moving home with teenage children

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Jun 23rd 2007, 8:36 am

#16

Debbie June

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Joined: Jun 2007

Location: Loire Atlantique

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Re: moving home with teenage children

Quote:

Originally Posted by jad n rich

We went back in january, was told on the aus forum (brits moving to australia) most kids now have knives or guns

and that was around the areas we were visiting, manchester, birmingham, york and a brief stop in London.

Frankly it was absolute hollocks. Yes there are rough areas, and yes no doubt there are rough kids, like australia or anywhere else then. But we found the primary school children acted quite young - given we were told was most would be dressed like prostitutes

Take york, went ice skating, arrived just as a class of 10/11 year olds were getting a lesson, the guy running the show asked if we wanted to put our kids in with them for the lesson, I just stood there and laughed, no knives no guns no prossies, the most overwhelming thing was the amount of pink and purple puffa jackets.

Down South, friends older kids (now 19 - 23) all went to one of those big comp type secondary schools in a very multi cultrural area, all 3 ended up in university, good courses too.

My main concern if we went to Uk would be the difference in education standards between OZ and UK, my kids would be years behind the UK levels after 6 years in OZ schools, thats my worry - I imagine the workload to catch up would be daunting to say the least, but others have posted their children did catch up, so it must be possible.

It's not so much the security issue that bothers me, we've said happens everywhere even places much worse. When we went back, put our kids into state primary school in N Yorks (rural area) went very well then moved to Cardiff found best state school caption area to move to and put our kids there (couldn't afford private). They were bullied for about 2 months (till my son cracked and told me so put a stop to that) then my daughters teacher told me after Easter that my child had not once spoken in school, stayed in a corner and didn't participate. I found the level quite low to what we're used to here. Example, in first year secondary school they were teaching them how to tell the time! I worked for several months as a replacement teaching assistant in different schools there and this just confirmed the very low level in reading, writing, maths etc. I must say though that a few of the teachers I came across really did try and make a lot of effort to boost the kids and propose different activities and so on. I find that there where they tend to be better than ours is in the fact they are more street-wise and pretty creative. A lot more time seems to be spent on dialogue and imagination rather than theory. Interesting to find out what others think.

Jun 24th 2007, 5:38 am

#17

granma2b

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Joined: Jun 2007

Posts: 11

Re: moving home with teenage children

Dear brits 1, a lot of people who move to perth do find it boring, also its a very isolated state. Have you considered sydney or gold coast or melbourne, life is probably more exciting there than perth. Why do people choose perth.Have your boys seen other parts of australia at all, its a hard choice, safety wise definatly oz, but if you do go back you will be giving up residency. I think residency is lost after so many years out of the country. I hear that uk has alot of crime and violence these days. It sounds like the area you chose to live in is a rough one. Look at other places in oz where there is no crime and no drunken kids. They do exist.

Jun 24th 2007, 9:11 am

#18

dozy_muppet03

I'll have a double double

Joined: Apr 2007

Posts: 233

Re: moving home with teenage children

Quote:

Originally Posted by brits1

Hi to everyone, I would just like to know if anyone moved back to England with teenage children? our sons are 13 & 16 and want to move back home to England. I am the one that is worrying about them in school at home, one son would go to maybe Marple College and the other would start his GSCE's at High schools in the 4th year. I am worried as here in Perth even though we do have some real head cases here they are not so "street wise" in England and I am worried our sons will be "chewed up and spat out".....I know this is being "over the top" by my way of thinking as our nephews in England (mostly older than our boys) are good lads and have done well....it worries me though that they all applying to migrate over to Canada and here to Perth....these thoughts keep putting off our decision to sell our home and go.....our boys are "safe" here but bored and we miss lots of things, can anyone help and wave the "magic wand" . One old gent said to me once (he came over to Perth in the 60's) said he has had not a bad life here but most of the time he wished he'd never heard of the place....I know how he feels

hmmm, You need to probably do a little more research as safe for me is the optimum word. I think another poster suggested to simply move to a different city, which I think would be a better idea as is obtaining your citizenship first.

rgds

John