PoolePaul

do you think it was the best idea to put children through international school??
we are thinking of moving over (we allready have 1 set of parents and also sister and her family there plus uncles aunts etc) but wife thinks kids should go to international school , i on the other hand think the spanish school system would be better , and when they reach high school we could then give them private tuition .

we want to integrate into the spanish system, but if our children when older, want to move back to the uk, i think they need at some point to learn the written english language.

paul

lynnxa

they only stayed there one year....IMO it was a total waste of money at their ages...(isn't hindsight wonderful?)...they finish their 3rd year in Spanish school tomorrow - they are now nearly 8 & 11.....completely fluent in spanish - which they never would have been otherwise, and overall I reckon they are getting a better education than they did at the international one

how old are your children? if they are under, say, 10, then they (IMO) would be better off in a spanish school, although it depends to some extent on the child

PoolePaul

my children are 3 and 8. my only concern is with my eldest , throwing her in at the deep end , i'm sure she will cope but it may be a little tough.
my sister in law , and family moved over 3 years ago to a small spanish village (san felipe, nr catral) her eldest at 7 went to the small village school
tough at first , but now she and her younger brother are also fluent. the good thing about a village school is that annie (mother ) also had to learn spanish pdq' so in the space of 3 years thay have all settled in to spanish life.
based on their experiance, we should be on the next plane out, but i have a good job , nice house, so its a big step. but i think the pro's definatly outway the con's.

spain

IMO Spanish school would be fine for your kids, they are young enough to adapt - of course it will be hard at first and upsetting for them and you ( I cried for the first week our son went to school here, he was almost 7) but 6 months later he was communicating without too many problems

If I could change anything we did, it would be to rent first before buying, taking time to choose and get to know different areas

lynnxa

totally agree!

and we are so glad that we didn't buy.....and in fact are still renting 3 1/2 years down the line!

We thought we knew when we came over where we wanted to live, but have moved several times since we came. We're still in the same town, but have tried different areas within it, moving for a different reason each time.

The biggest shock was how cold a villa we rented became in the winter.....and we had almost bought that one! It was so bad that I just refused to stay another minute one day in January 2005 & sent hubby out to find something else NOW! (Luckily we only had to give a month notice so didn't lose too much financially

We now know what sort of place we want to live in......love the house we are in & the urb. it is on...........really close (walkable) to the shops, school, beach etc.........but we have a hankering for a more spanish area.......so maybe we'll be on the move again whe dd no.1 finishes primary school next June.

Rosemary

We were well prepared as we had really researched and had a good idea of what we wanted from an area. I had been sensible deciding that as we were near to retirement age anyway that we could possibly be facing some ill health due to age and insisted that we were not a million miles away from a hospital. We both love seeing the sea and did not want to live too far inland but did not want to live in a holiday zone. My biggest fear was living in an area that was so dry that there was little greenery and a lack of different trees (UK tends to spoils people with that aspect).

So we found a town house in a small town, 5 km from a good hospital, 8 km from the sea, inland enough to have mountains around and views. Being amongst the orange groves and the paddy fields means that we see a variety of greens throughout the year and there is no shortage of different trees along the roadsides and on the mountains.

Great area, wonderful people and the position just right so no regrets.

Problems we have faced, delays in tradesmen turning up so that our house is not progressing at the rate that we would wish, the house needs far more doing to it than we had originally thought (our ideas have mushroomed) and being a townhouse there are loads of stairs. The stairs could eventually drive us from this house but at the moment that is the only foreseeable thing that can. The language of everyone in this town is totally Valenciano not Spanish so our hopes of our Spanish improving by eavesdropping on peoples normal conversations has knocked our confidence. Our neighbours include us and do speak Spanish to us but they seem to have difficulty with it themselves.

We never did have any thoughts of Spain being our utopia. We had our feet firmly on the ground but that is because we are very boring ordinary people who were looking to live in a very boring ordinary working town.

Mind you with all of the religious processions, fiestas and the friendliness of the people I should not be using the word boring as we are never bored. Our lives are very ordinary as we expected but busy on DIY, waiting for trademen, seeing some of the area (this will increase when the house is done), and doing the things that we have always done means that we are living as normal a life as we would in UK but are here in much nicer weather. We are definitely not sun worshippers but we hate dreary and rainy, just seeing the sun almost daily boosts us both.

Regrets, yes not being in a position to have done this when we were younger and fitter and not being natural linguists.

Rosemary