VareseCDN

Greetings,

New poster. I must confess I'm not British, either, moving from Canada to Varese, Italy - but I'm having a bit more trouble than I'd anticipated collecting the necessary information to sort out my family, here, and was hoping I could tap in to the resources on this forum to get going in the right direction.

Family (myself, wife and two sons aged 1 & 3) are coming to Varese on the 25th of this month (October). I've been in the country a couple of weeks starting work and trying to sort a few details.

Looking at flats in Varese, at the moment, and will likely end up settling in the centre, or north/west of centre.
I'm looking to find out where we could potentially enroll the older boy in preschool, so we can ensure it's suitably close to our eventual home.

Would greatly appreciate any advice on preschools we could reach out to and look into enrollment with - seeing as it's well into the school year, already.

Any advice in general would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Kevin.

Patty

Hi Kevin
can't really give you much advice as I'm not in Varese. But you should find out whether its going to suit you better (hours/budget) to use a Scuola Materna Statale (state preschool 3-6 yrs old) or a private one. We used a private one when we first arrived at it wasn't that much different in price to a public one. Your child will usually be put in a mixed class of 3 to 6 year olds. My son loved it - probably the only time he loved school over here

Lorna at Vicenza

Mine too Patty.  I'm not in Varese either but, I do have a very good friend working in the International school there. Is that where you'll be working by any chance?  

VareseCDN

thanks for the responses.

the main criteria, at this point, are who will accept our son at this point in the semester and how close are they to our apartment (hopefully we could facilitate getting him to and from school without resorting to the car).
public, private and the difference in cost isn't the main concern, right now.

we're hoping to look into the international school, eventually, but he's too young to qualify, at the moment, from what i've read on their site.
i'm also not affiliated with the school or the public service (self-employed, contract with private company in Olgiate Olona) - so there's no guarantees as to getting him in to that school.

what i'm really looking to compile is a list of pre-schools around the centre of Varese, so I can start contacting them and hopefully determine a facility/arrangement that will work for my son.
without any functional Italian, I'm having trouble doing so, at the moment.

clint

Hi Kevin I can't recommend any schools unfortunately but worth trying this group Benvenuto Varese or thiis, it will give you a list of schools to try, 1 of them is meant to be a bilingual school Asili a Varese. Scuole materne comunali, private e scuole dell'infanzia a Varese


Your best bet would be to base yourself in the following areas if you are potentially looking at the scuola europea:

from the centre to the west: via Crispi, Masnago (the road outside the football stadium will take you right up the to the scuola europea) Avigno

from the centre to the north viale Aguggiari, (coming out of town just before the traffic lights to the ippodromo via Montebello will take you to the scuola europea),S Ambrogio,.

The above areas are very popular due to proximity to Varese centro

VareseCDN

thank you. a very useful list.

i'm reaching out to multiple preschools, first to see if they have any possibility to accept my son in the middle of the semester.
hopefully we can quickly find a solution and then ensure our apartment is reasonably located relative to that.

Lorna at Vicenza

It's not really the middle of the semester as kids here didn't start school until September 16th. Most schools always keep a place or two for kids that might move etc.

LivingHere

Hello Lovely People
I have been asking for info on the citizenship forum so I thought I would pop back to say hello and I see a thread about my old stamping ground!
To the OP, my children went to a materna on via mazorati, near the Robur et Fides swimming pool. It is called dalla Chiesa (sp) named after a person not the church. I really liked it and kept them there for 3 years before sending them to the international primary. To an English speaking family the only advantage of the international school is for Mum to make friends and a local preschool school might be the only chance for your children to learn Italian. I really chose it because it was our closest school and wanted to be able to walk there and it great outside space which the children used pretty much all year. There is a school is castello cabaglio which is a forest school but it would mean driving.
Sorry for the rubbish grammar, punctuation and spelling, I am using the children's tablet.

37100

That would probably be 'Dalla Chiesa' after Generald Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa'.

High livinghere. Hope you are enjoying being back home. I'm sure you are.