In Perth my 10 year olds teacher was English and moved to OZ 25 years ago. When i told her we were moving back to UK she said the quicker we did it the better..she said the education there was slack with no curriculum. I noticed my kids grades had dropped and they lost interest.
You can't beat an English education. Been back a year and my lad is now back in set 1 with A grades

This is what worries me, we go back in April/May and my eldest 13 will be starting GCSE's in September. If we don't go now we will have missed our chance.

I know I am taking a massive risk with her education but she is smart (top of Year 8 last year with A's in all subjects) and very adaptable. My worry is as some of you say is that the work is harder over there and she will probably be behind. Not to mention all the other issues of changing schools at 13/14

Our alternative though is to stay until she finishes Year 12 (or even Uni) by which time my youngest (aged 10) will be in the same dilema and they will be carting me off to the funny farm due to the mind numbing boredom of living in Perth.

Thankfully she (and my son) are behind the move so any disruption should be kept as minimal as possible. If would be nice to hear from anyone who has taken kids back at these ages though as most seem to either younger or older.

If I knew what I knew now I would definatley have gone home sooner when they were younger so to the OP if you have the choice then I think that would be best for your kids. Good luck.

My daughter has just turned 4 when we moved back and she settled in brilliantly. Wasn't fussed about the weather (we'd moved back from Thailand) and it was just before the start of her proper education (she starts reception later this year). All the worries I had about moving back was unfounded. Kids are really adaptable - it's the adults who find it harder!

Yes I have to agree, the English education system is much tighter. I think that is possibly one of the reasons my kids wanted to get back to Oz, they missed the slack schooling - typical teenagers

I moved my aussie kids back to the UK 10 years ago.They were aged 9 & 11 yrs of age.I was more worried about the eldest as had we stayed in Oz she would of done another year of primary and eased into high school gradually.She really did get thrown in the deep end,but I have to say she coped extremely well.Her school ensured she had a couple of buddies(still friends with them today)and she made lots of friends very easily.Grade wise she managed very very well,and kept up with it all.The youngest managed extremely well also,made lots of friends and coped fine with the curriculum.I had my concerns at the time we moved,but did'nt show it.I just stayed positive and supported them both 100%.

It's the same here. There is no standardization process so each teacher in each school kind of does htere own thing. It's totally random as far as I can see. They do a provincial exam in English (in BC) and that's it. It's very relaxed compared to home but I don't think it benefits anyone. I think it makes apathetic teachers AND kids.

We moved our kids back from Perth, WA to Scotland last year (aged 11 and 8) and not before time! I had to get my 11 year old (Primary 6) a tutor to catch up and my daughter aged 8 missed the whole of P1 and P2 so she really struggled and still is now. YOu can't beat the education system we have here, I just wished we had got some tutors in Oz to make the move easier on them. I would say, in our opinion, def move before they go to high school.

I second that.

Looking at the system here in WA I would definately take our children home asap...our plan was that one finished his education off at college then hopefully Uni then the youngest would start his two year GCSE's...had it all planned out....even had places for them both at a High School and College....but then our home did not sell...what I did do was fax our youngest sons current school work over to the High School and I can honestly say that they were soooo good....IF our son was going to have any problems they had all the "back up" ready to help...and he was a straight A student here in Years 8 and 9....it all changes though in year 11 and 12...that is when the only really hard work starts (a teacher here said to us that until then education here has been very easy for the students and that is one of the causes of high drop out rates for years 11 & 12...the students are not use to the extra homework...etc...bearing in mind....both of our sons hardly got any homework at all from the school in years 8.9.10) it really is up to you but I am sure your daughter will be fine...as my SIL has said lots of times to me when I bring this subject up....that the education system in the U.K is very much use to students from overseas and helps them adapt if neaded with a bit of help....as we have found out if you have older children it is not so easy to leave when your children are at a certain age and you will always be out of sinc. year wise with the education system in the U.K if you have children at different ages...ie our oldest has finished year 12 here our youngest has just started year 12 but if we do not leave before Sept. he will miss out at college in the U.K for nearly a year....if he stays and completes year 12 he will again miss out on college for another year in the U.K as he will not be able to attend uni without having to pay for internatinal fee's....devil and the deep blue sea really but the biggest things is in all of this our sons want to move back to the U.K and they know education will not be the "doddle" they have found it here but there are still wanting to go....

Hi Brits,

It's so hard to know what to do for the best eh!

We have made the decision now that myself and the kids will stay in the UK when we go back on the 31st March while OH comes back to tie up work (We were originally just going for a reccie to check out the areas and making the final move at the end of May). That means I’ve only got 7 weeks left in Oz!!!
Lot’s to organise!

As hard as this will for us as a family it will give me the chance to get the kids into school for the last term of the UK school year and which will hopefully help prepare the eldest a bit more for the start of GCSE’s in September. Have had a positive response from a good grammar school in the area with her results and report but they cannot officially offer us a place until we are in the country and have a permanent address. Unfortunately we don’t have any family in the area whose address we can use either.

Hope your move is coming along well.

T.

We moved to Sydney this time last year when my girls were 14,12 and 10. They had been at quite an academic school in the Uk and found the work at their new school very easy and the teaching dull. My eldest hated the school and, although the younger two didn't mind it too much, the middle one was very bored (in retrospect we should have 'put her up' a year, perhaps, but then she would leave school when still very young).
The eldest's grades were dropping and she lost interest in learning.
We started talking about returning to the uk for them to finish their education and knew that we had to do it sooner rather than later because the eldest had already missed the first term of her GCSE courses.
So, I came back to the UK with them at Christmas and my oh is still working in Aus. He will be there for the next year, at least and we will have to travel out to see him in the holidays. It's a sacrifice, but one which, so far has been well worth it. The girls are all back in their old school and thriving. The older two do have some catching up to do, but, because they are so happy they are not finding it a chore. The teachers have all said how impressed they are with the girls' attitudes and say they can't believe they've ever been away, they have slotted straight back in. The teachers have also been great at adapting some of the work they'd done in Aus to here (My eldest had studied Romeo and Juliet over there, so they have said she can do her major work on that rather than Hamlet, which is what the others studied last term).
Even my youngest, who had just finished year 5 in Sydney and had to go into year 7 here, seems to be coping ok and has a sixth form helper to give her a hand catching up with maths.
It's going to be an expensive year, travelling backwards and forwards and it's hard dealing with two teens and one who thinks she is (!), but we really feel that it's worth it. And at least the exchange rate is working in our favour!
Good luck with your decision; it's a tough one, but I would say that, from an academic point of view, it's probably better to move sooner rather than later, but life's always more complicated than that!!

It's interesting reading these posts. It seems common that kids are bored at school and under challenged compared to the UK. I know that as a teacher a BIG reason for me to return is to go back to work as I feel under challenged too! There were no goals or objectives, no one comes and sees you teach, no standardization meetings, no collaborations between departments, no development planning......oh I could go on and on. The kids were fantastic but the motivated kids all said they were bored at school.

Schools have been bad in the UK, some still are but they can't get away with like they can here. Teachers say and can do the most amazingly inappropriate things at my school were out the door the second the day ended. If they ran one class after school a week they thought they were over worked and under paid. One guy had a roofing business as well as being a full time teacher. Go figure!

I'm excited and proud to be gong back to teach in the UK where I think kids are valued, challenged and the resources are excellent in the main. I will quickly add that this is my experience of the ISLAND and not the whole of Canada. My husband is shocked at the standard of education here compared to Alberta.

I'm so glad your kids have settled back CEM! What a fantastic experience for them as they will now have a real understanding of what they're getting and the efforts teachers go to make stuff happen. Fab!

And go for it STM 1971. They'll soon settle hard though it may be initially. As you said earlier, you can start saving for the therapy on your return! Best wishes to all dragging their teens back home. As a teacher I'm confident they'll get a good experience if not better!

Fantastic! People who complain about schools at home need to have a look into a classroom window here (and clearly in Aus too). The teaching is chalk and talk, all the kids desks face the front and consequently it is dry, dry, dry. I can't tel you how many projects they do on Canadian history and their local area. Ugh. I am yet to see anything on the Aztecs or the Egyptians......so different to home and I am really glad I trained in the UK and not here. I don't know how Canadian/Australian teachers cope in the UK. If you're not on your game the kids (and senior management) will eat you alive!

I had exactly this dilemma last year. My kids were aged 7 and 11 and would have changed schools at that age in the UK whereas here my eldest was going to start high school.
Our options boiled down to me and the kids moving back while husband stayed working in Canada until a suitable job came up in the UK.

I was really tempted esp. with regards to their education but decided it was MUCH more important to stay together as a family. We decided that to have the family separated would be much more stressful for them than starting school at a later age.
I would be very interested to hear what you decide and how it works out.
Good luck!

Hi The Undecided Scot

We made the decision to return to the UK when our sons were 9 & 11 years old in 2005(from Canada) as it would allow them to get in the UK secondary school system. They had no problems with getting them into the English school system and settling down. The only comment from them is that in England you were expected to work much harder and do more subjects earlier than their school in Ontario.

The UK school system is a year or so ahead of that in north America and schools here I found are pretty good at assessing the level our sons were at. Schools in the UK do have a lot of support for kids that need extra help.
Both our sons are now in top grade at our local Grammar school, so the transition from schooling in Canada seemed to have worked out.

hudd