admylin - dd improved in the diktats when she started reading more in German.
ds2 is having lese training (at a teeth-clenching 21 euros / hour), which is given by qualified german teachers, and they are doing a course tailored to help children who are behind with reading or deutsch. Basically, they assess where your child REALLY is, and start from there. ds loves it.
Our last few years in the UK were really depressing, and as a single mother with 4 children, I really cant see it being any better if we go back. Unfortunately, my work is fairly specific and mostly located in the south east, so we cant actually afford to live anywhere nice. Our last house was in Slough, and we'd be looking at an ex council flat in Basingstoke, or similar if we went back. ( Hope that doesnt annoy any residents of these towns, but I hated berkshire.) It was filthy and we walked to the grotty shops (including a bookies and a sex shop) past a brownfield site where people used to dump rubbish, dog poo and neglected houses.
The contrast with where we live now is so huge it is just off the scale. We live in a clean, pretty, middle class town, where the children can walk to the town centre (spotting the fish in the river and the woodpeckers on the way) and to school by themselves, our house is bigger, we have a garage and double glazing and all sorts of things that make life easier and more pleasant. Our town centre has a bookshop, a library, a toyshop that sells real toys not just star wars/barbie crap, an independent cinema, you can park everywhere for free if you need to, ....etc
We were (and would be) so poor in the uk, because all money went on childcare, that we couldnt afford to drive to national parks. Anyway, who wants to sit in the car for hours at the weekend. And even when you get there it simply isnt as nice as the Alps. Most good things are private, you cant just wander all over the place like you can here.
The only thing I miss is the sea.
We would have to manage to live next to a good school in the uk to get the benefits of moving back, and that wouldnt be easy. I read the bbc and mumsnet, and frankly I just shudder at moving back most of the time. (and thats not even reading that fount of doom and gloom, the Guardian!)
If it was an easy decision to go back, we would have already gone. Clearly we must do something though, cannot leave the children in this situation.
It doesnt surprise me to hear about children going from the hauptschule to the top stream in the uk. Germany is wasting an awful lot of intelligent children in those bloody hauptschule. dd will go to a good university one day, she is very bright.
I am applying for a job in Switzerland atm(out of frying pan into fire?).