Moving from Sydney to UK

[KookyGreyCrab]

Moving from Sydney to UK. We have friends in Poole. Should we go there ? We have three kids one is a teenager. We have a very very nice life in AUS but it’s just too far and I’m too homesick to enjoy it. We are used to living close to the ocean so I’m thinking Poole could be a good first step back into the UK. We’ve been in AUS 14 years. Am I mad for wanting to do this 😳

No, you're not mad to do it. Why stay in Australia if it's too far from family and friends?

I dont know Poole, but I think heading to a coastal area would be a good idea, but should have some buzz. Going from Sydney to a small town will be the shock.

Where are your family located?

We moved from UK to Aus after 10 years and it was absolutely the right decision to move home.

It comes down to how many friends and family you have in the UK and whether they will embrace you back.
Compare COL in Aus and UK as although I remember the former being $$$$ in the UK everything has shot up. It is now excruciating.
Also bear in mind that there is no NHS dentistry here and state school education is increasingly on its knees, along with the NHS.
You will have reverse culture shock and the UK has changed an awful lot.
I had to come back for reasons I won't go into but I do have regrets. Hence the negativity.
Just be careful, is what I am saying, as homesickness, longing, rose tinted glasses may be for a UK that no longer exists.

Agree with this. We went back for two months and there was some thought of it being a precursor to a longer term move back to the UK from Australia.

After two months I was so so ready to get back to Australia. For lots of reasons.

I would consider carefully:

If you are living far away from friends and family in the UK this can still result in feeling lonely and disconnected. Trains and transport are expensive and school attendance makes travelling difficult.

The weather - it will shock you after a longer period. Not the cold, but the grey skies.

The people - Australians are so friendly and easy/out going - it took me a long time to stop shooting the breeze with cashiers, people on platforms.

The fact that things work - hospitals, dentists etc.

Not saying the UK is all bad but I agree with pp, try to analyse the benefits with a wider lens than just proximity to friends and family.

Definitely carefully consider the schooling and medical needs you will have a if you can afford private great but nothing works here now. We are not exaggerating.

How old is the teenager? What school year they need will be critical.

Also
poole is one of the most expensive parts of the uk though it is lovely.

When is the 14 year old’s birthday? what age will they be on 1 Sept? 14 is tricky to enter an English school because GCSE courses are taught from 14-16.

If the child will still be 14 on 1 Sept 2026, they would enter Y10. This is usually the start of the 2 year GCSE courses, and kids will have chosen their preferred subject “options” the previous year. So as well as finding a school with space, you’ll be limited to the subjects which have spaces. DD is 14, just finished year 9, and they actually started their GCSE exam course last term at the start of June.

If the child will be 15 by 1 Sept, they will be entering Y11, half way through GCSE exam courses. So all the above concerns apply, plus they will have missed half the syllabus and potentially some coursework deadlines.

Year groups, exam courses etc work much the same for state and private schools.

GCSEs are the principal exams taken in England (and Wales), but, rarely, some schools teach the International Baccalaureate, which might be easier to slot in to (I don’t know to be fair. My dad’s work moved us round the world a lot and we did this so we could drop in to where we’d left off in whichever country we’d landed in).

And Poole is very expensive.

I think you need to consider employment options first, unless you've got the money to live with the football managers and TV pundits at Sandbanks.

Sandbanks is a very small part of Poole! Plenty of adorable places to live in Poole and Bournemouth.

My point is most people need a job, if you can afford Sandbanks you probably don't.

My teenage son has learning difficulties (hates current academic school) and I don’t even think he’ll get any grades to be honest so I’m not sure what to do with him. I have a meeting with his school to chat through what a transfer could look like to the UK re:schooling. It’s really for social, sports and hands on subjects. We are thinking trade for him. He has the basics re: he can read and write but needs support in all subjects and adjusted work to his level. He’ll actually be 16 in August 2027. He’s in year 9 currently (australia kids start schooling later). From Feb -Dec each year. so next year he’ll be in year 10 from February 2027 which is when we are thinking of moving. Or we could stretch it out and move July 2027. Starting school sept 2027 in UK perhaps he could start in year 10 again from then . ?? We are looking for schools that can really support ADHD and dyslexia.

I'm from Poole. Don't live there now as we couldn't find jobs. Not many large local employers. What do you do and where will you work? Most people I know in Poole are teachers, medics etc (ie could work anywhere) or commute to London regularly. Which is expensive and exhausting - I did it for 2 years, which was enough and we moved.

Oof. You might be better off looking at Internet High or a post 16 college doing basic Maths and English next September.
No matter how far behind he is, it is highly unlikely they will put him in a state school, year 10 aged 16, not 15. They usually insist on them being in the same aged cohort, even if August born. Private might be different. You could try arguing the Summer Born route for the year's difference but you usually cannot apply for a place until you are actually back, living in the country.
You will be restricted by how many places are available in an in-year move and even if you strike lucky moving back Feb and get him a place within a month, he will have missed all the course Sept to Easter. That's before you get me started on the lack of support for SEND now.
Sorry for being so negative but I work in secondary schools. We do have managed moves going into year 11, fresh start and all that, whereby a student will be entered for however many subjects they can that fit (as not all schools will offer same options and have spaces within that option) but it is rare.
He would probably be entered at foundation level but still have missed a year's worth of content.
I don't know what to tell you.

If he will be 16 in Aug 27, I would move with a view to him starting at college in Sept 27 to do something practical. He will likely have to do English and Maths alongside this.

If you are intent on coming back in that time scale, I'd suggest contacting Magna Academy explaining the situation, the timescale, the additional needs and see what they can suggest or offer.
They also have a sixth form but most students would be doing post 16 courses not resits. You could find out if a Functional Skills level 2 course would be available anywhere.

I would think practically about yours and your DH's jobs and where you will be most likely to find work and then figure out where to live from there. Do either of you have family that it would be handy to not be too far from? When we'd lived OS for a few years we made a very head over heart practical choice about where to live. Work as first priority, with schools and ease of seeing family as also important considerations. Don't just move where one friend lives unless it ticks YOUR boxes. Their boxes may be different.

I am from Sydney and live in sw London near the Thames. I visited friends in Poole last year and it reminded me of rose bay in Sydney with all of the boats moored. I would say go for it. A beautiful place to end up in the uk

English schools aren't that flexible. If he's 16 in August 2027 he would be in Yr 11 in February-July 2027 and his peers will be finishing their GCSEs at the time you move back. You will be looking at finding him a further education college course for students who don't have any GCSEs. This might suit him well from what you've said, but it's important for both you and him to know it won't be a school.

On a separate note, I had severe culture shock when I came back to the UK (many years ago now) and would really advise you come back and spend some time here before you make the decision. The UK has changed a lot in the past 14 years.

Do your research now. Hands-on subjects like Design Tech or Art have a heavy amount of coursework in year 10. He'd have missed a whole Natural Forms sketchbook for example. I am not saying it's not possible to do. I am saying you've made it harder.
College might accept Sept but you would have to check if he only turned 16 the previous month and had never been in mainstream here.
I just googled for you: Bournemouth and Poole College have entry level, level 1 certif with Eng/Maths, a steps program and Leap program. I would contact them as well 🍀

Having been an expat, the only reason I would return is if it’s best for you and your immediate family. Done rely on family and friends being there.

So even if she claimed Summer born, you don't even think he could do year 10 from Easter Katharine? I am not saying it's a good idea at all but if that's not remotely an option, unless B&P college will meet his needs, she should stay put.
I wish you all the best OP. 💐

How happy are your children in Oz? My sister is out there and actually decided not to uproot the kids because life here is so different compared to Sydney. Her kids are Ozzies through and through - the ocean, the sport, and we just couldn’t imagine them being happy here even though both she and her husband are English.

Can the 14 yo repeat a year rather than starting GCSE courses straight away, so she can choose options? That may map better to where they are in Australian schooling - my 11 yo has completed a year of secondary school while her cousin exactly the same age in Oz starts secondary school in January, so on paper 1.5 years behind. I would do some research on how the systems map. We generally find he hasn’t covered what our daughter is doing, certainly not in Science or English, still being at primary.

We did a major move in the U.K. when our kids were 9 and 7 - with hindsight I would not have done it. Kids adapt far less well than everyone thinks and the problem is that they have this rose-tinted view of the first part of their childhood so whenever there’s a problem, they wish they were back there and you get hit with “If we hadn’t left (former home) this wouldn’t have happened/I’d still have all my friends” etc . Even 5 years on it sometimes crops up and we get hit with the bat of having uprooted them and asked why. It can be especially challenging because I was very happy in our former home and though I decided to go all in on the move, and like it, because my husband was unhappy where we used to live I sometimes have to really bite my tongue to not say “Don’t blame me, blame your dad, I liked it there too.” I have always managed not to but make sure your husband is all in so you don’t face this dynamic.

I posted already but another learning from our move within the UK that I suspect may be similar if you live in Sydney (I am basing this on what I know of my sister’s circle in Sydney) - don’t underestimate the difference in aspiration that demographics make.

So where she lives, and where we lived in the south east of the U.K. , most people were mobile, educated professionals. In the U.K. provinces, a lot of people are not like that. I know Poole is expensive but check this.
When your kids go to school with children whose families have never lived anywhere else, who aren’t especially well educated so feed their kids junk and let them have their phones until midnight, who have difficult family backgrounds and parents who use drugs, it becomes much more difficult to parent them as you would like because the outside influences are so different. I had simply not taken this on board having led a sheltered existence in a prosperous part of the country or internationally previously…it’s quite an adjustment.

OP should definitely talk to the LA and any prospective schools about it to gauge how willing they would be. My experience has been that schools/local authorities are really reluctant to do anything out of year group, even at standard admission points, even though they have processes and policies to accommodate. I have no personal experience with the LA/schools in question though so they could potentially be more supportive. A supportive FE college might well be a good/better fit for OP's son regardless.