I'm afraid that if I return my 9th grader will suffer because he is years away from his High School Diploma but will be too old to study for GCSE"s

does anybody know how credits can be transfered, if at all? will he be left with no GCSE's and no HSD?
has anybody got experience with bringing their U.S teenagers to the U.k?

GCSE's start in Year 10. The school in the area we moving to has been amazing. The head teacher is looking at his curriculum here matching up to the relevant GCSE's and is plotting a course to get him up-to-date. She feels it will be a relatively smooth transition. Plus all of his friends are still at that level in school and will be at that school. So it makes it easier. If you can get them in for the start of year 10 it should be easier. Does not handle immediate change well so i am keeping him involved in the whole process, to him it all makes sense and he is looking forward to it. The biggest part of the battle for me is making sure he is comfortable with the whole process. If he understands each step he is usually good. Your son may have the option of starting in an earlier year group too. I have some good UK links, but i am coming from Canada not the US so I can't help there.

Good Luck
reeni

my son is almost 15 ..aren't U.k kids doing there GCSE"s at 16? if I DO make this move happen it probably won't be until he's closer to 16
if anybody has any useful links I'd appreciate

I am in the same boat as you and it is very frustrating. I think we are going to wait the 3 years until my daughter is 18 and finishes high school here in Canada

In England they do their GCSE's at 16.

If you find another way, please let me know. Although I think OH will not entertain the idea of going now.

it is actually not done specifically at 16 the final results are given at 16. the GCSE tests are done over a period of 2 years. Year 10 and 11. Tests are written periodically now and they add up to a finished GCSE result. At least in Yorkshire area.

Here is the emailed information from the Head teacher at our school to be:
"Many thanks for your enquiry and my apologies for the late reply.

You are right it will be a difficult time for Matthew to transfer schools and we will need to think quite carefully about what approach is best.

GCSEs are a two year course. They start in Year 10. Many course now are modular, which means that throughout the two years students take several small exams. So Matthew would join us half way through the courses, giving him a number of exams to resit and a year’s work to catch up.

It may be that Matthew goes back a year, in order to take the courses in full. We obviously would need to discuss this to work out the pros and cons.

Matthew would need to chose three option subjects. There are a number of subjects which all students must take as the ‘core’. These include Maths, English, Science, ICT, PE and RE. Options subjects include (and this is not an exhaustive list), History, Geography, Media, Drama, Health and Social Care, Languages, Art, Music, Technology, Business Studies.

I hope this provides you with a starting point. Please do be in touch with me if I can be of any further help."


We have had further discussions to smooth every thing out.

Your son may able to do some GCSEs along side A-levels or a BTEC at a sixth form college from the September after he turns 16. Maths & English GCSEs at grade C or above are pretty essential for kids these days in the UK.

Our sixth form college does them as re-sits for definate but may also do the full course. I believe you can study to age 19 here in Further Education (sixth form school/college) too which allows an extra year for "catch up". I have Googled a couple of Further Ed colleges and they appear to do 1 year part time courses in both Maths and English.

If Brits1 is out there she may be able to add to this, I have some recollection of reading that she has a son doing the same?

Does your son know yet what direction he hopes to go? ie A Levels and Uni or a vocational course and work or apprenticeship?

Being put back a year may be the way to go if the school will let him, that way he'll start in year 10 and do the whole two years of GCSE courses.
We are waiting till Ds graduates in 2012 he'll already be 18 but I worry he won't have the same opportunities as he won't have any GCSE's under his belt, he'll be taking his SAT's (they are the college entrance exams here) so he'll have those results along with high school transcripts with all his grades.
Wish we could have got him in year 10 and moved that way, but that would have been last year and his brother was still in Uni here too.