Taking kids out of school for a year to escape Brexit

[BrexitBusToAnywhere]

I have been reading the news and threads on here with increasing alarm. I have decided that I need to get out for the next year with the kids. I've got some savings and DH and I have talked about renting out our home.

We are in shock at what is happening here and neither of us want to stay. We've decided it is now time to go on the trip of a lifetime and travel with the kids. We are thinking of starting in NZ as several families we know have relocated there due to Brexit in the last two years.

I would be keen to have any advice or suggestions or issues we might face. Ds is 7 and dd is 9.

You’re being way too knee jerk about this, OP.

I’ve got friends who rented their house out and are now travelling around the world whilst home schooling their children. They’re Having an absolutely fantastic time and the children are getting a once in a lifetime experience.

However: it took nearly a year of researching all the right things to do, the places to go, having enough confidence that they’d cover all the bases with home schooling. They came back for a year before bouncing off again. One of their boys settled back into school nicely but the other really struggled and they had to take him back out and home school them, which was a massive financial pressure as it meant one of them couldn’t work.

Stuff like this is amazing and definitely possible, but none of it can be done as a knee jerk reaction. You need careful planning to make sure it’s going to work and you absolutely cannot do it as a knee jerk reaction!

So like a long road trip?

Well at the moment I want to keep my options open with relation to selling our home. I have no idea what will go on with the markets as houses have started to go down in value which have been on the market for ages. If we sold it we wouldn't have to work and I think rent from it would make living fine in most places, and add to that the savings.

Insurance is probably something I need to really look at.

I'm a prepper and I wouldn't do this. The last thing kids need is panic and disruption. Stay home. Keep calm and carry on. Do some careful prepping of food supplies to build a buffer in your pantry. Don't waste money on stuff you don't need. Don't head off on unplanned traipsing.
I've lived abroad. You still need to pay the rent. You still need to repair a burst pipe or whatever. Better to deal with that stuff in familiar territory.

I thought the preppers’ threads were bad enough... I’ve seen it all now 😂

BrexitBusToAnywhere
I also saw the new CE mark that is leading to a lowering in regulatory standards yesterday which is really serious and has long lasting consequences. I didn't want this for my children and won't have them used as guinea pigs in whatever practice is going to be dreamt up in a matter of weeks to replace the CE system

Perhaps you should avoid eating any chicken in NZ then?

NZ chickens are routinely washed in a chlorine solution during processing

It's a process that came close to scuttling a free trade deal between Britain and the US this week, and contributed to Europe's rejection of the TTIP. So what is chlorine washed chicken and why do New Zealand processors do it?

www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/201852896/why-won-t-the-chlorine-washed-chicken-cross-the-atlantic

Chicken is making New Zealanders sick and spreading antibiotic-resistant bacteria, say researchers who are calling for safety labels on raw poultry products

As part of processing, chickens carcasses were put in a big vat of chilled, chlorinated water. That was very good at killing Campylobacter, but only if there was contact.It couldn't penetrate into the holes left when the feathers were removed

www.stuff.co.nz/national/103178503/the-risk-of-contamination-from-chicken-and-what-to-do-about-it

If you want to escape brexit you haven’t got long- a matter of weeks!
But my advice is go for it.
Pack up & leave- go on an adventure. It seems like you can afford it, so go!
You might have more helpful response on the overseas board on Mumsnet, people who have relocated & can offer advice on schools etc,
Good luck

If you want to go to NZ, go for it. But I cannot understand your motivation. NZ is a small self-governing country that is not in the EU and has to stand on its own two feet and trade globally. A bit like a post-Brexit UK.

NZ also has a points based immigration system. So if you fear Brexit because you value freedom if movement you will miss that in NZ.

Unless you have a useful skill that is in accordance with its requirements, you cannot just rock up in NZ and work there.

Oh do go OP.

Please.

And don't bother coming back.

Please.

👋 Bon voyage.

And don't bother coming back.

What is it with some of The English (mainly) and their attitude to other countries. Don't like something in the UK? Fuck off to North Korea then! Want to travel/emigrate? Don't come back!

People migrate. It's fun and it broadens the mind. People do it for all kinds of reasons, including escaping economic downturns. The Scots and Irish have been doing it forever.

You are actually allowed to dislike things about your country and complain about them.

Well I've heard everything now!!

Of course people are entitled to moan and decamp somewhere else. Just as other people are allowed to prefer it if they stayed away.

NZ is a small self-governing country that is not in the EU and has to stand on its own two feet and trade globally. A bit like a post-Brexit UK

You didn't finish that last sentence, "...in We hope about 30 years".

Why wouldn't anysane personone want to skip the shit of Brexit until this utopia emerges

I've just had a revelation. Bear with me.

Is the reason the English are so intolerant of migration because they don't do it themselves? They colonize but don't move because of war, famine and plague.

Scottish and Polish family and we have variously lives (different members) in all the countries of the UK, Poland, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Italy, America, Canada, Ghana, Gambia, South Africa, Turkey, New Zealand and Australia. Plus a few more for smaller periods and lots of merchant and Royal Navy travelling the world.

If you include the Irish relatives you get even more.

Maybe a plus of Brexit, and the inevitable plummet into recession, will force the English to learn a few languages and get on a plane. Like the rest of us have had to!

Maybe.

But someone has to stay put and sort out the shit.

That's what older people are for.

😱

I don't think you are crazy. We have dual citizenship and grandparents in another county, and I've set money aside for the kids and I to go for a long visit in the case of food/medicine shortages. I hope those would be relatively brief. I am not buying plane tickets, but I worry that they could become prohibitively expensive if sterling tanks dramatically. I am also doing some low-level stockpiling. Even if we don't have shortages, it is all going to get very expensive for the years it takes the idiots to sort out the trade deals.

We once did take young kids out of school for half a year (ages 8 and 10) it was marvellous. The school ticked some box to hold their place. It is a school near a university, and kids went away for months at a time often and they weren't fussed.

Wouldn't you be better off moving temporarily to the EU? If you do it in the next few weeks you'll have EU residency and an ongoing foothold. If you emigrate to New Zealand you'll just be in another non-EU country (in which case you may as well have stayed home)

We're going to Europe in 3 weeks time, we've got a return Eurotunnel ticket at the beginning of May, but we'll see. We just bought a cheaper house so we have some money in the bank, I've given up my job, my partner has got unpaid leave. The house move was planned anyway. We could rent our house out easily if we spent a couple of thousand fixing some minor issues.

So, you're not alone in this panic. Ours has been in the planning since summer 2016, and it took this long to sort out (even for such a short amount of time initially), but you need to protect yourself long(er) term if you want to or need to come back.

I should also add, that initially we thought we'd go further afield - spent a lot of time researching SE Asia - both me and my partner have been before, child hasn't. Also looked at New Zealand and Australia. None of these were to emigrate to, just to travel to/camp out in for a few months (initially). We ended up going with an EU country because of proximity to home, ability to find some child care (ours is small, but still needs the company of other children), and also an option for something to 'do'. We didn't just want to waste the time sitting about drinking wine and sunbathing. By doing what we're doing, we've worked out other benefits.

If we had the choice/finances I think personally I would move to a small holding in Ireland, the Scottish Highlands, or Canada. Somewhere we already have connections and where (a greater level of) sustainable living is an option. Plus there are a lot of similarities regarding culture/education/language so we wouldn’t have to accept a whole new everything all at once: although I massively admire people who can do that!

If there were no limits whatsoever I think I would look at Costa Rica: we know people who moved there (fed up with the rat race, jacked in their jobs and took the kids out of school). They now have a small eco B&B that’s mostly sustainable and they rent rooms out when they want to buy something that they can’t barter for etc.

Is the reason the English are so intolerant of migration because they don't do it themselves

Lots of English migrate. What a weird comment. And what's with the English-bashing on this thread anyway? FGS.