Finding the Right School

Next to finding a house, finding the right school is probably going to be the biggest task you’ll have while preparing for your move. There are so many decisions to make and only you can make them. Remember that your families social life will revolve around where your kids are in school. So, it is important that it is right for everyone. If you are a social family, you’ll want to take this into consideration when deciding on local school versus international school. Going to local school has lots of perks but it can be very isolating. Having the kids in a school where no one in the family knows the language can be very daunting at first. However, over time, this will change as you adapt and learn the language. This kids will be sure to pick it up and usually by Christmas and certainly by the end of the first year, they will be speaking the local language.

All that said, knowing how to communicate on the playground is not the same as being able to learn various subjects in the new language. This takes longer and it does add some strain to the children’s learning. When they are in primary school it’s not a big deal but when you have kids in middle and high school, this can become a real handicap. Once, we spent a whole year helping to get one of our daughters language skills up to a place where she could comfortably go to middle school. They weren’t sure she would get there and this put a lot of pressure on her. She literally only focused on the language and getting through each subject as best as she could. It was doable but all consuming. She was very happy socially but it was a challenge. Imagine, trying to learn algebra in another language. Ask yourself how easy it is to do something basic like count to 20 in a foreign language. I think we sometimes forget about that.