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Craicnet

Moving primary age children from London to Ireland (or vice versa!)

27 replies

16freckles · 16/06/2021 16:23

Hi, I'm just looking for some advice/ guidance from anyone who has moved children from the UK to Ireland at primary level or vice versa.
So to summarize our situation - I am Irish, my husband (who is main breadwinner) is from UK. We are currently living in London with 3 DC aged 7 (year 2), 6 (year 1) and 2. For a long time we have discussed moving out of London for space (the usual) and I have always had a desire to have at least part of their upbringing in Ireland to be close to family etc. However, my husbands work will most likely always be London based and this is the complication. Any move to Ireland would have to be tentative with a view to returning if he found that the level of travel required became too frequent/exhausting. The hope would be to find work that would allow for travel every other week although of course this can't always be guaranteed.

We have secured a place in a lovely little primary school in Ireland for the DC for September and the school has just sent me booklists. It looks as though academically they will be a good year ahead (perhaps this is because they start school earlier in the UK). That's fine going over as it gives them a chance to pick up Irish and settle in without any academic pressure. My concern now is that if we do have to reverse the move in a year or two they may be academically behind when moving back into the UK system and struggle (especially a concern as if we did have to move back we'd be straight into secondary entrance exams for the eldest)... or perhaps it balances out a bit later on? Has anyone done this and how did the DC manage?

I'll be very grateful for any experiences you can share..

OP posts:
ManicMaisy · 16/03/2022 10:16

Hi there...we moved from London UK to Ireland in 2006 with a 9yr old and a 6 yr old. I'm Irish , husband is British. DH commuted back and forth for several yrs . I would say stick with it and don't worry too much, as even though classes and groups are not streamed here things will level out so to speak within a year I would say. My eldest was 9 and while she definitely was ahead of her peers to begin with this seemed to level out the second year we were here and tbh she really thrived and loved the school system , she preferred it to the UK. One good thing is that in Ireland the secondary school system is different to the UK in that everyone remains in school until age 18 and the curriculum is fairly extensive and challenging so I think things will be fine by the time they transfer over to secondary ....it really is a whole new ballgame !! If the kids are settling in ok otherwise and getting involved with activities etc then I would just see how things go over the next year.

16freckles · 17/03/2022 12:31

@ManicMaisy thank you! That’s my gut feeling on it too... when I’m not letting my head worry 🤪
Happy St Paddy’s day! ☘️

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