# Ready to jump - I think?



## MartinAW (May 8, 2017)

Hello.

I have been an avid follower of the forum for a long time - perhaps too long! I've been procrastinating about the move to Spain for literally years. I'm more comfortable with the idea but my wife is very cautious. We've been setting ourselves up for the move for a while and are now in a position to do so. All I need to do now is to give her that one last reassurance our plans are doable. There are a ton of similar posts, and they help inform, but it is hard to translate this into my specific circumstances . 

We intend to live in the Marina Alta region. My wife and 10 year-old son are Irish and I'm a Brit. We do need to rent and I wanted to run by the people on the forum my budget. On paper it looks all fine. We'd have about 4k euro per month. It sounds a lot, but when you break it down it still only leaves us about 1,000 a month for all other costs - clothing, trip back to the UK a couple of times, car replacement fund, doctor, dental, repairs/replacement of things like white goods i.e. anything other than our monthly fixed-costs.

The plan is to rent a 2/3 bed property. We live modestly, but would like to eat out once or twice a week, other than that we're very average. WDYT?

School fees	700.00
Rent	800.00
Groceries	600.00
Medical Insurance	200.00
Gas/Electric	100.00
Water	60.00
House Insurance	20.00
Mobiles	50.00
Internet 35.00
Car Insurance	20.00
Travel	100.00
Council Tax (IBI)	50.00
Car costs	100.00

Total	2835.00
Disposable after expenses	1071.06

Thanks, Martin.


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## kaipa (Aug 3, 2013)

Totally doable. But will you not get a bit bored not "doing " anything?. How will your child integrate if his parents don't speak Spanish for instance.


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## MartinAW (May 8, 2017)

kaipa said:


> Totally doable. But will you not get a bit bored not "doing " anything?. How will your child integrate if his parents don't speak Spanish for instance.


Thanks for the reply. Some people reported their kids have struggled at my son's age and have got left behind academically whilst they learn the language. The risk is my son is one of those who struggles. He does Spanish at school and goes on two or three exchanges a year (he's in Levante at the moment), so he is not going in totally cold and the school he would go to suggested he would likely be fluent by the time he left. It's a hard one.

re getting bored - That's a possibility, but life is dull in the UK. I think a change with some challenges, learning a new language, new culture, etc would keep us occupied. Also, the longer-term plan would be to buy a fixer-up and spend a few years on a project. 

Martin.


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## kaipa (Aug 3, 2013)

MartinAW said:


> Thanks for the reply. Some people reported their kids have struggled at my son's age and have got left behind academically whilst they learn the language. The risk is my son is one of those who struggles. He does Spanish at school and goes on two or three exchanges a year (he's in Levante at the moment), so he is not going in totally cold and the school he would go to suggested he would likely be fluent by the time he left. It's a hard one.
> 
> re getting bored - That's a possibility, but life is dull in the UK. I think a change with some challenges, learning a new language, new culture, etc would keep us occupied. Also, the longer-term plan would be to buy a fixer-up and spend a few years on a project.
> 
> Martin.



Personally if you want your child to be fully integrated send him to a state school. My son goes to one and loves it . Far better than the experience he had in the UK


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## MartinAW (May 8, 2017)

kaipa said:


> Personally if you want your child to be fully integrated send him to a state school. My son goes to one and loves it . Far better than the experience he had in the UK


What of his age? As I mentioned, my concern is we've left it too late to reasonably expect him to keep up academically whist learning a new language.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

MartinAW said:


> What of his age? As I mentioned, my concern is we've left it too late to reasonably expect him to keep up academically whist learning a new language.


10 is borderline - but you say he already speaks some Spanish & goes on exchanges, so he'd be in a much stronger position than most kids of that age coming over.

I'd say it would certainly be worth a try. If it didn't work out he's still young enough to move schools without it affecting him academically.

Even if he did have to repeat a year it wouldn't really matter. Many Spanish children do it. It isn't considered to be 'shameful' in any way (that's a phrase I once heard a British mum use).

IMO it's better to repeat & make sure the child knows the subject matter than to keep moving up through the years potentially never learning anything. 


My children were 5 & 9 when they started in Spanish school. They had had a couple of terms in an International school while we tested the water. My older daughter had had 4 hours of Spanish a week while there & had no problems catching up in Spanish school at all.

My younger had no Spanish at all & slipped straight in, & was immediately happier there than in the International school.

Do bear in mind though, that in the Valencia region they will also study in Valenciano. But again, most children have no problems with that all.


I don't know any non-Spanish children who went to International school who came out anywhere near fluent in Spanish. I've even known some who couldn't pass the GCSE.....


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## MartinAW (May 8, 2017)

xabiachica said:


> 10 is borderline - but you say he already speaks some Spanish & goes on exchanges, so he'd be in a much stronger position than most kids of that age coming over.
> 
> I'd say it would certainly be worth a try. If it didn't work out he's still young enough to move schools without it affecting him academically.
> 
> ...


It's the borderline bit that concerns us. We have spoken to my son about state school and spoke of repeating a year if necessary. Unfortunately he's of the mind there is a stigma attached to repeating a year. I think that comes from his own experience where kids in his school who are struggling or, to use his vernacular, a bit "slow" have been put back. It's another barrier to overcome if we had to persuade him to repeat.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

MartinAW said:


> It's the borderline bit that concerns us. We have spoken to my son about state school and spoke of repeating a year if necessary. Unfortunately he's of the mind there is a stigma attached to repeating a year. I think that comes from his own experience where kids in his school who are struggling or, to use his vernacular, a bit "slow" have been put back. It's another barrier to overcome if we had to persuade him to repeat.


You know him best - but there really is no stigma to repeating here. Kids repeat for many reasons - ill health & so on. Both of my daughters ended up reapeating a year after their dad died. 

You wouldn't have to persuade him btw. He'd have no choice if the school considered it necessary. It is highly unlikely that he'd be the only one in his class though.


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## Poloss (Feb 2, 2017)

MartinAW said:


> Hello.
> 
> I have been an avid follower of the forum for a long time - perhaps too long! I've been procrastinating about the move to Spain for literally years. *I'm more comfortable with the idea but my wife is very cautious*. We've been setting ourselves up for the move for a while and are now in a position to do so. All I need to do now is to give her that one last reassurance our plans are doable. There are a ton of similar posts, and they help inform, but it is hard to translate this into my specific circumstances.


Budget seems good, schooling good too but this is a major social upheaval. 
You and your wife will have to create a whole new network of friends and contacts. 
Will that be so easy for your wife as you seem to think it will be for you?


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## kaipa (Aug 3, 2013)

My son is just turning 11 and he started at the end of October. He is not having to repeat but it was a lot of work doing the homework ( which there is a lot of compared with UK schools- 2 hours a night) They are tested every couple of weeks as well and their averages used to decide if they will repeat or not. To be honest if you don't have pretty good Spanish you are not going to manage helping them much. In that case you would need a tutor to help as the schools probably won't have enough resources to help them. Having said that the school here is so much better than back in the UK. The teachers are young and motivated and my boy is much more advanced in Maths and things now than he would have been if we had stayed in the UK. But the real key is you have to change a lot of things in your life. Eat at different times,siesta, work in the evening, stay up late etc. If you don't do this your kid will feel different from any friends he tries to make and won't really integrate.:tea:


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## MartinAW (May 8, 2017)

Thanks for your replies so far. Seems my concerns over my budget are sorted, but it's a real quandary vis a vis his education. I do agree with the benefits of state school but it does have it's challenges for him and potentially a more difficult and stressful path, and my instinct is to avoid putting him through an ordeal.


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## kaipa (Aug 3, 2013)

You'd be surprised how quickly children adapt. The problem is often for the parents. Make no mistake: moving a family to a different culture where you have no connections, friends,jobs and don't speak the language will be difficult for at least a year. You will not feell like you do on holiday. Life in Spain can be just as boring as the UK. They have politician who are as loathed and loved as much as Sin the uk. They have crime. They pay tax. The get old. They die.


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## Horlics (Sep 27, 2011)

MartinAW said:


> Thanks for your replies so far. Seems my concerns over my budget are sorted, but it's a real quandary vis a vis his education. I do agree with the benefits of state school but it does have it's challenges for him and potentially a more difficult and stressful path, and my instinct is to avoid putting him through an ordeal.


I understand the concern if he's a struggler in his current environment. My daughter was as well, and we had to assess options of extra support within a mainstream schools, or more specialised support in schools for special education needs.

What we found is that the support units in mainstream schools were full of stressed-out unhappy kids who really should have been in special schools. Similarly, the school for children with moderate learning difficulties had many kids who should have been in a school for children with extreme learning difficulties.

Pushy parents, eh.

We opted to take her out of mainstream and she was immediately much happier.

Only you can decide, but in my view, putting a struggling 10 year old into a state school where the language is different is probably going to be a difficult time for all concerned.


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## MartinAW (May 8, 2017)

kaipa said:


> You'd be surprised how quickly children adapt. The problem is often for the parents. Make no mistake: moving a family to a different culture where you have no connections, friends,jobs and don't speak the language will be difficult for at least a year. You will not feell like you do on holiday. Life in Spain can be just as boring as the UK. They have politician who are as loathed and loved as much as Sin the uk. They have crime. They pay tax. The get old. They die.


Thanks for the advice. I'm confident we'll be OK. We do have friends in the area and are pretty gregarious and do not mind making a mess of trying out my limited Spanish. Whilst it's not quite the same thing, we moved to OZ and lived there for 15 years, so we do have some experience of starting over and getting the lie of the land - hated some of their politicians, paid tax, funnily enough I did get robbed, but not that old and not dead, yet! 

Martin.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Not trying to put you off, but not all children are sponges that soak up the language and not all take to Spain like the proverbials ducks that take to water. Most do, but to blithely think that all youngsters adapt easily is not realistic and not true.
Showing concern about your child shows that you're aware that difficulties could, and can crop up. I suppose the only thing you can do is find out about nearby schools and the facilities they have for a child with your son's profile. And have a plan B ready if the initial plan doesn't work out. 
I would say that something that might help is making sure that he starts at the beginning of a school year.
Good luck


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