Step daughter in middle of gcse syllabus wants to move schools to live with us

[toddlerproofed]

Please would any teachers or parents who have experienced this tell me how detrimental it would be for my step daughter's education to move schools now at almost the end of her first year of gcse study.
She is having severe arguments with her mum (just totally different characters who clash badly) and is pleading to live here with her dad, me and her half brother.
She is very welcome to live here but would it be better for her education for her to stay where she is despite the emotional stress of her home environment?
Moving here would cause a big social stress for her - new school and peer group - but her home environment would be calmer.
It's hard to advise her in a sensible and informed way without knowing more about how such a move may effect her education.
Thank you.

It is a bad time to move. Can you find out which exam courses they are doing at the secondary school she would move to, and whether these are the same as the ones she is doing now?

Check what syllabus the new school will be following and how similar it is to the one she is currently following. I know when I did A levels I repeated a year when I changed school as the syllabus was totally different, rather than try and cram it all into one year.

The schools should be able to provide you with enough informaiton on the syllabuses (syllabi??) to help yo compare - the only thing with GSCEs is knowign how the coursework element would work out, if some work has already been submitted.

Also the schools should have strategies for this - it won't be unheard of to have a new pupil part way through.

Thank you scienceteacher and crumpet.
We will contact the local school on Monday to ask about her subject courses.

My sister did this and it was disasterous for the GCSEs TBH. She is a bright girl but flunked most of the exams, especially things like History and English. But she then ran away for a year before coming back to get straight As in her A Levels a year late, followed by a 1st at Uni

BeehiveBaby, good grief!

Our gut feeling is indeed that she should stay put and we try to help her in any other way, eg trying to persuade her mum to allow her spend all her holidays here if she wants too.

She could transfer to us for A levels or college next year. But a year appears like forever to an angst ridden teenager. We don't want her, in her current fragile state, to feel rejected or unwelcome as this has always also been her home.

It is a very bad time to move. Different schools work to different timetables for the coursework and so on.

For example in English some schools finish all the coursework in yr10 and then work on the exam stuff in yr11, some spread the coursework out over the two years. Other schools do much of the coursework in yr9 and then do media studies in yr10 or yr11.

I agree it's a bad time to move, BUT if she is determined it could be made to work. She may need to do slightly fewer exams, or do extra work outside school but it is worth exploring the options with her and the new school. An unhappy teenager will not do well, so a badly-timed move may be better than a wasted and unhappy year. If she is to move this is really the last 'window'; moves during Year 11 really are unworkable except in the most unusual circumstances.