The parents of the British kids are mainly here to serve the British community as builders, plumbers, cleaners, bar owners, time share dealers etc

Very few ever work in a Spanish company

However they do have to deal with Spanish suppliers, customers and the normal rules and regulations so that cannot work entirely in English. This you and others have said many times when people ask about working in Spain. For a person to work here they cannot stay entirely in their "English bubble", their lives are affected by the fact that they have chosen to live and work in Spain even if this is amongst the English and working for English people.

Rosemary

If they choose to work legally then I agree. However, many do not

And for everything else, they pay for a gestor

My social circle includes 8 business owners. They all speak reasonable Spanish. Yes, the people CM talks about exist, but there are many who find it necessary to know Spanish and have made the effort to do so.

Thanks I thought maybe local areas had some statistics they may have made available. The pay wall would not be a problem, if you have some details of the paper or even better a bibliography then I can get it.

Thanks again

This article is interesting. It says that, among newcomers, British students are the ones that struggle the most with their integration into the educative system. It took into account data collected in over 700 education centres:

Los británicos son los alumnos de Alicante con más dificultad para integrarse - Informacion.es

Hi from the France forum, I've just found this interesting thread.
This is a "European" problem and if your parents were coming to France, I'd say the same as most of the posters here.
Attempting the Bac in a Spanish State School isn't just a question of language, it's the whole culture of the country that's concerned. You'd have to know as much Spanish Literature/History/Geography as the Spanish students of your age have already learnt over the years, and follow Maths/Scientific subjects in Spanish. There may be a second foreign language in the Spanish Bac, like in France. Imagine translating a French (or other) literary text into Spanish....
A daunting venture in all subjects, even if you've mastered them in English, as you've got to write everything in Spanish.
Is it not possible to finish your education in the UK? or an International School in Spain?
In any case I wish you all the best, it's not going to be easy....

I think this is the original paper I saw

As the El Pais article says "British people (in Spain) deny themselves the possibility of integrating with other nationalities" which is why their kids do so badly in state schools in Spain

Los británicos son los alumnos con mayor dificultad para integrarse | Edición impresa | EL PAÍS

Many thanks

That's interesting, although I'd have thought the statistics are skewed by where they are drawn from. Many Brits go to live in certain parts of Alicante such as Torrevieja precisely because they don't intend to integrate that much, so they may not be representative of Brits in Spain as a whole. Also if you look at the other nationalities they were being compared to (Ecuadorians, Colombians, and Moroccans) then it's not surprising that those groups integrate better.

Sure, so if these British people don´t want to integrate into Spanish society, then why are they sending their children to Spanish schools?

Personally I cannot understand parents who move to Spain for "a better lifestyle" and dump their kids in the local school with no support from their parents

These kind of people are not worthy to be called parents. I came across many such children when I lived in the Costa del sol, now in their 20s, still not speakig Spanish, and dealing drugs or selling timeshare. Living the dream!

Money and/or ignorance. Many people seem to have a blind spot to languages because they've never been outside of their linguistic comfort zone. They have no experience of trying to survive in an environment where nobody speaks your language, and they don't have a clue how much time and effort is required to become fluent in another language.

I'm afraid some parents are like that.

You really are rude at times, who the hell do you think you are.

How did you meet the 'many such children' selling drugs? were you after your weekend fix?

Correct. He's an arse, but arses pop-up in most people's lives. You just gotta ignore them.

I played football with and against them. It´s all they talked about in the changing room and when having a beer afterwards