Our son is currently doing his GCSE's and we are not sure whether he should stay and finish until he is 16, he is currently 14 and a half or whether he would actually benefit from the Australian system.
Due to the educational year starting differently, we would be looking to settle about a year from now (meaning 6 months before he would complete GCSE finals), so he would actually re-start Year 11. Any ideas/views/experiences shared would be greatly appreciated.
We are in exactly the same position, my daughter is in year 10 and we are hoping everything will come together for next Christmas, but my daughter will only have 6 months of her GCSE's left, so we are thinking of leaving her with my sister and then I'll come back and get her the following June. Its a really hard decision as I have four children and she's the oldest, so if we wait for her to finish our next child will have started his GCSE's.
Our eldest is 13 and had just finished year 8 when we moved here in August, as the terms start in jan here, he had to re do the last term in yr 8 again before he starts year 9 in Jan. Given the feedback we received from him and the sort of work he was studying my advice would be stay until your kids have finished their GCSE's.
We have found that the English curriculum seems to be more challenging than the Australian one (our son was in a state school), I'm not saying that it is any worse, just different and I think your kids may benefit from finishing an education they are familiar with.
This is just our experience and we are definately not slagging off the australian education system, the thing that I would perhaps ask myself is would I move my kids from one school to another in the UK when they had such a short time before they finished their exams.
Thanks for your comments. Really very helpful. We were thinking that we would probably have to wait until then but it is good to hear other peoples thoughts.
Well have a wonderful Christmas wherever you may be and a fantastic New Year. I'm off to grab a glass of wine, Australian of course.
It really depends on where you are going we have moved to Victoria with 4 kids including a 16 year old. He did very well in his exams before we came here and then repeated the final term of year 10 including final exams, which he passed. I would say that where we are the standards are very similar the only problems that Sam had was where he hadn't studied the book in English and he forgot some of his maths but passed without any problems. The important thing to remember is that the 16 year old exams don't mean the same out here and it is the year 11 and 12 that decides Uni and whether you can get jobs etc. Year 10 is a practice for this. Year 11 and 12 is far more flexible including academic and if needed apprentiships linked with day release.
I am very happy with the education system here in Victoria and think that the VCE is an excellent qualification as he will have to keep English throughout the final 2 years and in the UK he would have certainly dropped it ASAP.
Be aware though that if you leave it until after your child has finished their GCSEs they will have no time to get aclimatised to the Australian system and I have heard of schools being unhappy at letting children take some higher level subjects at year 11 without a track record here (we haven't personally had any problems but I have heard of difficulties especially in Queensland). Some children find the change difficult and so will be going straight into work that counts towards their final grades without having time to aclimatise properly. If you are planning to stay in Australia then GCSEs are useless here in most cases as companies aren't interested relying on VCE or equivalent results.
Good luck with whatever you decide and have a good Christmas.
Nicky
If you are planning to stay in Australia then GCSEs are useless here in most cases as companies aren't interested relying on VCE or equivalent results.
That was really helpful Nicky. Our daughter is 16 in March, and we leave the UK next weekend, so she will in effect be starting year 11 again in Sydney. She has said that she is quite anxious about it, but excited too, and we will get her extra tuition as necessary to help her to adjust to the Australian requirements.
Slightly stressed with 7 days to go!
That was really helpful Nicky. Our daughter is 16 in March, and we leave the UK next weekend, so she will in effect be starting year 11 again in Sydney. She has said that she is quite anxious about it, but excited too, and we will get her extra tuition as necessary to help her to adjust to the Australian requirements.
Slightly stressed with 7 days to go!
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I have a feeling in Queensland that they take their exams in year 12 not year 11. Is that the same in Sydney. Our son will just take his exams here as we are due to go in September (he was 16 in October last year), i've not told him about them not being worth much in Oz as after all this hard work I dont want him slacking of now lol
The youngest will prob go into year 10, which I have heard from one of the schools is quite a good year to go into anyway.
GCSEs will be totally irrelevant no matter where you are in Aus. All that will matter will be the outcome of the final year assessments which is what will give them university entrance scores or a basic year 12 certificate. Please dont talk about "repeating" years when your kids come here - it isnt repeating, it is just joining in with the age cohort at an appropriate time (years have different names across Australia so it really isnt a useful term at all!!). It certainly isnt worth delaying your departure just to finish GCSEs - I think it would be a whole different story if he were finishing A levels because they can be evaluated against Aus examinations for university entrance. Also, because the year 12 assessments are actually the end result of a 2 year course, it is more difficult for kids arriving part way through the last 2 years to slot in and many do tend to have to restart from year 11 in order to get the content for the whole course.
Personally I think the UK system has more rigor than the Aus system at HS and university levels and generally in Aus there is less emphasis on examinations per se but more on contiuous assessment.
That was really helpful Nicky. Our daughter is 16 in March, and we leave the UK next weekend, so she will in effect be starting year 11 again in Sydney. She has said that she is quite anxious about it, but excited too, and we will get her extra tuition as necessary to help her to adjust to the Australian requirements.
Slightly stressed with 7 days to go!
Your daughter will be just the right age for starting year 11 in January. I doubt that she will need much extra tuition if her basic HS has been sound. She will begin her HSC course along with everyone else and the course content will sort of start from scratch so she wont have missed anything at all. HSC can be very stressful as it is one of the most rigorous processes we have in Aus with a good deal of the result coming from real examinations.
