Year 6 is the last year of primary school in the British National Curriculum. Planning what comes next is easier than many parents expect, and it starts with understanding how British secondary education is structured.
How British secondary school is organised
- Key Stage 3 (Years 7 to 9), ages 11 to 14. A broad curriculum: English, mathematics, sciences, humanities, languages, the arts, computing and PE.
- Key Stage 4 (Years 10 and 11), ages 14 to 16. Students take IGCSEs or GCSEs, usually in eight to ten subjects.
- Key Stage 5 (Years 12 and 13), ages 16 to 18. A-levels or another post-16 qualification, the route to university.
A child moving from Year 6 joins Year 7, the first year of Key Stage 3.
What Year 6 should leave a child with
Secondary school asks for independence: organising your own work, writing at length, and working with numbers fluently enough to think about the problem rather than the arithmetic. A good Year 6 builds exactly those habits: extended writing, multi-step problems, and research projects children run themselves.
Choosing a secondary school
Start looking during Year 5. The questions that matter:
- Continuity of curriculum. Does the school teach Key Stage 3 to the English National Curriculum, leading to IGCSE or GCSE?
- Entry points and timing. When does it admit into Year 7, and when do applications open?
- Assessment. Is there an entrance assessment, and what does it cover?
- Day or boarding, and what that means for your family's week.
- The road beyond 16. Does the school offer A-levels or another post-16 route?
Staying with the British curriculum, or moving to CBC
Most families continue with the British curriculum, because the year groups and expectations carry straight on. Families who plan to move into the Kenyan system should ask the receiving school how it places children arriving from British primary schools; placement is usually based on age and an assessment.
At Elyton
Elyton teaches from Crèche to Year 6, with the year groups above added as our founding cohort grows. Our Key Stage 2 years are built to make the step into secondary feel like a continuation, not a cliff edge.
