Coming back from Germany with 15 years old EAL kid - German school or local Sixth Form?

[MeeMinnie]

I just wanna know how you think. I found it really difficult. Its about school for our son.
I and my husband are both not English native speaker but between us we talk always in English. We came to Germany when he was 4, and since then he went to local schools. We are moving back to London next summer because we found good jobs. Our son is gonna then doing A-levels. I found it always good to visit 'local' school, which means a state sixth form. But I am not sure if that is a good idea? His English is good enough but may be not good enough for A-levels. He does watch and read always English literature and English films without subtitles... But using English to do A-levels is totally different I guess. He's already getting stressed about the idea that he may need to learn in English.
The worst-case we can send him to the German school in Richmond. But we prefer living North - East, as most of our old friends are still there and we can expect great support for him on daily basis, which I found also very important for our son to get used to his new life.
How is it like in reality, when a child with EAL visit a local Sixth Form? I guess it is depends which school, but are there also similar cases as ours?

There is so much to unpack here but:
He will need to be 16 to go to a college.
Colleges have admissions policies with criteria needed to be able to enrol on an A level.
Other colleges offer vocational courses which he may get accepted on if he is old enough.
You need to live here for 3 years before applying to be a home student at uni so it would be better if he spent 3 years in education not 2- ie the savings are great if he is a home student,
100% go for the German School in Petersham otherwise you are looking at ruining your ds's education / chance of going to uni.

If you’re not coming until next Summer (presumably for him to start school / college in September 2024?) then you have a year to actively focus on getting his English as fluent as possible. (Would he then be 16?)

That might mean a regular weekly class with a native English speaking tutor. Intense reading of English newspapers like The Times or Financial Times, plus a long essay form journal like the London Review of Books as often as possible. Listening to BBC Radio might have more impact than watching films. It might also be helpful if he could spend some time in England before then.

Which A’ Levels would he be hoping to take? Fluent, idiomatic English would matter more for essay type subjects. There’s a difference between casual, spoken English and the more formal language used for academic work.

Obviously if he’s hoping to attend university in England then doing his A’Levels in English would be helpful preparation.

Get that poor child into a German school. Anything else would be really destructive

If you could afford private for a year, some private schools do a one year course for youngsters coming in from overseas. For example, one near us does a one year programme for 15-16 year olds where they do lots of English and a few GCSEs, so that they are fully prepared for sixth form courses. Another does GCSE courses for 1/2 years or 18 months.

One of our local state sixth form colleges also offers a 1 year GCSE programme for transition to A-level, but I think he would have to be 16 for that. It's not aimed at EAL in the same way as the privates, but if his English is fairly good he may just need the exposure to the language rather than specific teaching.

As someone else mentioned, he will probably need to have been in the country for 3 years to qualify for student finance, so if he goes straight to A-level he'd then have to have a gap year. Some sort of preparatory year might be no bad thing - it would also mean he hopefully plugs any differences between curriculum in Germany and here, and picking up English/maths GCSE simplifies things if he later applies for jobs that require "GCSE or equivalent".

What's the child's date of birth? When exactly are they going to arrive to the UK?

@MeeMinnie

Check out the specialist language State day and boarding Anglo-European school (Hockerill Anglo European College) Bishops Stortford, Herts (trains from BS go to Liverpool St) and very close to Stansted airport and they offer the IB:

www.hockerill.com

and at Ingatestone in Essex (between Brentwood and Chelmsford) there is the Anglo European School:

www.assessex.co.uk

Hope this helps!

i think most 6th forms would want him to have gcses before A levels.

Ooops! @MeeMinnie - sorry I made a typo with my clumsy finger on my phone for the second link and it won’t allow me to make another edit. It should be:

www.aesessex.co.uk

OP, it would be helpful to know what your uni plans are for your ds but I can't see how any option will be better than the highly regarded German School in its stunning setting on the banks of the Thames by Richmond Park. (The fees aren't even high compared to U.K. private schools).

I would say it would be a challenge to go from a German school straight into a UK sixth form. I know two children who made that move and the one who joined at the beginning of Year 11 and took a few exams before embarking on the IB did better than the one who stated in Year 12. They were totally bilingual with a mother tongue English parent. Both progressed to university in Germany.

The German school in Richmond looks great.

Thank you all of you for thoughtful reply!
There are more story behind our move. My husband and I are very much aware the effect of this on our son too. We thought about the option of leaving him in Germany with my husband's family but we want to be together...

@lanthanum Doing an extra year for GCSEs is certainly the idea we should look at. We also read he must live in UK for 3 years to be a home student. If I remember right, one needs to attend a school/ college in order to be qualified.
He is really good at very much math and music but he is struggling any languages. I even suspected once if he's got dyslexia... This was ruled out though.

@Roaminginthegloaming Great suggestion! We will visit the school next time we visit London, which is at the end of Oct. The location is also perfect and I love the idea of Europe School!

The life in Germany was't easy for a multiethnic family. May be we are in a wrong corner. That's why we hesitate sending him to the German school, @tennissquare @LadyLapsang. But definitely worth the visit - surely different from a German school in a small village!

I would say that sending him to the German School in Richmond would be the best-case scenario!

If he is used to being taught in German, suddenly parachuting him into classes taught in English would not be to his advantage and risks really damaging his chances at 6th form level, which could then affect his prospects at University.

You say that you have friends in NE London; there's nothing to stop them jumping on the District Line and coming to see you in Richmond and you doing the same in reverse. You can all meet in the middle as well and go out to dinner in Central London.

As it is, you would only need to live in the Richmond area for a short time; once your son has flown the nest and gone to University, you can look at moving over to NE London.

Richmond is brilliant - I'm not sure whether you have been there, but it's a great place.

If I were you, I would get in touch with the German School sooner rather than later to discuss your plans.

https://www.dslondon.org.uk/

PS You would love Hansel and Pretzel, the German Deli which is not far from the school! I read German at University and like to pop in there to buy some of my old favourites and chat in German!

http://www.hanselandpretzel.co.uk/

Attending the German school would help him in case he wants to go back there later on in order to get a tuition-free uni education. Does your DS have an EU passport?

We get kids who have English As an Additional Language into our Year 11 (big city school) and it's not a scenario where things will go well. They're already 3/5 of the way through their GCSE courses, plus those courses with a Non-Examined element or several exams might be unable to be sat at this point (I think at our school that's Music and Sport BTECs).

The best thing we can go is put a student back a year into Year 10 so they can do the full GCSE course. That's not always an option for various reasons.

@TheSquareMile @GrumpyPanda @ThrowawaySecondarySchool Thank you all 🙂
We had an initial talk with a brilliant person from a company called Simply London - amazing service and knowledge! Sounds like sending our son to the German school in the best option. Repeating yr. 10 seems to be a tricky thing. We have booked a school tour in a month!
@TheSquareMile our really good friend lives in Barnes. As you say, it is a good opportunity to live in a different area too. I am sure my son loves the environment. We should definitely pay a visit to this bakery!