Any 14-15 year olds been through OZ schooling?

[duckec01]

Hi,

We are hopefully moving to Victoria early next year.

The only concern I have is how my 14 year old son will settle into schooling.

He is at a very good school at the moment and doing well. I would never forgive myself if we messed up his education. Does anyone have any experiences of how easy it is to make the transition from UK system to OZ? Is the curriculum similar or will he have to learn new subjects, such as Australian history?

Any feedback appreciated.

Chris

[tony&dee]

Hi there, we also have a 14 year old daughter and i feel exactly the same way, this year is so important for options and to make it worse she does'nt want to go.

[One-And-Only]

It's best to leave before they start the courses.
That's what i'm doing anyway!
However, in your case duckec01, he will have already started, but there shouldn't be too many problems with taking him out of British education and putting him into Aussie education. If you move around February time, it will be right at the start of the school year over there, so he isn't likely to miss out on anything.
Hope that helps!

[Quoll]

In lots of ways the Aus education system is much easier than the UK one. The only formal assessment comes during years 11 and 12 and at the end of year 12 there is an assessment which leads to a university entrance score. This final two year program is virtually a standalone so as long as a student starts at the beginning of the course and does the continuous assessments along the way all that is required by the end of the two years will have been covered during the course.

The curriculum covers essentially the same stuff but expect your son to be ahead of his age peers in maths, science etc - here the emphasis is on process rather than content so if he knows his way around reference materials and his literacy skills are good he should be fine.

He will probably have different second language options. Most schools tend to offer asian languages rather than european ones so if he has to pop into an Indonesian class where the kids have been doing Indonesian for 3 years then he could be at a disadvantage but he is getting to the age where he cann drop the second language anyway.

[duckec01]

Thanks for the responses. It does make me feel a little better as he doing well at his current school.

He's also doing Mandarin as an extra-curricular so that might be useful.

[dave&jancook]

hi im all so 14, and worried about schooling,
hers my msn address bloby54321@hotmail.co.uk
andif u haveay helpful info please add me

[JourdyLou]

Heyyaa Im 14 and might be moving to victoria or Brisbane, its really hard to find information on here so im interested in this thread :)
but what i do know it that aussie years are differant and start in feb or jan, so that means ill be the youngest

xxx