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Expat Family Tips

Expat Education: An Expat’s Guide to Choosing a School Overseas

June 10, 2019 by familymoveabroad

Considering an overseas move with children? Grab a copy of Expat Education: An Expat’s Guide to Choosing a School Overseas by Carole Hallett Mobbs. Wherever you’re at on your expat journey, this book will help you understand the many education related concerns of moving your child to a foreign country.

Expat Education — The Kinds of Schools You’ll Find Living Abroad

The author speaks from her personal journey — 12 years parenting in Japan, Germany and South Africa. Her book provides an overview of key education terms and models you’re likely to come across while parenting abroad.

First, you’ll learn the ups and downs of “local schools” from an expat perspective. (Also known as public, national or state schools, depending on what country you’re in.) From there, the author demystifies the many faces of “international schools.” These schools might be bilingual schools. They might be British, American or Canadian Schools. French and German Schools. And many other individual national systems exported to foreign countries. You’ll then learn the different degree options and university entrance exams those institutional paths are tied to. International Baccalaureate, American High School Diploma, GCSE, and much more.

Education and Schooling within the Context of Your Expat Life

Next up, examining these options through critical lenses — your child’s age, grade level, personality style, learning challenges, foreign language proficiency, and many other personal metrics. One of the things I appreciated most? Framing these options within the context of your path as an expat. There’s no one right answer. Your needs and goals may change with time, and where you’re living. Looking at education within this bigger picture enables you to balance the unpredictabilities of your expat life.

Stories shared by patrons of Carole’s website bring life to these different options. They highlight the reality that every family is different. It’s up to you, as expat parents, to do your homework. Even more, these mini interviews balance the author’s first person narrative. Both Carole’s experience and those of many of these other expats couldn’t be more different than my family’s time here in Spain. I appreciated both how and why some of these parents made the decisions that they did. The trade-offs that came with those choices. And what they might do differently if they were to do it all over again. There’s so much we don’t know starting down our expat path. These stories give you the chance to see your family in their situation and maybe learn something from their challenges.

Schools, Education and Expat Life– A Complex Issue Made Personal for You

To be clear, this resource is meant to serve as an introduction and overview of the many factors to consider for your child’s education as an expat. The topic is far too complex for any one book to bestow you with a personalized expat education plan.

Imagine the sheer volume of permutations when you cross each country’s education laws, locally available options, and your child’s and your family’s unique circumstances. Dizzying to think about, right? And yet, within this labyrinth, this guide does a great job distilling those permutations into digestible, practical, personally relevant points of self inquiry. Better yet, the author includes a list of vetted resources to turn to for further investigation.

Another plus for me, looking at your schooling decisions within the greater context of living abroad. Foreign language, your kids social life, special education, and much more. Having now parented two school aged boys in Spain for three years, the connection between their educational environment and psychological adaptation seems obvious. But that wasn’t always so. It’s clear Carole’ recognizes that education decisions embrace more than just academic success.

Finally, this guide to choosing schools overseas also addresses the impact of repatriation on your child’s educational path. Her family’s recent return to their native UK almost seemed like their hardest move yet. I would never have thought returning back to your native country could be so challenging. And yet, being right in the midst of that process as I write, I’m learning that going “home” isn’t as easy as you’d think it would be from a schooling perspective!

Author Carole Hallett Mobbs Helps Expats Choose Schools Overseas

The Right Questions to Ask When Choosing a School

I’ll admit, as ‘expats by choice,’ reading about the realities of what some families must go through when they have little to no say in where they live or when they move left me feeling fairly overwhelmed. Yet from just our comparatively short stint living abroad — in a place completely of our choosing — I can appreciate the food for thought Carole puts in front of you.

It’s clear to me now that before we moved to Spain, when I was madly investigating everything under the sun, I had no idea what questions to ask when it came to interviewing school options abroad. It’s hard to know whether we would have done anything differently. But I can tell you that my family learned the hard way what can happen when your child’s school is not a good fit.

Whether you’re moving overseas for a one year adventure or setting off on a career driven, long term life change, you’ll be on much more solid footing for having read such well curated information from someone who’s really been there.

Expat Education: An Expat’s Guide to Choosing a School Overseas is available in on Amazon in both paperback and kindle.

Filed Under: Expat Education, Expat Family Life, Expat Tips Tagged With: Choosing School Overseas, Education in Foreign Country, Expat Child, Expat Family Tips, Expat Life, Expat Parenting, How to Choose a School Overseas, International Schools, Parenting Abroad

10 Files Every Expat Should Save to a Cloud Drive

February 1, 2019 by familymoveabroad

As an expat, you never know what random document you’ll be asked to produce when you least expect it. Especially true for the expat family. Solution: Scan and store critical files to your cloud drive for on the go preparedness.

Last year, I was asked to show my marriage certificate and my children’s birth certificates at the post office. Yes, the post office. No, I didn’t happen to have those documents on me.

Consequence: 45 minutes of my precious time wasted to walk all the way home, and all the way back, while tracking down another parent to get my kid from soccer because this unexpected request was going to make me late.

From unforeseen emergencies to the mundane errand, here is my list of the ten essential files every expat should be able to access from their mobile device anytime, anywhere.

Driver’s License

Your digital copy won’t suffice at the rental car counter, but I’ve needed this a few times, usually for online identity verification. Don’t forget the back.

Bonus Tip: Will your license expire while you’re out of the country? Verify you’re eligible to renew online or by mail before you go.

Passport ID Page

I’ve long lost count of the number of times I’ve needed either a copy of the Passport ID page or the information found there. A scan of each family member’s passport ID page on your cloud drive will save you the hassle of digging up your physical passport every time you need it.

Bonus Tip: Create a text document of the data exactly as it appears on the ID page — full name, passport number, date of issue, date of expiration — to facilitate filling out online forms.

Bonus Tip: As with your passport data, a text document with full name, ID number and expiration date will make filling out online forms a breeze.

Passport Photo

This will be more relevant for your kids than for you. Your child’s school will want their picture, as will any sport team they join or camp you send them to. A cloud copy has saved me several trips to club offices to hand this over in person.

Foreigner’s Identity Card

In Spain, this is the TIE (also know as NIE card). I’ve been asked for a copy of the card or the number in the oddest of situations. A doctor’s office or my kids’ school? Of course. Buy tickets to the local fútbol match through the club’s website? Really? Don’t forget the back.

Birth and Marriage Certificates

Outside of immigration matters, this will likely only come up occasionally, but as my post office story would illustrate, better to be prepared.

Bonus Tip: Store digital copies of the certificate’s certified translations along with originals.

Health Insurance Cards

You never know when you might need to supply your health insurance information. Kid takes a overnight field trip? Spaced on bringing the physical card to some last minute dentist appointment? Whip out your mobile and you should be all set.

Medical Records

Has anyone in your family been diagnosed with a medical condition, even one you consider resolved?

I didn’t think this applied to us, until an ER visit forced me to dig up some years old medical records. Fortunately, I’m a good file keeper in the physical world as well as the virtual one. One panicked email to my assistant in the States and I had a scan in my inbox as soon as she woke up.

Bonus Tip: If the condition is active or chronic, translate the records before you. You don’t want to be hunting down a translator in an emergency.

Double Bonus Tip: Store a scan of your kids’ vaccine records as well.

Education and School Records

Besides transcripts, if your child’s new school even requires them, have any of your children been evaluated for learning differences such as ADHD, dyslexia, or anything that might effect their education?

No matter how resolved you think the issue might be, better to have those reports available — in the local language — rather than needing to track them down from afar should issues resurface.

Business Documents

Running an online business while you’re living overseas? If so, you’re probably already well set up in your virtual world. Think W9 forms already filled out, EIN number, banking info, online tax payment info, and any other must have information related to your daily business operations.

Tax Records

It didn’t hit me until the winter of our first year in Spain that I’d be preparing our US tax returns from afar.

Store two previous years tax returns (personal and business) along with any docs you might need to prepare your return. Think ahead to information possibly being mailed to a US address: mortgage interest statements, W2 forms, 1099s, etc., and make arrangements accordingly.

That’s all that’s ever cropped up in our family expat life. What about you? Got any weird post office or other cloud drive to the rescue stories?

Filed Under: Expat Family Life, Expat Tips, Uncategorized Tagged With: Essential Cloud Drive Files for Expat Family, Expat Family Tips, Family Move Abroad

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