Moving to Tenerife

[antoniaw]

hello, this is my first time posting on here :)
Myself, my husband and our 2 children (10 & 5) have made the exciting decision to move abroad. My in laws already live in Tenerife and we visit so often that its like a second home to us.
I was wondering if anyone on here had done the same and could offer any advice. Im a little worried about schooling as I initially decided I was going to pay for them to go to a private British school. However, Im starting to change my mind and am thinking a Spanish school would be better for them to blend into the culture and learn the language.
sorry for the long post, but any tips or advice would be great!
TIA

Have you lived in both places?

Whether you agree with a poster or not they have every right to keep posting as long as they don't break Talk Guidelines
You may not want to hear what they have to say or believe them but it is absoutely Ok for them to post.
This poster may be pretty negative but they make some points I recognise from time I have spent in Spain and from friends who moved there with children
Hopefully you have researched this properly beyond having lovely holidays there and information from (presumably retired) in laws and I can absolutely understand why you want to do this but you need to go in with your eyes completely open.

So neither you, DH or the kids know the language, you're taking your oldest away from his friends and your youngest won't even get a chance at a decent start of education.
Do you hate your family? You'd be setting the kids up for a failure in education and they'd resent you once they're older.

Do not do it.

If YOU want to move abroad, wait until your children are adults and then move. If you can't wait until then, you should never of had children.

But that poster was extremely bitter and negative.

She knows the OP isn't just thinking of moving to Tenerife. The OP had already DECIDED to move to Tenerife.

So why then come on and post about 15 posts like she did saying how terrible the place is. It was of no use and was derailing the thread.

Hi OP. A friend of mine moved to mainland Spain at a similar age to your eldest. She went to a British school but picked up Spanish really well.

She came back to the UK at 18 for uni, which would be an option for your kids too. Not sure why that poster is acting like you're signing your kids up to never leave the island for the rest of their life!

I would absolutely do the same as you if I could, good luck!

Won't get a start at a decent education?

The schools in Spain are excellent.

Possibly but thats the nature of forums like MN, people can post and there is nothing you can do about it.

Sometimes it depends on attitude.

if you are warm and open and positive you are more likely to get a good response from people.

And even with the language barrier people can tell your intentions.

Yes. If only there was a mute button.

Oh my goodness. There is life and civilisation outside the UK. And even an education system. Even it is possible to learn a different language.

Ditto. You are very annoying. As for op she wasn’t really looking for real experiences, but just validation that she was doing the right thing. It doesn’t sound like she has given much thought to her children at all, and none of them can speak the language, nor have they checked out the tax implications, employment opportunities etc. With little to no meaningful research, I feel sad for the children mostly and that’s why I have posted.

@Slol I know - it's quite amazing that we have so many poorly educated , ill mannered young adults around given that we have this totally world beating educational system - my main concern is for the legalities of working and earning a living there- education- not so much!!

It's not just my opinion of you though is it.

The OP has also asked you to stop posting.

So maybe it's something that you're doing?

Do you realise that you are irritating people.

The schools in Spain are great. I've worked in some myself.

I lived in Spain for two years, yes.

And they have a lot similar too. Language, and culture.

Oh, absolutely. I don't know Tenerife, but I'm familiar with Fuerteventura. Great holiday destination, but there's a lot of issues about living in the Canary Islands you'd need to think about.

Although technically part of Spain, geographically the islands are just off the African coast so you're living a very long way from Spain indeed. It makes a lot of things hard to get hold of and a lot more expensive than they would be on the mainland, and a lot of services and opportunities will be more limited. I live in Edinburgh, and my MIL lives in Orkney - her life is COMPLETELY different to mine, and I'd be very wary of moving to a small island that's very isolated, because that's what Tenerife is. On Fuerteventura, I noticed fresh food was hard to get hold of and pretty expensive, because it's difficult transporting stuff there.

Mainland Spain and the Canaries are two very different worlds.

I owned a property in Spain for over 30 years, & spent extended periods of time there.
Everything was fine. I was an EU citizen & could more or less do as I pleased - within the law I hasten to add.

Until Brexit. Everything has changed for UK citizens - for the worse.
Although OP has an EU passport, her DH - & presumably DCs - do not.
I think working etc needs to be re-evaluated.

Just an observation …. A lot of MN seems to hate for women to move abroad ….

You can always come back, esp if kids go to a British school. Get the tax advice… do the move. Spain probably happy to have you. Go have fun.

You really need to check out the remote working thing in more detail. It's become much more difficult since Brexit. There are all kinds of tax implications and legalities. It isn't as easy as just move to Tenerife and keep on working as before.
You will find it hard to get a job without Spanish and while you can learn (hopefully very quickly) you might still be very limited in what you can do.

As regards the schooling, I think I would send the older child to the British school, possibly the younger one as well. I live in Austria and know several expats with children of varying ages. They all found school very hard even though they very quickly became fluent in the language. They didn't thrive and some of the parents now say they felt their child didn't reach their potential because even though they could speak the language they'd missed out on the basics of learning to write in that language, as well as missing out on all the basic vocabulary on Maths and then being thrown in at 11 years old and not having a clue what was being said to them in the Maths lessons.
One of the parents told me that they thought their daughter was doing ok and that maybe she just wasn't that academic until it came to do the driving lessons and she could not pass the theory test in German after several tries (all learners have to do a two week course before doing the test). They found an English speaking driving school and it's possible to do the test in English here and she passed with 100% the first time and then her mother realized that maybe she just wasn't understanding German to the extent they thought and not enough to grasp the school curriculum.
Something to think about...

Some posters have had a go at you but it might be because you've sort of given the impression that you haven't thought things through properly. You go to Tenerife regularly, have in-laws there, can't speak Spanish but you like it there and it's a second home so you are going to move. It all sounds a bit head in the clouds romantic almost. If you want to do it you have to do a lot more research than this especially about the tax implications and ability to work there.