Move back to UK for kids' education despite having better quality of life where we are?

[littlewillow123]

Our children are now 12 and 9 years old, and we’re considering moving back to the UK when they reach Year 10 & Year 7. We currently live in SE Asia, where we enjoy a comfortable lifestyle, financial security, and strong family connections. However, we’re thinking about relocating so they can study in the UK from GCSEs through A-levels, potentially giving them better career opportunities and deeper cultural immersion.

💡 Key Factors We're Weighing:
✅ UK: Stronger education system, home fee eligibility for university after three years of residency, greater independence for kids, and exposure to a global environment. However, it comes with high living costs and financial sacrifices.

✅ Where we are: Comfortable lifestyle, financial stability, excellent expat community, strong family support, and flexibility. However, the kids may not fully experience UK culture until later.

📌 Additional Considerations:

• Visa is not an issue as we hold dual citizenship.
• We have family in both countries so children will be living near either sides of the family. Although at the moment they are missing out on time with my husband's side of family.
• We can’t afford private schools in the UK, so they would attend state schools.
• My husband (British) grew up in the UK, went to a top grammar school and university, but he is hesitant. From his experience, teenagers in the UK are more rebellious and exposed to alcohol and drugs at an earlier age, while kids in Asia tend not to have similar issue. One of our child has ADHD so this might be something worth considering.
• With the same income, we’ve been able to save significantly more in Vietnam than we could in the UK and still have better quality of life.

🔎 Our Dilemma:
❓ Would moving to the UK at this stage make a big difference for the kids' future? (We prefer to stay but if it's for the children's benefits, we can live in UK for a few years until they both go to uni)

❓ Or is it better to stay where we are and provide global exposure in other ways (e.g., travel, exchange programs, summer schools)?

If you’ve made a similar decision, we’d love to hear your experience! What did you choose, and how did it turn out? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! 🤔✨

We work online so we could have the same salary, but much less money left due to the higher taxation and cost. Yes, we'll also miss the community and support we have here if we move. Every time we visit, life seems quite dull in the UK. :(

I would put your eldest into a British international school now. But I think they'd struggle to attend a mainstream school in the UK at that age.

I've worked in Asia for 20 years over multiple stints and have faced this question a few times. Still don't have the answer.

It's a no win situation - you move back to the UK and resent the children for life, or live abroad and feel guilty when they become a different person to that which you had hoped they would become (if you have lived in the UK).

Do what will deliver the happiest family environment for them and will do the most to bolster their self-esteem.

Only move back if you have property and can deliver generational wealth to each one of your children as it's incredibly expensive in the UK and may not be as easy to get on for young people as you recall or where you are based now.

Whatever you do, once you do it, put the other locality out of your mind and get on with your new life.

The cultural adjustment is very significant.

If you want U.K. home fees and are set on a U.K. university it may be worth it but I would look very carefully at the area you are moving to and what state schools you are likely to get.

Your older child will find it very very difficult.

I've known people do it successfully but mostly into private.

I think year 10 is too late also . As others have said, some schools start gcse subjects in year 9, plus you have to choose which subjects you want to study in year 8 or 9. All schools are different, so your older child may not have studied everything needed as well.

British schools vary a lot as well. You get some excellent ones, and some not so good ones.

So although I din’t think it’s a bad idea returning to the UK, you need to do it when the kids are younger, not older.

But why British cultural immersion? Where do you see their future?
A lot of children growing up abroad don't easily settle in UK state school at this age. It's so different from what they know. SE Asia is far away from UK.

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Are you incapable of rational thought?!

I guess I wanted them to be able feel belonged if they ever choose to live in UK, rather than as a foreigner because they are also half British. They can choose wherever they live when they grow up, but I want them to be able to fit in either cultures because that's who they are.

You say you live in a nice part of the world with less worries about drugs and alcohol for your adhd son. They’re bilingual and you can afford quality of life. People here right now are unhappy, there are large rates of poverty (but it’s ignored because people aren’t ready to accept they live in a country where this is a reality, people are still at a stage where they’re trying to keep up appearances because of societal expectations, and there’s the ingrained attitude still of ‘poor people just make bad decisions’) jobs are disappearing, nhs is collapsing and the school system is mediocre at best and also collapsing. Just so you know.

uprooting them for an imagined education boost seems unrealistic and detrimental. Also to you who sound like you’ll miss Vietnam.

You can pay to take GCSEs I’m sure (or whatever they’re called now) so just get the necessary ones with help of a tutor if need be. Plus, universities are also collapsing so depending on how old your kids are they may not exist in the same format the do today - nor might they be in demand in the same way.

Look at online school like kings interhigh - you can supplement if you want education?

culturally, unless you’ll be sending them to hogwarts, you’ll be sending them to average land where kids drink, vape and have sex in parks starting age 14 (actually think it’s younger now) and wind up jobless after spending loads of money to binge and pill their way through uni, only to come out with a 2:2 in a subject they weren’t particularly interest in in the first place.

if you want an insight to the British teenager years, and you haven’t already, watch the Inbetweeners. (But add knife crime).

I wouldn't, I'd do international school or whatever you can afford where you are.

How long has it been since you've been living in the UK (not just visiting)? It's probably not the same place you remember from your/DH's childhood... I'll be encouraging my children to leave when they're able, I wouldn't make plans to help them come here

I agree. Even just for settling into a new school. They will need to be at the school by the start of yr 9.

Unless you’re going private the kids will be given a place where there is space so it’s unlikely to be in sought after state schools.

I left the UK in 2017 when I found UK life was dull. I've heard it has even been worse. We visit every couple of years but of course holiday is very different from day-to-day life. (but then, I also find people seem to be rather depressing)

I wouldn't at this stage. Your kids won't want to move for cultural experiences.

I understand that point. I have a Scandinavian background. We came to UK with preeschoolers but in my experience is that SE Asia is much further away not only in miles.

Children will not necessarily integrate well into their parents' culture when they grow up so far away from it. Do they want to?

I would go for a British school where you live with your kids' age. They will have the opportunity to work or to university in the UK if they want (and then you have to pay extra for it).

Then you already have your answer. You don't need to provide your children with cultural immersion. They will be immersed with whatever culture surrounds them.

You have given them a bilingual bicultural upbringing and household - that's wonderful.

There are very many well educated Vietnamese travelling the world with work or indeed living a great life in Vietnam . Where you are is great.

Don't being them back here to impoverish them and to make yourselves as a couple miserable in the process.

The UK of your husband's childhood is long gone - unless you have £45k per year per child for an exclusive private education.

Stay the course in Vietnam. International school is good enough.

I came back from SE Asia a few years ago for similar reasons and wish I hadn't. I would stay where you are if you are all happy

You find the culture that you want the children to be immersed in as dull and boring. It is doomed to fail. The whole family has to want a move for the children to settle well.

So what is this magical British culture you want your kids to adopt? There is no need to experience UK as a child in order to be able to live here as adult. I moved to the UK at 21 and I fit in just fine. If you want good quality and cheap(er) tertiary education, the UK is probably not the best choice either. Why not look at other options around the world?

What do the kids want? Uprooting teenagers is a challenge. They will miss their friends and family.

unless you can afford to be in a good catchment area, I would not move back for a standard state school. Your kids probably get a better education in a private bilingual school.

Fully agree with this.

My children have British roots and British family but we have never lived there. We visit regularly, and they identify with their British heritage just as much as their Greek.
This all begins at home. You tell them the stories from your country, you speak the language etc. They are going to have a culture shock whenever they make the move to the UK, weather it is for school, UK, or later on in life for a job.
I personally would not rip them away from their lives, their friends etc at this point in time, you say you have a great quality of life, and that is so much more important (at least to me) than anything else. When I got married, my one stipulation to my husband (he was working in the UK at the time, I was living abroad) is that I did not want to raise my children in the UK. I suffer from SAD for one, he used to leave the house in the dark and come home in the dark. He never would have seen the children during the daytime. Here we have sunshine on tap, and live a very outdoor life. Beach, BBQs, mountain bikes, chasing waterfalls. Our kids (now 19 and 21) still join us and spend time with us, and are just now turning their thoughts to jobs abroad as the job market nin their chosen career field is so small here.
Just my two cents worth :)

I came to UK in early 20s but I still felt foreign after a decade living there. I had good education, good-ish job, but I felt like I always had to try harder than any Brits to be recognized. So I guess I'm hoping the kids, if they move there early enough, they would fit in better if they choose to live in the UK in the long term.
There might be an advantage as well, of living in a more "developed" country, and have access to better career prospect (although I understand it's more on the surface and there are problems underneath)

We came back, BUT:
*Our bog standard state school matchs the gcse results of the private international (british) school.
*we had no family there
*it was the sort of country where you stayed until your cash bucket was full or your shit bucket was full, or work made you redundant, because then you had 30 days to leave as your visa expired.

I think it would be a harder choice for you.

Agree with what someone up thread has said y10 is too late. You need to be here for your youngest y9 - some subjects fill up, so the choices are limited the later you join, and you need chance to understand how the subjects work in England - sone if it will be very different.

I live in Australia - moved 10 years ago when kids were 6 and 7. We come back to UK regularly. I feel that you can get what you are looking for by getting your teens to spend long holidays in UK and even an extended time after finishing year 12. There are too many positives in your life right now to risk moving.

A 'thriving ex-pat community'...
Surely they don't require deeper cultural immersion in the UK because unless you decide to live in a 'rough' area somewhere, they'll be exposed to the same type of English culture they are now.