Life north of the border is just fab for my English family – I’m glad we moved here

Nicky Mcpherson urges Scots to look at what they have and be grateful for where they live

Last October, Scotland was ranked best place in the UK for quality of life, beating its English, Welsh and Irish neighbours hands down.

Researchers used EU regional statistics to assess ‘measures of health, safety, and access to education and personal rights’. The Social Progress Index found ‘England trails behind both Scotland and Northern Ireland, beating only Wales among the home nations’.

In 2011, an opportunity arose for my husband to transfer with his company from near Liverpool to central Scotland.

Nearly six years later, we still strongly feel that a move north of the border was certainly the best one we ever made.

But what is it about Scotland that has made this English family glad to now call it ‘home’? Access to education is one of the indicators used to develop the rankings. As both a primary school teacher and mum of two young children this was one of the pulling factors for us.

One of the greatest benefits was the later age at which children begin formal schooling. I am no longer faced with teaching children in their first year who turned four the day before term began, are barely toilet trained and certainly not ready to spend all day in a classroom.

Had we stayed put, my own son would have started school aged four years and six weeks old. I know he would have struggled with that, and my professional experience tells me it would have had an adverse impact on him until he was at least