moving back to UK, need to home ed boys in English....

[DebInAustria]

Hi, after 5 years in Austria we are hoping to sell up soon and move back to the UK. ds1 is 10 and ds2 is 8, ds1 had foundation stage in UK then school here, ds2 has had no English education at all. So they are VERY behind their peers in English, especially spelling, grammar, etc... They break up from school here this week so without school stress I intend to try go improve their English. What I need are up to date resources, preferably online to help me out. I was a teacher in the UK but feel very out of date. Thanks for any help you can give me

I wouldn't stress, are you sending them to school in the UK? If they speak good English, then they will be fine, if they are just thrown in at the deep end. There a lot of children at similar ages who arrive in the UK with no English, and the majority of those thrive (at least in the State system).
I would wait and see what their teacher's recommend in the way of additional help, also if you can help them read English and read widely that will help a lot.

Of course if you are planning to home educate in the UK that will be a different matter.

I'd spend time reading in English and playing word games (Scrabble, crosswords, anything really). Perhaps you could write stories together (there is fun software for illustrating and writing stories). I wouldn't worry about making it too structured. If they are reading and writing in German, they'll soon pick up on the differences (the main one, of course, will be the over-capitalisation of nouns in English).

Well done on your move, I wouldn't stress aswell they will pick it up.

If you feel out of touch, here is the literacy strategy for state schools and will give you an idea of the sort of thing that might be going on in school when they get there. I'm assuming they will be Year 6 and 4 (that your eldest won't be 11 before the end of August). I have to say I don't like it much for lots of reasons and haven't used it as a home educator, but thought it might be a useful thing for you to have a look at.

However, I would second what the others have said. I worked as a classroom teacher for many years and even had children arrive who couldn't speak the language at all, let alone write it. I was always astounded how quickly they caught up - one of those wonderful things about being a child! If you do too much over the summer you might risk losing their enthusiasm for their new school.