Moving with teenagers in tow

[Seahorsemama]

hi - appreciate any guidance, thoughts.
short version - we have a lovely house in rural Ireland- no mortgage. Over here live in the south east, really struggling - working full time and have a part time job also and still not making ends meet with husbands business not making enough he to pay him a wage.
thinking of just selling up here and moving over - put teenagers in school there though eldest is in year 10 here but she doesn’t mind she says if we move.

would it really stuff her up?? She is very sociable and does so well at school here I’m worried about a potentially bad move for her. Her younger sisters are fine and would slot in easier into the Irish school system.
please - anyone done this? Thank you 🙏

Have you researched the leaving cert system? It’s very different to England (I assume that’s where you are now). If you are moving rurally the school may have fewer subject options. Also Ireland is hella expensive right now. Remember you will have to pay for doctors, bins, school books, possibly an iPad for school.

Are you Irish?
Just checking how much you know about the system you'd be moving to.

Schoolbooks are free now up to Junior Cert level (age 15 approx).

Like pp, I'm assuming when you say you're currently in the southeast you mean England. If not, then some of what I say is irrelevant.

The oldest will get an exemption from studying Irish, the younger may not (depending on age). Apart from that, they will be expected to follow the Irish curriculum. Have you looked into it?

Obviously if you currently own two houses and will sell one, you will have spare money for a while, but as pp said, the cost of living in Ireland is high, considerably higher than the UK average. Will your wages be roughly the same?

Your children will lose their status as home students if they wanted to study in the UK for university (not sure about NI). The Irish funding system is different, but broadly speaking your children would have the same status whether they lived in the UK or Ireland.

More emotionally, I would check your children are ready for the realities of a move from London commuter belt to the country, regardless of nation. How much time have they spent there? Do they have friends or cousins locally? What are their personalities like?

When you say "rural", how rural do you mean?

We lived rurally in Cork and it was a pain in the arse to go anywhere. DD was stuck in the house unless one of us was available to drive her. The internet was dire, couldn't stream Netflix for example and not being drinkers or big into GAA meant that we struggled to fit into the local community.

Do you already have a community network where your house is?

I live in rural North West and have teenagers and I would say that fitting in might be tricky. The school my own children go to is quite rural and traditional and while there's a mix of nationalities, they have mostly grown up together. I get the vibe from my son that some of the kids that have landed in mid-way have had trouble fitting in and/or adjusting. He wouldn't be putting himself out to welcome them anyway and frankly most wouldn't. I think teenage friendship culture is fairly brutal to be honest, I don't know if that's universal! A busy big town or city school with more churn MIGHT be better but these things are very individual and hard to predict. I know families where one child was miserable and the other thrived. I have to say I don't think I would EVER move in teenage years but that's just me.

Education wise, your year 10 child would be at a huge disadvantage. Our curriculum is completely different. Their choices would also be restricted, they can hardly catch up on ten years of history etc. __

If your eldest is in Y10 now, it's less than a year until GCSEs are done. Depending on the age of the younger children, I'd wait until eldest has completed GCSEs, otherwise she's going to be in a very difficult position, educationally.

We did it. Go for it!

I was that age when my parents moved back to Ireland - the first year we were in a rented house and I changed year a few weeks into the new school (late October early November), and did my Intercert there. That summer we moved 25 miles and I started a new school in a country town. It takes a while, some schools are better than others, but I liked the people in my new school, and still see some of them half a century on. Tackling new subjects - Irish history and geography - was a challenge, but I managed - the brain is shaped for learning things at that age. It would be a good idea for her to do TY/Transition Year, and get some tuition during that year to get her up to the same level as the rest of her age group.