in year 3, so they finish a year later. It really depends on your kids, and the specific school they are going to go to in the UK. It really doesn't look good for teaching and education in the UK at the moment though - one of the main reasons for us moving is because I would never ever educate my children here in the UK, that's how bad I think it is having worked in both Primary and Secondary for a number of years now. They are shaking everything up, and there are talks about 'making the exams harder', who knows if that will happen or not, but if it does imho it means the first couple of years of them 'being harder' will penalise those students who will get 'worse' grades on paper than the previous year on year dumbing down. If your kids are bright (and by that I mean bright, not just you are their parents so think they are fab) GCSEs really aren't very hard, the only issue with moving mid GCSE years is the coursework element and the amount of time that takes, but if they are bright they will handle it and the school will probably lower the amount of GCSEs they are taking - as long as they have the basics, after 18 no one cares if they've got art/PE/Media studies GCSE anyway, so they are a bit of a waste of time anyway. If they aren't academic, they may find they