Americans coming to the UK with teens - help!

[ediepop]

One of my oldest friends is American, married to a Brit. They have always lived in the States and have two boys aged 13 and 12 who are dual citizens. They want to move back to the UK, but they're not sure how this work with the boys education - is it even possible to find places for a Y10 and Y9 boy? Those are the years they'd start in September.

I'm not a huge amount of help as my children are younger and I was educated abroad, so my experience of the UK educational system is limited.

They'd be looking at state schools rather than private.

They haven't decided where they're going to live yet, I think schools will be a major factor, but at the moment they're looking at Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire and as far west as Bristol and surrounds.

Yeah to be honest it’s quite lumpy. Some areas are fine and others are abysmal. Grammar in the UK is taken much more seriously, in the U.S. my kids had grammerly installed on their school laptops! Most things are handwritten here, including GCSEs but in the U.S. the standardised tests were all online and my younger children didn’t really learn proper handwriting at all.

In maths we found that the main difference is that you can’t get high grades in the UK without being able to understand multistep word problems, the U.S. also had more multiple choice exams. So an example of a year 9 maths question would be:

Sarah invests £2000 in a savings account for 3 years. The account pays compound interest at an annual rate of:

2.5% in the first year
x% in the second year
x% in the third year

There is a total amount of £2124.46 at the end of the three years. What is the interest rate in the second year?

(ans = 1.8%)

One major benefit of them returning to the UK would be that if they are resident here for the couple of years preceding university, their kids will qualify for the 9k uni fees. It’s done based on residency NOT nationality.

Thanks for everyone's input with this - I have been chatting online with DF and I think she and her DH are now pretty convinced about the need to go private. Fortunately, it seems that the fees won't be too much of a issue financially - apparently the crappy private Catholic High school down the road charges more than, say QEH (in Bristol).

I've suggested some exploratory phone calls to various schools to see who might be able to absorb them. I suppose from their POV, the whole VAT thing means some private schools may have more room than they might otherwise have done.

Just to reiterate, if they're coming from the US and going private, I'd encourage them to consider finding a school that offers the IB.

I did mention the IB to DF. I do wonder if talking to a proper relocation consultant might be useful for them - someone who can really get into the pros and cons of the various options available.

I think they've got some thinking to do and they need to work out where they want to live - school will flow from there.

The main difference between the US and the UK is the US goes for a broad range of subjects / skills and the UK narrows down quite early so children in the UK are 'ahead' because they start school earlier and narrow down their choices earlier but children in the US study a broader range and can usually take college or AP classes. Sometimes things like the ability to swim a certain distance are included in the state's rules to get a diploma.

So for uni a US high school diploma is treated the same as 5 good passes at GCSE.

One thing that might sound counter intuitive is that some of the 'bad' or 'poor' schools might actually be better for children relocating.

I taught (FE college) a lovely girl who had arrived in the UK from Poland age 14 and passed 10 GCSEs, unfortunately for her she did not pass English language so had to resit which limited her A Level choices.

The fact she didn't have English GCSE would (at that time) have brought her school's rating down.

Someone mentioned the CGP books, I agree with that, but I would also say have a look at GCSE papers and the marking schemes.

If private is potentially an option, there are some schools that offer US high school route www.acs-schools.com/cobham/acs-cobham-international-independent-school

is it even possible to find places for a Y10 and Y9 boy?

US kids are two years behind UK kids.

There is actually nothing to prevent an application for a state school place being made in advance of the family having an address in the area (even if applying from abroad), and the application must be processed. However, where there is competition for a place and applicants have to be ranked and 'living in catchment' and / or 'distance from sxhool' are factors in ranking applicants, then naturally the applicant on the doorstep off a school will be ranked higher than one whose address for the purpose is a few thousand miles away.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/schools-admissions-applications-from-overseas-children#processing-school-applications-from-parents-moving-to-england

Depends where they are going, in the country. Here is the very north of Surrey, and north-east into surrounding areas eg into London more (friends in Twickenham for eg) say getting a child in mid-year anywhere is so very difficult.

If I could afford a £1m house I would not be considering putting my kids into state as an in-year admission in these circumstances. As a PP said; I'd be looking at private for years 9-11 (so 5 years total) and then moving to a decent state sixth form.

If that meant I could only afford a £900k house so be it!

It's not as simple as ahead or behind; you can't make a blanket statement like "2 years behind". The curricula are arranged entirely differently and with different subject matter. For example, in grades 6-8 in the USA, the most common topics for social studies (history-geography-politics) are a geography course and then 2 years of US history. Well, the basic geography information won't vary, but their British compatriots will have studied entirely different history topics. Maths are maths, but depending on where they lived and how it was taught, the style of problems can be very different, and students move at different rates through the courses because they're accelerated differently depending on set. The topic sequence is different also. The science topic sequence is completely different, and in American high schools the sciences are taught one at a time rather than as a combined course, so middle school is likely set up with the expectation that they will be continuing to grade 9 biology.

(DH & I are UK educated, kids American, nieces & nephews in both UK & elsewhere)

I think my friends have come to the same conclusion and will be going private.

I think they may have thought, that if they bought in a posh enough area, the state schools would be excellent and automatically make space for their kids, which is more how it works in the States. Unfortunately, they've left it to late for that to be a viable strategy.

That was meant to be quoting @BlackBean2023

I moved late in year 9. My parents had to phone round local schools to find out who had in year spaces. We had to have an address first due to priority catchment areas. I imagine it's still the same. Once I started they sorted my GCSE choices later than others but I still got what I wanted. It would be harder in year 10 but he'll have been studying the core subjects, he will have to slot into the other courses based on his existing skills I guess so if he's been studying French or Spanish that would be good choice. I imagine history would be tricky as the curriculum could vary widely, geography might be easier etc. They may benefit from some private tuition along side school to cover any curriculum differences.

Yes private schools are much more used to taking on students who have moved from another country. It's very common here and the join and leave in all years. So if they can afford it it would be far easier.