Talk to me about living in Leipzig

[FamiliesShareGerms]

DH has been offered a post in Leipzig. We still need to talk details re salary, relocation package etc but we need to think seriously whether he lives there alone during the week coming home (via Ryanair) most weekends, or whether we all move there.

DS is in Yr 3 and DD will start school in Sept. We have heard good things about the International School there, but know nothing more about the reality of living there with kids.

Any advice gratefully received!

My decision would be based on how long you'd be there: if it is only a year or two I would stay put and let your dh commute. If it is long term it's a different matters. I'm not familiar with the international school. If you go for a local school German children start school aged 6 or 7. Your ds would go into the German year 2 in September and may be academically ahead but it would give him time to learn the language. Your dd would stay in Kindergarten with very little formal learning until the September after her 6th birthday. This may have implications for her if you return to the UK (if this is where you are based now) because she won't have learnt to read and write.

Thanks Jewel - I hadn't thought about DD not starting school as such in the German system.

There's a thread here about how to keep up your children's English, so it may not be too much of a problem. You'd have two years to teach her to read and write in English before she would start school in Germany .

Sorry I can't help with what living in Leipzig is like - bumping for you to see if someone else has lived there.

Leipzig is quite a lovely city. I first visited about five years after the wall came down and even then the potential of Leipzig was really apparent. Have since heard about people studying there and it has a real buzz, or so I hear.

The German way of life is lovely for families. I am biased (I live in Germany) but I think it is a quality of life I could not replicate in the UK. Lovely weather, very outdoorsy, lots of cycling. I think you could have a really good time as a family there and I would think your kids are young enough that they could integrate into the German school system. As an example a little boy joined my daughter's nursery group in November one year speaking no German and by the start of the next school year (the following September) his German was good enough to go straight into mainstream school. Kids are so good at picking up languages at that age - I must say I would prefer the local school system rather than international school as it would be a real bonus for them to be fluent in German by the time you go home.