If your family and children will be coming to the UK with you, then finding a school or childcare will be an important issue for you. In the UK children must attend school between the ages of 5 and 16 (it was recently planned to raise this to 18 in 2013), and many of course stay in school or college until they are 18 and can go on to university. If you bring children with you who are of this age then they will be required to attend school. Most children attend local community schools – primary schools for 5- to 11-year-olds and secondary (or high) schools for 11- to 16-year-olds. These schools are free, and in university towns and cities will be quite used to taking children of international students. The accommodation office at the university you have chosen will be able to provide you with a list of local schools, and you will then need to contact the Principal of the school directly (known as a Headteacher in the UK) to arrange a place for your child.
Choosing a school before you actually arrive in the UK is quite difficult of course. Normally you would want to know what parents and the local community feels about each school before choosing. Also, you may not know exactly where your family will be living and what will be the nearest school. If you do know where you will be living, however, you can get ahead and apply for places before you arrive in the UK. If you wait until after you arrive, you need to use your first few days to approach local schools quite quickly to find a place for your child.
In theory, parents in the UK can choose which school to send their children to. Most tend to use the nearest school, particularly for their primary age children, but you will want to be sure that the school you choose is suitable for your children. Successful schools, of course, are popular and because schools have a limited capacity you may find your nearest school has no space for your children. However, you will normally be able to find a good alternative in a neighbouring area.
To help parents in choosing a school, the academic performance and quality of schools is carefully monitored by the government through a system of school inspections. Inspection reports for schools in England and Wales are published on the web. In England (but not in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland) the achievement of every school in examinations is also published in ‘league tables’. You can view this information on the Department for Children, Schools and Families and Ofsted websites. The British Council website has a useful leaflet on ‘Choosing a state-funded school’ which you can download.
If you have children younger than 5 years old then you may want to find a nursery or childcare place for them. We have looked at the issues and costs involved in this in the Money matters section.
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