Schools

You won't find any one at any school after June until early September to even listen to you. Usually, admission for the  course starting in September must be made in April/May, and you will be required to prove residency. If the kids are all yours, you are entitled to obtain social benefits.

May have to home school for a while then ! Thank you 

Hi we moved over here in June 2014 and the first thing we did was get a place in our local school in Rojales for our son, after getting NIE's etc. Yes school finishes in mid June here, but there are usually people in school most of the holidays, as you have to re-register your child every year they are at school, and this occurs during July. You don't normally have a choice of school, like in the U.K. but there should be somebody in the ayuntamiento/town hall who looks after schools that you could speak too.

Our son (who has special needs) finishes this June and will have been in Spanish education 6 years and we cannot fault the education system here one bit. Yes it can be hard starting out, especially if you don't speak Spanish, but they will help them with extra Spanish language lessons in order for them to integrate more quickly.

I can't speak for Pinoso schools, but between Rojales and Torrevieja we are more than happy.

Good luck in your new adventure.

Hi Jeff, 

I moved to Santa Pola just before Christmas and my 10 year old is just about to start her 4th week at a local school. I went to our local town hall and they gave me the details of the person to speak with (director of eduction for primary schools in our area). We had a meeting with her and she had all the information on which schools had spaces etc. In our case there was 1 space left in all of Santa Pola so she arranged a meeting and gave us list of the paperwork needed. 

We had to register at the town hall on the 'Padron' to show that we were living in the area and they gave us a form for the school and one for her medical. We then went to the Centro de Salud for her medical. The medical was very straight forward - height, weight etc but they needed to check all her vaccinations were upto date so we had to have her notes from the UK (red book in this case). They then issued her medical certificate. 

We then took this, the padron letter, her birth certificate, passport and I took her school reports to the meeting with her new school. Once they checked through the paperwork and put her on the system she started the next day. 

Not sure this is the same process for everywhere but from what I know it seems to be fairly standard or a variation of? My 12 year old son is due to join me next week so I will do the same process with him starting at the town hall to find the correct person for his school year. 

3 weeks in and she's really enjoying it. Has 1 English speaking friend but the rest are Spanish and they all seem really nice and willing to help her with lessons and games at break. She has a separate Spanish lesson nearly every day and last week for their maths exam her teacher printed her test sheet with an English translation for her. 

She will finish school for the year mid June and won't go back until September! Its going to be a long summer lol.

Good luck with everything.

Melissa

Thank you so much Melissa it was good to have such a positive response thank you again maybe we will be able to return your kindness one day Jeff.