MarylandNed

I'm guessing the concern is that you don't want the kids to start school straight away while in temporary accommodation and then potentially have to move them to another school once you move into more permanent, rented accommodation (which could be in a different school district).

I agree with the others who said it's better to get them into school as soon as possible to help them make friends and settle. That means finding permanent accommodation as soon as possible - unless you know your temporary and permanent accommodations are in the same school district. It's unfortunate that you're moving as school is well under way as opposed to during the summer months.

So I would make sure you see lots of housing options asap. You can look online to see what's available and set up some viewings ahead of time. We we moved, my company provided a realtor to help but he was hopeless - obviously trying to get us to rent unsuitable houses that looked like they'd been on the market for some time. In the end we found our own place which we rented for over 3 years before finally buying somewhere in the same neighborhood. We wanted to make sure we had green cards before we bought but that was just us. I do think it's a good idea to rent for at least a year before buying as it gives you time to get to know your area and the surrounding areas.

HumphreyC

Yes indeed - although I do heartily recommend the art museum - especially now it has taken on the Higgins Armory Collection. The American Antiquarian Society is also great - although it's really just a research library and the tours are few and far between.

hungryhorace

I only just discovered the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which admittedly I thought was great!

Bob

Yeah, that was such a mega scam how they managed that. Board member for the art museum was a board member on one of the art grants that denied it to the armoury, which would have kept it open, which forced the armoury to close and then they essentially took the assets.

That said, it is a nice museum but with epic wank parking, much like most of Worcester.

warwick3

Thankyou MarylandNed, for answering and keeping this thread on track

I am moving to the US, & like all am excited - at this stage - to be doing so after an arduous visa process! Was simply looking for hindsight from parents about how they spent their initial weeks with the kids / or indeed wished they now had.
Appreciate the advice.

petitefrancaise

We arrived on Friday night and the kids were in school on Monday morning. This was end of september though and my kids were middle school/high schoolers - they had already missed the first 6 weeks of school because of the visa process timing. I had also arranged the rental house before we arrived en famille deliberately so there would be no lost time on arrival before the kids could start school. The only thing I would change would be to arrive at the start of school term but that was beyond my control.

We have no idea how old your kids are or when you are moving, both relevant bits of information if you want good answers.....

warwick3

My move date was in the original post and is rapidly approaching! My kids ages spread across the school system, so I was very welcoming of all responses. I've had some good answers by the way, if you read the full thread and thanked them along the way.

petitefrancaise

I'm not quite sure why you wrote everything in bold. I took the time to write the post because I didn't know how old your kids were.

where are the ages of the children in this post? It's not usual to have to search back through previous threads for information.

Yes, I had a prior visit a few weeks before to organise the house. Something that we asked for simply because we needed to get the kids into school asap. It was a reasonable request so the company agreed to this expense.
You cannot register children until you are a resident in the area for the school and that starts on the date your lease starts for the house. I had already chosen and visited the school on the previous visit, I had filled in all the paperwork beforehand and made sure that any required vaccinations were done in France before we left, again to avoid any delay. But my kids must be older than yours, I guess.

For younger children it might well be advisable to wait until the start of the year is over, for high schoolers though, it most definitely isn't. They miss the first load of coursework and the tests which all add up to the infamous GPA and means their rank in class is lower and they will struggle to catch up.

It wasn't my first international move with kids and I had the help of a v good relocation professional. HTH.

kodokan

Warwick3, you mention on another thread from some months back about having kids in elementary, and one going into high school 'next year'. Do you mean s/he is high school age now, and will be joining 9th grade part way through the year? If so, and your child is academically quite able, your biggest concern is not necessarily whether they start school one week or the next, it's which classes they'll be placed into.

The assumption will be the regular track, at least for 9th grade, unless you can provide evidence that honors/ accelerated is where they should be. Missing out on weighted grades for 1/4 of high school will matter, A LOT, for the child's GPA and class rank. It will also make the year frustrating for them, as the regular classes can be very pedestrian for a fast, engaged learner.

Similar issue for middle school grades, where streaming starts for math (this current thread mentions the issues: http://britishexpats.com/forum/trail...-child-883903/). But at least the actual grades for middle school don't go on the transcript, and a child can be re-tracked later.

You'll need very clear and firm evidence of your child's performance in their UK school if you want to discuss having them placed in honors classes for things like English and Social Studies. If you want them to be accelerated in Math/ Science - which will be right for your kid if they're typically in the top 1/3 of their class in these subjects - then the school will likely want to test them in.

In that case, I'd if necessary take an extra week before starting school, and have my child mug up on US math. The vocabulary is sometimes different here which can make word problems confusing; they'll need to know imperial measurement equivalences like pints, quarts, gallons and feet, yards, miles, etc, and be able to calculate in them; they almost certainly won't have deep dived into fractions to the level the US does.

Find the end of year state tests for the grade your child has just finished, and spend any spare time runnign them through the practice tests; Khan Academy would be good at filling any knowledge gaps, and it's relatively fun for kids, and free.

If high school age - not nearly as relevant for middle - then the school might want to test English skills too, but being in regular English for a year isn't as hard to correct next year. Again, perhaps have your child take the previous year's state test as some of the vocabulary used might be unfamiliar, 'write an expository essay, underline the predicate, etc'. But the math track is the big thing to get right at this stage, even if it means taking an extra week before registering in order to swot up. Find out the means the school will use to place your child, and go from there with your decision.

We can help with more tailored advice if we know the ages/ grades. It's really important if we're talking about 9th grade or above, quite important if 7th-8th, and probably doesn't matter at all below that (depending on how the school district arranges their tracking).

kodokan

Just spotted this in your OP. Do you mean your kids aren't currently in school, and are being solely homeschooled, or is it more of a supplement thing you've been doing?

If the latter, then great, you're probably ahead of the game I described above. If the former, and you DO have a child going into high school, then you have two issues:

- proving Child has been receiving a full time equivalent education in relevant subjects that feed into graduation requirements. Let us know if you've been homeschooling a high schooler, and I'll go into more detail explaining the issues about attendance and the awarding of credit hours. Child will have missed 1/4 of the school year, and there can be significant knock-ons for being able to get ANY credit awarded for 9th grade.

- proving the level they're at. You'll come under whatever rules a school has for homeschoolers joining a district, which will almost certainly involve academic testing to establish which grade they should be placed in. High school years aren't based on age, they're based on having reached a certain standard/ completed a certain number of credits to pass upwards. This could also affect your younger ones - if a homeschooled child should be in, say, 7th grade by age, they'll be tested to see if they know 6th grade material. If not, they could well be placed in 6th, depending on how pedantic the school is being. Some can be quite anti homeschoolers and 'mom grades'.

For the record, I didn't have any trouble placing my 2nd and 6th graders despite them having done their previous education in French and having been homeschooled for 8 months. The school did mutter something about getting transcripts from their previous Swiss school, but when I pointed out they'd all be in French, they instead just asked me if the kids had been 'at level' for their grades there, and chose to believe me when I said 'absolutely', and agreed that kids passing grade in a foreign school were likely to be just fine in an English-speaking one. Based on homeschool forums I've since read, I was lucky - they could've pushed the testing requirement, and they might not have passed at the time as they still both had major US knowledge gaps.

warwick3

Thanks for this info. I'm quite comfortable with the school situation. As I said I am already teaching the American curriculum to them, as they are not in uk school at the moment but being homeschooled. When I posted a few months ago I had my transfer info wrong, so my eldest will go into 7th grade when we get there not 8th (thus the reference to high school next year).
My query really was whether people wished they had taken some time out with the kids before starting school & getting caught up in the madness of school holidays and schedules. I'm perhaps more comfortable than most about having them at home studying.

MarylandNed

Unless home schooling is something people would be comfortable with and at least one parent isn't working, then I doubt that anyone is going to be comfortable keeping their kids out of school while they travel around their new surroundings as though on vacation. There's certainly no way that we could have done home schooling - my wife and I both work full-time and we have 4 kids. So no, I have no no regrets. We did things with the kids on the weekends.

warwick3

I think we crossed posts, so apologies. Some of the answers to the next post may answer yours.

Children all finished school successfully in July (independent school so ahead of national curriculum across most subjects; elementary age child has dyslexic tendencies so he's not as strong in English) but they haven't returned to UK school in September, as we thought we would be moving imminently. They have been doing an online US curriculum with me, as well as things I think are important to 'fit in' eg learning states, capitals, American history etc. (As well as a bit of 'European geography' as field trips! 😉). They were never intended to be formally homeschooled but actually it's worked very well for all of us and I wouldn't be averse to continuing for a few weeks stateside. I wouldn't want them out of school for the full school year though as want them to make local American friends.

kodokan

Brilliant - sounds like you have it well covered off. Explain to the school you've been using an online school curriculum for the transition, and did you say you have a background in education? That should all put the schools' minds very much at rest. Find out what your local 7th graders are doing in Social Studies and Science - mine is doing World History so has just finished Greeks and Romans, and basic Chemistry like the periodic table - and try to match, to make the slide in easy. The teacher usually have websites on the school one, where they detail homework and the like, so it's quite easy to find out.

Watch the math placement with your 7th grader if they are smart and would be in the top couple of sets in a UK school, and push hard for placement in the accelerated stream. 7th grade is usually the first divergent year of tracking so they might want to do a regular placement with 'we'll see', but argue for accelerated straight away so they don't get further behind, and dropping back if they can't maintain an A/B average by the end of the semester/ year.

Other than that, no, an extra couple of weeks won't make a jot of difference to their schooling. I wouldn't keep them out of school deliberately, but don't go grabbing the first rental you see just to get an address a week or two earlier.

Good luck for the move!

Bob

Interesting because they're tracked from elementary school over here, internally by the school district till third grade, then it's tracked on the state level.

Our school district has middle school starting in 5th grade as the elementary schools are pre-K through 4 but other towns start middle school in 6th grade.