To up sticks midway through a school year

[boddtm]

Posting here for traffic.....
We have managed to save enough money for a deposit on a house and have found a house within our budget. However, the house we are looking at is in another school district and will not be ready until December. AIBU for considering a transfer for my children part way through the school year? Have any of you have experiences with moving children mid year? Any advice would be welcome. Sadly, as I don't drive and there's no direct bus route, keeping them in their current schools is not an option, nor is moving their schools early. My daughter goes into year seven in September, and my son will be in year one in September.

[inkzooka]

Year one isn't so bad, year seven is a bit more difficult because it's her first year of secondary school ):

[araiwa]

Surely people do this all the time?

[boddtm]

I figured the YR 7 would be tricker...

[Thingvellir]

I did it - my Y1 and Y4 started at their new schools in January. It's been absolutely fine. Trickier for a y7 though but feasible. The hard part for us was finding places through in-year applications schools are so oversubscribed where we are.

[Dixiechickonhols]

Personally if you know you are definitely going to move (I assume new build ready in December) I'd do everything i could to get DC yr 7 into the new school in September. There may be a school bus? I've a DD about to start yr 7 and personally she would hate to start 3 months after the rest when people know way around and have made friends. Plus expense of 2 full new uniforms.

Yr 1 will be fine.

[Hulababy]

Re the Y7 ... consider if you can get an out of catchment place for the September.
Or even consider moving earlier into a rented place for a while to get her in to the new school. It's much easier to start y7 from the start than in December.

If not possible, then I am sure all will be fine - though do check chances of in-year applications out in advance - it just might take a bit more time to settle

[boddtm]

I wish we could get a place in Sept but I simply can't get the kids there. There are plenty of places at the high school we're moving near (out in the sticks, not a bad school) so I don't envisage that being a problem. There are also three decent primaries with space. Thank you for the advice! Really appreciate the comments!

[Brighteyes27]

It will work out I'm sure but the cost of uniforms PE kits ties etc is an unnecessary expense. Also she will only just have got to grips with one school before your moving her again. We thought about moving our 2 at the end of DD's year 6 and it would have been fine but they change so much and grow up such a lot in terms of attitude I wouldn't have wanted to stress her out further by moving schools twice in three months. Also things like the languages they study may be different and she will be on the back foot with everything-which some DC's cope with better than others. Personally if at all possible I would try and get her settled at the new school from Sept.