Moving back to UK with 2 chileren

[Livingabroad12]

We have lived abroad since before we had children and are planning to move back in the next couple of years. Our oldest would be starting around year 2. Has anyone else made this transition and has any advice on how to make it as easy as possible for them? Concerned about them starting part way through primary school when friendships will be established etc. Looking for any tips/advice/ positive stories and words of warning!!

I did this when my dc were in year four and year seven. Socially it was fine, it can actually be a bit of an advantage not to start at the right time as it's a bit of a novelty for the children to get someone new in their class. They both made friend's quickly and easily.

I had a big problem getting my youngest a school place at all but that's the luck of the draw.

Academically my dc were really, really behind. It was better for the oldest who went straight into high school in the January of year seven. Although on her first ever day she did not have one subject she had done before!

The youngest found it more difficult and I had to get her a tutor (despite actually being a primary school teacher myself) to help her catch up. She was in the bottom group for everything, going out with the TA doing extra work and it was awful for her.

We relocated back a little younger then moved within the U.K. at those ages, it was fine. Kids move all the time. If English isn't proficient it's harder but children learn so fast (friends arrived in year r&2 not speaking a work, fluent in 3 months, top of the class in under 2 years!)

Thank you so much. It’s great to hear that they managed so well socially as well. Our daughter (and I!) has such a lovely group of friends here and i was worried she’d have missed out on a lot already back home! We speak English at home and she’s taking English classes where we live now so hopefully she’ll be able to catch up academically 🤞

We moved abroad YR and Y2.
Came back to the UK Y4 and Y6.

It was fine. Friends were no issue. School places were available - but this isn't the case everywhere, and you may end up with the kids in different schools if both need places immediately.

As above, the expectations were higher.
By luck, we came back after finishing the school year in June. And put the kids into their new school straight away. Gave us the summer holidays to catch up the worst bits of missing knowledge.

If you have time now, think about basic UK Geography and History. As those are very likely to be missing. That said, mine aced the deserts topic in Geography (as that's where we'd been living) so it's not that they are academically behind in everything, just they have a different knowledge base.