old daughter and I have no clue how to arrange everything regarding the school system. We are still not sure where exactly we will be living..he will be working at Leeds Bradford airport. We have been looking at either Harrogate or Horsforth.

Any advise on the school system and those towns is really appreciated !

If you are going private then you need to apply direct to the schools. If you are applying for a state free place then it will be via the local authority. Each local authority is different about how they approach 'in-year' applications which is what yours will be. All require proof of address before offering but some may accept it at an earlier stage than others such as a signed tenancy agreement or an offer for work with an address that they let you live at while you settle in. that doesn't stop you doing research into schools. Find the relevant council website by googling and it should have a section. To add complication it looks like parts of the area you are looking at is a grammar school system. Children will have taken an exam at 10 or 11 to see if they qualify for these schools that cream off the most able. You can apply to a grammar in-year, but your daughter may need to sit an assessment. All of this depends of course on how full the schools are. Many schools are over-subscribed. Good luck!

You would normally contact the Local Education Authority (LEA) once you are here and they will find your daughter a place; it may not be at the nearest school to you, but they will find her somewhere.

Your big challenge is that age 14 is a really tricky time to change education systems into the UK. When was she 14?

If she turned 14 before Sept 1, 2014, she would be Yr10 now and going into Yr11 in September.

If she turned 14 after Sept 1, 2014 she would be Yr9 now and going into Yr10 in September.

Yr 10 and 11 are GCSE years; where the pupils narrow down their options to take exams at the end of Yrs 10 and 11, often with study starting in Yr 9. She will have a lot of catching up to do, even if she starts in Yr 10, and starting in Yr 11 will be very hard indeed as that is part way through the courses (and some exams will have been taken already). It might be better for her if that's the case to look at something different, like a tutorial college, who would enable her to do GCSEs in a year; a standard state school will really struggle to get her to a stage where she can do more than a small handful of qualifications in a year.

Thank you so much for your reply. Uff...it sound´s to me that this is nearly undoable ! At least a big hassle... But there must be someone who did it before, then so can I :-) She turned 14 last march so she will be going into Yr10 this winter. I think our first step is to decide where we are going to live and then contact the LEA to get further information.
Thank you again, very helpful.

If she is going into y10 she will need to choose gcse options straight away so might be worth doing some research on subjects.

What kind of school has she been in, in Iceland? Are you likely to move again, if so can you find a school that does IB which might make moving easier.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/education/school_tables/secondary/12/html/815.stm

Link to northYorkshire schools including Harrogate ones above

Below - type name if school into appropriate space to look at individual ofsted reports.

reports.ofsted.gov.uk

I'd probably opt for Harrogate

If very academic maybe consider the grammar.

The Rossett school in Harrogate looks good though - an all rounder. reports.ofsted.gov.uk/inspection-reports/find-inspection-report/provider/ELS/136896

St Aidans looks great though
www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/school.pl?urn=137139