naladogs

btw, why does Spain need expats (of whatever nationality?) to move here?[/QUOTE]

I am sorry if you don't know the answer to this you obviously have spent the last 3 years living in a taped up box.

Unless you have children and know of good international schools I don't see how even by asking the myriad of questions you can be of any help or encouragement - so why are you bothering ?

Get out your box, find a life - oh and read the economic pages of the newspapers. Educate yourself before even thinking of continuing to put down others.

fionamw

I am sorry if you don't know the answer to this you obviously have spent the last 3 years living in a taped up box.

Unless you have children and know of good international schools I don't see how even by asking the myriad of questions you can be of any help or encouragement - so why are you bothering ?

Get out your box, find a life - oh and read the economic pages of the newspapers. Educate yourself before even thinking of continuing to put down others.[/QUOTE]

I don't live in a box, I have a life and I both have children and have a child in an international school. Whether it is a good international school remains to be seen. For all those reasons and more I was asking pertinent questions to be able to give pertinent answers. I hope - someone other than I would be better placed to judge - I have never put down anyone on BE or anyone else. (should I go there ref economic pages? Let's not.....)
I don't think the OP was seeking encouragement, they were seeking advice. There is a difference. One can not give worthwhile advice on the basis of very limited information.
With that limited information, all I can do is advise the OP that there are quite a lot of British/International schools on the mediterranean coast. Our son is the only non-Spanish in his year in his school. He is marginally below the others in his year on end-of-year results in the Spanish subjects. He is above the others in English subjects. I'm not sure that's what was wanted, and can't see that helps because at his age we're not talking exam results or university placements or employability but there it is......

jay01

Fionamw, I think the response regarding answering the questions was more aimed at my response than your own, yes my opinion was made but as you were asking about international schools surly the questions should be where are the best schools as opposed to you wanting coastal etc.

Like the UK not all schools are equal, not all schools are going to be at the same standard of your child or maybe more advanced than your child so where they go is as important as where YOU wish to live. Sorry but you are stating that your child will never need to work, but you do although you have an income substantial enough to provide for all needs. Best bit of ADVICE I can offer is get on a plane and take time to come and have a look for your self obviously those of us that live here will all have different opinions and sounds like you just want to save yourself the airfair by getting us to do your leg work for you.

I spent 3 years researching what I wanted, needed and did not consider of importance, I have also asked for the opinion of others and made 6 research trips and I have been here just over a year now and I am now re-evaluating what my requirements are as my situation may change due to elderly parents wanting to move over, so just asking for sunnyside answers and not accepting that pitfalls will be pointed out to you is underestimating where you are moving to.

twistedmelon

naladogs,
I think you have made a mistake picking on fiona she has said nothing wrong, it was jay01 who upset the OP and I can see why.
I think you owe fiona an apology as you are doing what you say "others" here are doing, being disrespectful and in this case without justification.

Where's a concierge when you need one

Domino

Jay - thank you for putting a little bit of sensibility into this. Last night I wrote a very intemperate posting and very nearly posted it 3 times but changed my mind (ProcrastinationRUs opens at 10.00 tomorrow morning)

Surely no one can expect a response to such a short brief without being asked all sorts of searching questions - which professional co's charge €2k just to open a file.
Even making a response about "is Aldi better than Al Campo?" could involve questions before an answer can be made.

The only way to find out if a country is viable as a new place to live is to visit (not just look at a map and ask a question on the internet). Surely its like a house - do you get that "WOW!!" factor or "well ....".
There is enough on the internet about jobs, or lack of more likely, postings about language skills or lack of without asking questions that cannot be answered without being asked a further 16 questions.

We all have different experiences from moving to a new country, some good some bad (especially one poster who moved from Portugal) . But there is no need for us to start snapping at each other in open forum, it shows up the forum and all of us in bad light
although there are only 18 posts there are 434 views - so you never know who is reading these postings.......

sorry guys & gals - rant over

HBG

Schools really aren't the problem, nor is the area the OP wants to move to, the problem is moving a 13-year-old child to a foreign country.

The onset of puberty is hard enough, but it's easier in a familiar background, among familiar surroundings and in the company of friends.

I know.

fionamw

Thanks

lynnxa

well they & the mods can't be online 24/7 & read every post

that's why there's a report button it looks like this ! and it's at the bottom left next to the karma button

if you use it - all the mods from every country forum will see a report & troublesome/rude/insulting/touting/advertising posts can be dealt with quickly

naladogs

I am sorry but Fiona has confirmed what I expected, she asks this myriad of questions and yet she doesn't even know if her own sons school is a good school . If she didn't do the research how can she advise on any international school ? I can totally understand that ,maybe, in her case, her son had no choice on where he was educated, she had to go with that area for work purposes or maybe the parents personal life style choice. This poster is in the enviable position that neither of those factors are her priority. She is ( contrary to another poster )considering her daughter needs first. Putting all this importance on needing to know the required area is surely something poster can look into if she has a choice of a few good schools, she can then fly over and see if that area will then fit in with the rest of the families needs.

As for her daughter getting employment after education, this is a worldwide problem, although I do think if her daughter has 3 fluent languages and maybe knowledge of a few more, there will be International companies all to willing to employ her, so living in Spain and conversing with British expats will go along way to help her in the future. Having spent sometime in Turkey I know which country I would have preferred my daughter (whilst going through puberty ) to be going to school in.

Maybe someone who has done some research on Spanish International schools for their own children,could give some advise on the resources they used, are they happy with the school they eventually choose ? are there any pitfalls to be considered ? are their children getting any extra help in integrating within the community etc etc etc . All this type of information will be helpful even if the area maybe not the final choice.

fionamw

Every time I think 'no more' I find myself judged; being judgemental, though not uncommon, is not constructive on a forum. Some people know each other in 'real life', the rest of us can only go by posts in the ether. If someone is seeking advice, I'm certainly not going to say 'well this school is brilliant, that is cr*p, you're better off here or there or wherever'. I (we) did research, as you would hope any parent would. However, MOTs, SATs tests or any other educational statistic only apply to certain aspects of whatever's being tested, and relate to a limited timespan. Schools vary with staff dynamics, management pressures, the body of pupils, a myriad (good word!) of factors. Yes sure I (we) thought our son's school was the right one for him/us for OUR reasons. Education being one of them. He's there, he's enjoying it (at 9 that's half the battle), his English has come back to par and his Spanish remains good. Will that remain the same? Would it have been different/better at a different school? Give us a clue.
I remain convinced that with limited information available about those requesting the help, any thinking person will struggle to give advice on where to move to. Please I'm floundering here. How could they? Generalities yes. If that's what the OP is looking for we can all wade in. Most BE Spain posters willing to truly help like to offer poster-specific help, rather than platitudes or generalities. Those that talk in generalities quite often say so in their posts (I've been known to do that myself in certain circumstances.) and posters asked to give more info to help with the advice that could be forthcoming, generally do so quite willingly.

Domino

PLEASE STOP THE PERSONAL ATTACKS OR I WILL START BANGING HEADS TOGETHER

REMEMBER THAT THERE ARE FAR MORE PEOPLE OUT THERE READING THIS THREAD THAN ARE CONTRIBUTING AND THIS DISCOURTEOUS ATTITUDE TO A FELLOW FORUM MEMBER SHOWS THE FORUM IN A BAD LIGHT AS WELL AS YOURSELF

THANK YOU

naladogs

fiona

Not to worry , I have searched out a brilliant site that has 6 pages on ALL the International schools in Spain , costs , Sats, times , curriculums, percentages of pupils nationalities, student / teacher ratios , etc etc it also has a forum. I think maybe this was the sort of advice the poster was looking for.

jay01

In reply naladogs I am sure Fiona would know whether the school her children are educated at is good enough for her, as to whether the school would be good enough for someone else's child is for that parent to decide not Fiona. Had she of changed schools several times and disturbed the children's education to find out whether the school is a good one or not it would not have been of any use anyway as the harm to their needs has been done.

Why does the poster not do the leg work themselves as it appears that people opinions are not of value they are simply fishing. You can have 2 children in the same school, same class and have 2 totally different educational experiences because their particular needs are different, they are at different educational levels and their out of school experiences are very different.

Her child may well have 3 languages and the knowledge of more but does that compensate for not having friends or friends that you can call on when needed because you travelled a lot. Many children of military personal find friendships hard as they moved about, I changed schools within the same city at that age and found that having to make new friends was very hard at 13 you are changing, so moving to a different country, culture, language may be just a tad more difficult.

You only need to look through past posts to see how many adults feel isolated, unhappy, homesick because of the move to a different country, why then can we not expect that a child of 13 would not suffer a similar loss, parents are all well and good but friends offer far more.

Naladogs it is not for someone to do the research on behalf of the poster, it is for the poster to do herself as any research done by any other person will only be valid to their childs educational needs so of little value to her or her child. As for extra help, integration that again is for the poster to find out as only she will know how much help will be required.

Forums are fine for general information, general questions, like can any one tell me what medical facilities are available in XYZ, or how best do I go about renting, but to ask for specific like educational values of international schools opens them up for more questions.

twistedmelon

It was tongue in cheek, not personal, the introduction of a concierge on the forum was to stop newbies getting beaten over and as good as the idea is, it still happens, as this thread shows.

Many,many children move from school to school, country to country because of their parents career, many of these because the parent/s are in the armed forces. To say that these parents are disadvantaging their children from selfish inconsiderate reasons is deeply insulting, surely.
I felt , as did the OP, that jay01 went way over the top in judging the OP's parenting ability.
The result is that the OP has probably left and fiona is clearly upset that she has been depicted as the culprit.
It's all so .......isn't it?

lynnxa

it is isn't it?

& my comment wasn't especially aimed at you - you just gave me the opportunity to make it