Nicolette Howard

My partner has been offered a teaching job in Monda, at The Marbella Design Institute. Our income would be in the region of 1800 Euros a month. I would have to leave my job in the UK (would hopefully eventually find something in Spain) but essentially we would have just one income. We have 3 children 7,7 and 10 who would have to go to a local school. This could be an amazing (if initially difficult) experience/opportunity for us as a family to learn a different language and immerse ourselves in a different culture. Any advise welcome as finding this a very hard decision.

Rosemary

Hi and a warm welcome to the Spanish forum on BE. Myself and Fred James are the moderators for the Spanish forums whilst BEVS moderates Europe. Moderators are there to ensure that the site runs smoothly within the rules of BE. This is so that members gain the information that they are looking for and find their experiences on the forums to be friendly and worthwhile.

Problems and complaints should always be addressed to a moderator who will look into the matter and deal with it efficiently and fairly. Our members who post in the Spain Forums are usually friendly and helpful with a wealth of knowledge about the issues of living in Spain. I hope that you enjoy your time participating in the forums.

Please let me know if you need any further help.

Rosemary

missile

It is an opportunity / challenge. It will be difficult, whether it is viable rather depends on your attitude.

Is this a full time position, with benefits?

What are your present circumstances?

Nicolette Howard

It is standard for teaching 10months then has to be renewed but would have offer of summer school work. Just worried about surviving on one wage in Spain. Situation in the UK is good socially - love where we live (not money wise just pay cuts, pay freezes and more work to do) but husbands current teaching post awful. They are grinding teachers down in the UK.

cricketman

It is not a lot of money to live on in Spain for a family of 5. It is less than the median/average salary. And personally my family of 4 need a lot more than that

flotsum

I think money wise it will be very tight, we are a family of 4 and live on about this but..... we do not have a mortgage or rent. The average yearly cost for school books and stationary at a state school is 350 to 400 euros per child, its getting better for us with more teachers ditching the books but the core curriculum books are expensive. My experience of a 10 year old at state school is that it is very challenging and you will need to budget for spanish lessons for all of you but especially the children in their first year (after the first year mine were comfortable being taught in spanish)
Be careful about summer school work, we took a gamble a couple of years ago when my husband was offered some work like this, only for it not to appear there are a lot of people after this type of work in the summer and in our town summer school is only 6 weeks with the whole of august treated as a holiday no summer school, it is also only morning and at an hourly rate so look into this very carefully.

missile

Please clarify whether your OHs salary includes benefits? I am guessing for a 10 month contract it would not? Medical treatment is not free in Spain and with a young family I would not risk winging it. Private insurance would be a significant cost from your income.

I would suggest situation for teachers is better than many other vocations. It will be no better (or worse) in Spain. As in the UK, some schools treat their staff better than others. You might want to contact other teachers in the school where your OH has been offered a post.

I would suggest you need to think about your priorities and carefully weigh up your options.

On the other hand, what do you have to loose? Give it a go and if it doesn't work out, I am sure your OH will find a job back in the UK .

Nicolette Howard

Thank you for your advice. He is flying out tomorrow (at our expense!) to check it out. They originally wanted a lecturer and now want him to be Head of Department but it appears for no more money. We feel we have to explore all the options as we both are keen to learn another language and for our kids to have the opportunity to be bilingual (ironically my partner was starting to learn Spanish again this summer, it felt like it was meant to be as he only sent his CV off on a whim and they called him immediately!). We do have a house to rent out here but I would want any money made on this to help pay off a little of the mortgage, so if we need to come back there's not so much pressure to find a high paid job. I do work part time here and it is possible I might be able to continue to do a little work for the company but no guarantees. Just worry about the children really, not being able to help them with homework etc. We would learn some Spanish before we go (one of my best friends is Spanish).

flotsum

Helping with the homework was difficult and frustrating but....really helped me to begin to learn spanish, with the children just put enough time aside to do this and it really is not a problem after the first year no help needed! My daughter at 10 when she came here is I would say nearly bilingual. My son at 6 when he came here is more spanish then bi lingual as it is the language he uses for education, his conjugation of english verbs is now getting bad in his verbal use of english, verbally he is bilingual but not academically. Now we have to work on their english at home total opposite of when we came here when we worked on spanish at home.

Nicolette Howard

Thanks for your words. It really helps. How old are your children now?

I have always wanted to live in Europe and learn another language ever since i was a teenager. I did loads of travelling but never fulfilled that ambition. However I was never expecting to do it with kids, plus this has come completely out of the blue and want to really consider this opportunity. One thing I worry about is bullying at school, the kids not knowing the language, being bullied by other british kids who don't like the competition from new british kids??

flotsum

My daughter is 15 and her brother 11, there are no other British kids where we are they were a novelty! No shortage of friends! my daughter does not like to stand out and when she went to high school began to speaks english like a spanish child (until she gets caught out!), the other day she was not concentrating in English, she has just changed classes, was asked to read and read in perfect english to the shock of her new classmates and she became a rarity again for a few days. I have not noticed any more bullying than I did in England, girls like anywhere else can be catty and fall out all the time and boys will be boys, I have found that older kids are caring towards younger children and on the whole when my children joined their school when we came over they were only shown kindness by the children and teachers the children were not pushed in the first year and were actively encouraged to learn spanish from their classmates, however it is a small school and no other english so I do not know what it is like with school with other english children. The first year was very hard for the children and us and I worried that the kids would not meet their potential but they are both now flying and are always in the top percentage of their class, however we do always have some money in reserve for top up lessons in any subject and I would recommend that you have an emergency fund put aside for education as well as life.

Nicolette Howard

Many thanks, that's all helpful. Where do you live?