school age kids and moving to the UK

Hubby is worried as ihis friend who is British was living here in the states with his UK family and was transfered back to the UK. The kids are very behind in school as schools run differently. What do they do when you have a child that is of school age to get them in school? Is it based only on age like here? Any info would be great.

Hi Munchie-

I'll be making the move w/my girls soon....would be happy to let you know what I find out.  I suspect that some of your questions may have different answers depending on where you're moving.  From talking to my cousin (also has two school age girls) the school may have some discretion as to what year the children move into.  Because of the different birthday 'cutoff' in Scotland (Feb instead of Sep?) I'm going to request my oldest stay back one year.  Based soley on her birthday, she would be moving directly into high school, roughly the equivalent of 7th grade here.  She's due to start 6th grade here in August, so she would be missing an entire year of school.  Not only that, but I'd like her to attend the same school as her younger sister for the first year we're in Scotland.  Since her birthday is in December, it shouldn't be a problem.  My cousin said that for children w/December, Jan, and Feb birthdays parents were given the option of delaying them a year. 

That would be great! Keep me posted.

When we moved here my daughters were 6 and 9. The youngest had just started to read and had been put in a T1 class. So she was way behind in reading and had to catch up.

She went back to the USA in April and she was ahead of some of the subjects they were studing there. She had already done Shakespeare here and they didn't even do Shakespeare there until 11th grade and she is just going into the 9th grade in August.

The USA was behind in what they were doing and they put them in classes grouped by their ages. They just expected them to get on with it and catch up.. She did with a bit of tutoring...

Hope that helps.
Shell