Want to move home to Scotland when DS starts secondary, confused about years!

[Nightowlreturns]

Hi, we are planning to move home to Scotland when DS is going into secondary. His birthday is in April, he is in year 2 right now and has just turned 7. Will it be easy to go back in the summer he is finishing junior school here or are the ages different? I’ve tried to google but it seems really complicated!

We could adjust plans, I just didn’t want him to start secondary then yank him out, figured it would be better to move away before. Thank you in advance!

I'm not sure how it works in England but in Scotland he would start secondary at 11 years old. So he would of turned 5 in the April and started primary 1 that August. He would then do 7 years at primary school and start secondary school in the August at 11. Hope that helps and makes sense

He'd be 12 when starting secondary school with an April birthday

We live in Scotland (although I am English) and my DS is also an April birthday. He's in S2 (second year of secondary school). He started secondary school the August after he turned 12.

The year group cut off is end February (rather than August in England) so an April birthday means they will one of the older ones in the year which is good.

There is one less year of schooling in Scotland as they start school half a year later and finish half a year earlier on average. There are only five or six years at secondary school in Scotland. Some students leave after fifth year (age 16-17) and go to university with just Highers and others will stay on another year and take Advanced Highers before leaving for uni.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Thank you for your replies. I found a Wikipedia page that seems to suggest he would finish year 7 here then go into S1, so hopefully it will work out. The timing works for our finances and I’d hoped that we could move without too much disruption for DS. Does anyone have experience of moving a long way with children of that sort of age, was it hard on them? I worry we’ll move and he’ll hate it, it’s a big thing.

Yes sorry he would be 12 when he started secondary

@Nightowlreturns

We did it the other way around - DS went through primary and started secondary in Scotland and we moved a long way south to school in England in the Easter of S1, joining Yr 7.

DS is a Feb birthday and we didn’t defer him, and whilst that was working just fine I was a bit concerned about him sitting Nat 5s at 15 and a half and Highers just a year later (your DS will be fine as he will be one of the oldest in his year in Scotland).

DS settled in fine, and whilst he was a bit behind in English grammar he was ahead in maths. He is very sociable and made friends quickly. His mates loved hearing Doric (he did get very adept at making it up once he’d exhausted foos yer doos and furry boot ye frae )

We did always say we would move so we didn’t spring it on him, and he got a say in where we moved to and the new house and school. He kept in touch with his mates online for a while but 2 years on that has drifted away. We were living in an area where people rotated in and out every few years so the kids were used to people coming and going.

Have you any idea where in Scotland you'd be moving to? If you post in the Scotsnet topic, you'll get lots of advice/people's experiences.

Re the school years, as others have already explained, because of the difference in cut off dates, your ds with an April birthday will be one of the oldest (with only March birthdays and those kids with January and February and a very few November and December birthdays whose parents had chosen to defer them, being older).

It also helps if you realise that Scottish primaries have 7 years (P1-P7) and secondaries are just 6 years (S1-S6).

The other thing to remember - so that he doesn't complain that he's missed out on holiday is that Scottish schools tend to finish around the end of June and go back mid August!

So you might want to move up before the end of the English school term!

I would move a year earlier - at the end of Y6, which will also be his last year of primary in England. He can then make friends in a smaller primary environment in Scotland and transfer to the secondary with a cohort of good friends a year later.

That's a good point genevieva