Moving with family

Hi everyone
My husband and I want to move in Scotland next year we actually live in Guadeloupe.
We have three kids 3 7 9 years old.
They don't speak English at all i would like to know if someone has the same experience it is really difficult for children?
They can continue to learn French at school?
I would like to know if there is a lot of school harassment in school in Scotland? - @StéphanieSF

Hi and welcome to the Forum.

The important thing when moving to any country permanently is to integrate into local society.  We moved to the UK (Yorkshire) from the Netherlands over 30 years ago; at the time our youngest (twins) didn't speak much English at all, but they soon picked it up (and the dialect!) and within a few months they were running and playing with the local kids, you really couldn't spot any difference.  Now, many years later, they all went on to college/Uni and you really can't tell them apart from the locals.  There are plenty of expat kids in the UK, in the big picture, they will be treated just like all the other kids in their situation, nothing special.

All tuition in UK schools is in English. Still, French is generally one of the language options available in secondary education (only as an option, languages haven't been compulsory here for over 20 years).  When we went through this, we just carried on using Dutch at home; it kept their language skills up, and as a result, all of our kids are multilingual; it's more a confidence thing than anything else.

Harassment can be a thing in any school all over the world, the important thing is that if it happens, it is brought to the attention of the teachers immediately so it can be dealt with.

I hope this helps.

Cynic

Expat Team