Moving to the UK, concerned about schools

[Einnie]

We currently live in Italy and our daughter is 3.5. My husband is finishing medicine and we’re looking at moving to the UK for the medicine foundation programme and residency.

We don’t yet know where we’re going to be. We’re considering Cambridge, Manchester and Reading. (A lot depends on which foundation programme he’ll get).

Naturally, I’ve got a ton of questions about education and not knowing our destination isn’t helping. My daughter is currently enrolled in a state-funded pre-school here in Italy and speaks only Italian and Hebrew (I’m originally Israeli). I’ve been showing her cartoons in English and trying to teach her phrases as well as arrange play dates with English-speaking friends.

If all goes accordingly, we’re due to move in June 2019. Her birthday is in March, so she’ll be 4.5 when September arrives. I understand that children in this age start primary school? Or will she be too young? I read that there’s an option of late admission to primary schools. But I’m concerned about whether she’ll manage to pick up English before September and if there will be a way to gradually introduce her into the system?

But, in the case that she’s too young, what’re the options for pre-school?

How do I know remotely what constitutes as a good primary school? I’m more concerned about the staff and children being friendly and the general atmosphere than academic achievement (not because it isn’t important to me, but because I think she’ll be alright academically wherever she goes). But how do I find out about these things without visiting the schools? And even if there is a way to fly over and find these things out, what are the things you look for when you do a school visit? What questions should I ask?

I’m not sure whether this is just our area, but our Local Authority publishes admissions statistics for the past few years. From those you may be able to see which schools are usually undersubscribed and likely to have spaces for late applicants. It doesn’t necessarily follow that these are poor schools (though they may be). You can then try to find somewhere to live close to one of those schools.

If it helps, DD had a little girl in her class last year (Reception) who was Slovenian. She didn't speak any English at all at the beginning of the year and neither did her mum (Teacher had to speak to someone on the phone, I presume the dad, to relay messages back and forth at the classroom door)
She really quickly picked up the language and was doing really well by the summer term.

Just to reassure you in terms of language I was an expat abroad where people tended to put their children into the local schools to do immersion. With full time school places the children under 6 tended to become fluent within 6 months - 1 year. One pair of brothers actually did it in 2 months!

Sorry, missed the bit about you arriving in June. It will be a late application then, allocations will have been made , sent out and accepted for September. The good news is the local authority will know by then which schools have vacancies, the bad news is they might not be the popular or well regarded schools.

You will get a school place, the local authority has to offer you one, but it will be in a school with a vacancy, not necessarily the one you would have chosen. The general advice is to accept the place because if you refuse it the local authority is not obliged to offer you another place.

You can however go on the waiting list for a place at a preferred school (or several preferred schools!) . In some areas there is movement and places do come up.

This is true- we moved house in April (only from the next town over) and our dc went to a Roman Catholic school we were very happy with. There wasn't a place for them at the (equally fab) RC school in the new town but they have just started at the new school today.
So there is often movement and you may find that nearer to the time places may become available anyway.
We chose to commute from April-July to minimise disruption but if distance had been prohibitive I would have sent them to the nearest school and then transferred them as soon as a place became available.

Fellow expat here, but I find that UK independent schooling seems to be rather different than in most countries--at least in London and the southeast.

In many countriesthis may be the case in Italyindependent schools are a reasonably affordable option for middle class families, provided they are careful about other spending.

But in the UK, and esp in London/southeast England as I say, independent schools seem to be very expensivethe prices have absolutely soared in the past 25 years, and there is no sign that the prices are going down either. I don't know why this is, or why England seems to have such expensive independent schools, but I would advise looking into the finances very carefully-not just fees for a 4yo, but the long-term picture of how the fees rise as the kids get older and how much they are predicted to rise over time. Especially if you are thinking of having another child.

A friend of mine recently relocated from Australia. She and her husband are not badly off and were paying for four sets of private school fees in Australia. They took one look at the UK situation and realized that this was simply not feasible here, and that they really needed to buy a property in the catchment area of a decent state school and then top up with tutoring, like most middle-class UK families do these days.

Definitely not saying "don't do indepedant schools" (many people use them and find them a great choice), just check carefully that you can afford it long-term.

Of course, one option if there is no decent state school available, is to do private for a while until a good state school place becomes available.

Yet another person saying don't worry about language. British born children are, if anything, in the minority, in DS's class. There is some extra support for children who don't speak English as their first language. They all seem to pick it up and manage fine pretty quickly.