We are moving in the UK from slovakia. I am worried.

[Thebravesisterstates]

We are moving in the Wales prefecture of UK from slovakia. I have a 5 year old girl and I am worried much about the education gap this will present for her.

Is my child likely to be integrated with no much trouble. School here starts from 6 years of age, there has been no formal education for her to this point?

Her English is no so good and very basic, she only knows her name on being written, no phonetic sounds yet. We have a different alphabet here.

Customs here are very different too. If my 5 year old was to take in cakes and donuts to school on her name day would this be seen as strange?
Or would the school could use this as a learning time for more understanding other cultures?
Is it only birthdays to be celebrated?

Most of us are quite nice, you get the odd idiot but I think that happens everywhere.

You might want to exchange your driving licence to a UK one, I think you can use an EU licence for decades but if you are stopped it is easier for the police to read your licence.

www.gov.uk/exchange-foreign-driving-licence

You might not though, the Irish police were trying to catch someone who had speeding and parking fines all over the country, because they had mistaken the Polish for 'driving licence' as a name.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7899171.stm

Finally a link to bilingual books, I know your little girl isn't at school yet but I expect you will want her to develop her language skills.

uk.mantralingua.com/language/slovakian

Thank you. the books look perfect for her.

@sashh
You must forgive the questions to follow, I look on the site properly to-nite and those books are mentioning a talking Pen system, but provide no link to what this is. Do you know?

I thought I'd answered this earlier.

The Pen is a barcode scanner, the same way you scan things in a supermarket, but these are tiny barcodes in some books, you can also get stickers to put on toys, so you could label a toy car's wheels, or doors.

I think it is something for professionals / schools to have.

You might not though, the Irish police were trying to catch someone who had speeding and parking fines all over the country, because they had mistaken the Polish for 'driving licence' as a name.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7899171.stm

Off topic, I don't want to derail the OPs thread too much but how embarrassing. You would think somewhere along the line someone would have picked up on it.

Hi op, I'm from Czech ( ahoj;) ), what part of uk are you moving to?

Don't move then.

OP has stated she is moving to Bridgend.

what is this about ?

Have you posted on the wrong thread?
This is about someone moving to Wales and worrying her child will be isolated and struggle because she doesn't know English or Welsh.

Thank you, As I am fluent In both I will not need the pen but was curious how it could work. It is a good way to begin introducing the languages.

@wickerhearth Hello, What was the biggest social adjustment in etiquette when you moved to the UK? Was it hard to adjust? Did you do any mistakes early on that we may avoid? I am hoping mostly it will be similar enough to adapt. We are moving to the southern Wales prefecture of the UK near the sea :).

@lollyloo88 Could you elaborate, why should you think we should not move? We are all feeling very lucky to be offered this opportunity. Plus as much as I am pained to say it, the situation with Ukraine has made me fear my daughters future here.

Don't really want to share those info publicly, but I would suggest you to join fb group- apologies folks for switching to my language for a sec-
Cesi a Slovaci v... - and there you can choose location.
There's plenty of people who would advise you and have a lots of experience.

There

Thank you, I will find the Facebook group, I understand you not wanting to go oversharing on information.

The school's we have corresponded with have been clear on the laws about punishing children. We do not smacking so it will not be a big adjustment. But important to know.

I think the not smacking thing is good. Although many people don’t smack anyway. Domestic violence is an issue in Wales and I think the idea is to teach kids that this is wrong and this prevent kids being hurt but will also carry through to adult life. I hope so.

The law is not really about banning smacking - that's an impression given by the media. It's getting rid of the defence used in suspected child abuse of 'reasonable chastisement' eg if someone is accused of abusing their child, they can't just argue that it was a normal punishment.

Hello everyone i'm to give you all an update!
What a great thing it has been with a lot of adjustment, my daughter had a period of behaviour regression with starting school but is now at back to normal!

We have had ups and downs but she is doing good with lots of English words as she heads to year 1 our school are most supportive.

Finding this adjustment hard is also for us adults but we are now fully settled and have seen it as a good choice.

Thank you all for your many hours of help towards us!

I'm in England rather than Wales but I think experiences would be about the same.

There have been several children join DDs class over the last 5 years with little to no English language, she is currently very good friends with a couple of sisters who came from Romania last year. The speed that they pick up the language is incredible to watch. They are immersed in it an school and get lots of support from the teachers and TAs, the other kids also help a lot, they all learn bits and pieces of each others languages, it's really sweet.

DD would spend time after school and in the morning google translating things and writing them down that she knew her friend had struggled with, and she learned a couple of nursery rhymes in Hindi from another friend who was missing home and wanted to sing them at school.

So pleased to hear it's going well - I love it when people take the time to post updates! Thank you xx

A child joined my DC class from East Asia (no English whatsoever) age 6 and a year later no can tell she couldn’t speak/read/write English a year ago. Your daughter will take it up so quickly.

Great that you are all adjusting just fine, it does take time, schools sound excellent. Thanks for updating.

Thank you for the update. It is always interesting hearing how people settle in other countries and different ways of doing things here and in other countries.

Hello everyone, I would like to update and to tell that were are having a really good time here. It is our first Christmas season but very exciting for all of us. It is the first year we did not celbrate on the 5th, so totally different. We decided against as my daughter struggled when we tried to all all celbrations and mix both for halloween, ending up being too many days for her to cope.

Merry Christmas season to all. Thank you for the help you have given us.

Merry Christmas / Nadolig Llawen.

So glad that you have settled and are happy! Thanks for updating and wishing you and your family all the best 🎄🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Merry Christmas! Its lovely to hear that you have settled in.