How easily did your children settle into their new school and what did the school do to ease the transition?

[Bjornstar]

Hi all, just interested to hear your stories regarding the above question please.

Thinking of a move abroad in the future and main worry is how ds would settle. He is 5

[Laptopwieldingharpy]

It varies wildly depending on where you are moving. To an international or local school?
To a country where you would be an expat or an immigrant?
Is your little one already in a proper school and used to routines?

[Istanbulla]

In most countries starring age is later than UK...are you thinking of temp move via a British school or perm via local or something else? Will local language be English or unfamiliar.

Kids that age are very resilient and adventurous. International schools tend to be very experienced in managing their transient populations of both pupils and parental worries.

Best of luck!

[GreenSand]

We've just moved to the Middle East.
School with teaching in English was essential. Bit stressful starting (mainly for me, kids treated it like an adventure, and that's what we told them it would be). Then after a month, a place came up in the British School, so we moved them again. School used to taking in kids at different stages, but its a much better fit across the board for us. Primary, I think they just get on with it.
And equally, I know of 3 kids with NO English go to a school and be taught in English from the start, and they have settled fine after a few weeks. The level of language acquisition is astounding. So going somewhere with similar standards and curriculum, but a different language would be OK if the school has some experience of it.

[lifeisunjust]

Very easy.
I started by not making a fuss and expecting everything to go ok.
The children are in a local school and changed language.
The school has 40% international population with over 30 nationalities and no dominant nationality or minority language.
The children were aged 3 to 10. School starts age 2-3 here.
The school did very little, a couple of hours a week extra language for the 10 year old.

If you want to make a big deal, then you will increase the anxiety in a child. I can usually detect when a new child will not settle well at my children's school by the behaviour of the parents.

[tomatodizzy]

They are in a local school and no English and they didn't speak the local language. My children were in Reception, Year 2 and Year 4 when we left the UK. The older two found the transition easier than the youngest, but he has special needs so this would not be the norm for most 4 year olds. He loved his school in the UK and trotted into the pre-school classroom without any trouble, but that lasted about 20 minutes. The school were fantastic and let me stay in the classroom with him for as long as it took. If I left he would panic so I ended up staying in there for about two months until he was ready and comfortable with his new routine. I had no trouble with the older two, if anything I found the move more difficult than they did.

[Ancienchateau]

I think it depends where you are going. If you are moving to an English speaking country or putting DC in international schools then it will be relatively easier. If you are going somewhere that involves a new language then, yes, it will be harder but at 5, most DC adapt pretty quickly.