Check out St Helen's Bishopsgate. I don't know it personally but will be checking it out myself. Quite a few families at my son's (Christian) school attend and it sounds like a very nice place. Very child-friendly, I think. The families who attend are really really lovely.

We're in London (Southwark) and if you have questions I could help with, please pm me. I've got two in school (independent UK schools, not international) and two home-edded. We've been here since September and will be here for a while.

We lived in France for 1.5 years until this September, near Paris. We lived near St Germain en Laye, just outside of Paris. For various reasons, we had a horrible time, but only one of those reasons was truly France-related. This was the difficulty in getting health insurance for ourselves, since the government just wouldn't accept our documents, particularly those for our adopted son (because they want to know exactly where each person was born, as in which hospital, which isn't really possible with an abandoned child) or my documents either. Other reasons were tax-related, since dh's company doesn't tax equalize us, we ended up taking a massive hit. Although there is a double tax treaty in place, much of what you pay in France is classified as social taxes, which are not creditable against US tax. DH company has yet to reimburse us, so we're living off savings still. I would advice anyone making this move to insist on good relo assistance (dh's company refused to hire relo for us) and good tax advice. Anyway, having said the negative stuff, Paris is great, the people we met were really nice, I've heard good things about Trinity Church (I think that's the name), and there's MessageParis, which is an online forum you can join for expat info from moms, and is a wonderful resource. I can put you in touch with a really good French teacher if you like. Also, homeschooling was easy. I never reported anything, just asked at city hall what I needed to do, and they just said, wow, how cool, don't do anything. This may not be the situation for everyone, but it was fine for us. We go back to Paris every couple of months or so because dh is still working there and because our orthodontist is there. I wish we'd had a better time because I do think it can be a fantastic place to live, but because of the tax/health and other very unpleasant personal circumstances I was glad to leave. That's just me though. It isn't the easiest place to live, because of the bureaucracy, but there are compensations. We were in the Netherlands for six years before that and things there were much much simpler, now we're in England and things here are much much simpler. Still, Paris is Paris. HTH.

Joan, we are still in Europe (well, we're in the UK, so insofar as that's considered Europe ...). We moved from NL to France and then from France to London. My 10 yo ds is at choir school in the UK and, since he's doing well here, will probably remain in the UK at least until university. We moved here to be closer to him and will stay at least until he's well along in senior school. The Wereldschool has been a wonderful way for my girls to maintain both continuity in their education and their connection to the Netherlands. One thing I was wondering about -- the Wereldschool is intended principally for families who are in countries where international schooling is not a good option, so missionary families or families taking a year out to travel the world (the Dutch girl who is sailing around the world does/did Wereldschool). I'm wondering whether other countries have similar initiatives? I'm sure there must be families in other countries like Spain or Germany where families would find themselves in situations where such a program would be useful. Any ideas?

The Wereldschool is at http://www.wereldschool.nl. It's in Dutch only, though, so that would be helpful to a minority of homeschoolers only. We're picking and choosing which courses we take. The girls do Dutch, biologie, chemistry, physics, geography, history, civics and general science (the last two are required for a diploma and difficult to replicate at home). They do Latin and Greek with the teacher they had at their school in NL. She's very good and uses regular high school texts with them, which will lead them up to the staatsexamen necessary for the diploma. I do English and maths and help with the internet subjects as required. They did French with a private tutor last year when we were living in France, and we'll pick that up again via Skype in the New Year. It sounds like a lot of classes, and it is, but it's no more than they would have if they were in school. One thing we're working on that I think is going to be very helpful in terms of getting into university is maintaining the relationship with the girls' former school. We've got the Greek/Latin teacher working with us, and we've approached the bio and English teachers about helping the girls prepare for the staatsexamen, and both have agreed. The Greek/Latin teacher has even suggested that the girls join their former class on next year's class trip to Rome. Oxbridge have a list of requirements for int'l applicants that may be helpful: http://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate_courses/international_students/international_qualifications/index.html

I don't know how relevant it is, but we are doing a sort-of European umbrella school now. We are using the Wereldschool, which is an internet-only school provided and subsidized by the Dutch government, for Dutch children living abroad. Some Dutch children in NL are starting to use it too, but only in very unusual circumstances. They offer a full Dutch curriculum from K up through the last year of secondary, although the choice of language is limited (language offerings are sufficient to meet the high school requirements though) and there is no Latin/Greek to fulfill gymnasium requirements. The school doesn't do a high school diploma so we have to take the alternative route to school diplomas. Usually you'd do your schoolexams and then central exams (written and also usually oral). My dds will do stateexams only, written and oral. It's basically the same exam, the same level, but administered by a different group. After the exam you can "trade in" your certificates for a diploma, assuming you've acquired enough certificates in the right areas of study to complete the necessary profile. I'm finding that this school is far more flexible than the b&m school we were used to. They have no problem with the girls taking courses out of sequence or not taking certain courses (no English for example). The teachers are generally quite good. It's not that cheap, but it's a lot cheaper than private school, and the diploma is just as "good" as one you'd get from school. Anyway, thought I'd add our experience. I did hear once that enrollment in Clonlara was deemed sufficient by a Dutch judge in terms of the requirement to be enrolled in school, but I'm not sure if that case was appealed or not or what finally happened. We did use Clonlara in NL for a while when my girls were given permission to be excused from school for an afternoon a week to do afterschooling.

NL/USA living in the UK.

My 13 yo twin dd's homeschool using mostly a virtual academy. They've been doing this for about two years now, and it works for them. My 10 yo ds is in boarding school and has been for 1.5 years. My 5 yo ds is in an independent Christian school. This is what works best for each child at this moment in time. DDs will probably go to school for the last couple of years of high school, but that's because we have some really good options at that point in terms of school. DS loves his school and is doing better than he has ever done. He'll probably board until he goes to university. Little DS loves school and is a super-social needs-lots-of-structure kid, and I couldn't give him what he needs and give the girls what they need if he were home. It can be tricky when we try to do homeschool groups or events and I have to go pick up DS from school or when the dates conflict with school holidays. It has meant we can't do some activities we might do unless I get sitters for DS. We're having a very good experience with online schooling for the girls. They are taking charge of their education and deal with teachers and admin on their own (with my supervision of course but I rarely have to intervene as long as I know what is going on and can steer them), which is making them very independent and responsible. At this point, as long as the four of them are learning and happy, I'm happy.

I haven't read the whole thread so maybe someone has suggested this before -- but could your dh be eligible to claim non-US citizenship from a country that has national health? Through his grandparents or something? I realize that this would take time and then money to move to the country in question, but depending on the country's rules, if he could get a passport, he might then be eligible for care in that country? I know it sounds completely crazy, but if nothing else works, even a longshot might be worth looking into. My dh is now looking into getting a German passport on grounds that his grandmother was German, so I know that some countries to consider claims through grandparents etc.

My girls are in the equivalent of US 10th grade at a virtual school from the Dutch government. They've done history every year of secondary but have never really focused on US history. It's covered but not in depth. The first three years were a prehistory to modern times cycle, emphasis on European/NL history. This year the course goes into more depth, starting again from the ancients. I think, but am not certain, that they can choose to specialize in various areas of history in the last two years as part of preparing for their final exams. That would allow them to do US history in more depth. I think their experience is representative as the school is government-sponsored, following national guidelines on curriculum. DS 10 is at an independent UK prep school and has done ancients and is now doing English history (Norman Conquest). No sign that they will do US history.

I think there's also different categories of complaints. One that goes to the heart of the culture, the other to things that don't. When we lived in France, I found it annoying that some businesses shut for lunchtime and that ds had a two-hour lunchbreak from school. I had to time errands around the lunchtime of the businesses and be around to pick ds up from school. I didn't complain, though (at least not publicly or to French friends/acquaintances) because that's the way it works there. I did complain, am complaining and will continue to complain about the way the French health insurance system refuses to accept my adopted son as my son. We pay for insurance that they won't let us have because they cannot wrap their heads around adoption. I find this wrong and stupid, no matter where you are. I'm not always sure where I draw the line, though, and I'm much more likely to complain about my home countries than my guest countries. I did just get registered to vote in England where I live now, though, not sure how that got managed, so I gues I now have a voice here too (a nice lady from the council came by last night and told me I can register to vote, so I did!). Very odd.

I would be careful about the taxes -- we believed what the tax department of dh's int'l law firm told us, turned out it wasn't right, and we have now run through more than half of the money we saved over the last seven years. Financially disastrous to say the least, but since we didn't get it in writing that the move would be tax-neutral and at the least financially neutral to us, we are out of luck. I really thought we could trust his firm (he'd been with them for six years) and the bosses to play fair but I was dead wrong. There are several different ways of being employed in France, each of which has entirely different tax consequences. As for how Americans are perceived, I've never had any trouble. I didn't find the French people in the village where we lived (just outside Paris) to be friendly at all, but I didn't find them to be particularly unfriendly because we're American either. I think it was more of a village thing (you don't belong unless you are French and have lived here for ages). The French have a bit of a reputation for not being particularly friendly/welcoming to non-French, with the huge exception being those who have live outside of France. I found this (huge and not entirely reliable) generalisation to be true in our case. YMMV. We started off by trying to integrate into the local community by having the kids do local clubs/sports/music. This didn't work so well as my French isn't up to much beyond intermediate conversation (I can easily get by, but cannot converse at the same level I would in English) and other parents weren't really interested in talking with me in my not-so-great French. I can't say I really blame them. In retrospect, I wish I'd started out by getting involved with expat groups so that I would have made a few friends but I was quite determined to avoid the expat bubble if possible. It's possible to get American food special-ordered (pricy but quite possible). We didn't try to get American tv on the tv but just used iTunes (possible if you have a US credit card). You can watch tv on the internet but you will need to run a proxy server so it looks like you're in the U.S. A good source of information is MessageParis.com, which is an expat forum that you do need to pay for annually but which is super-helpful. It's somewhat Paris-biased but could still be helpful. Feel free to PM me with any questions at all.

We lived in France until a couple of weeks ago. I didn't register us as homeschooling -- I mentioned it to the Mairie/city hall and asked if they wanted me to do anything, but they just gave me blank stares. The other homeschoolers we met were also trying to go unnoticed. I have to say, though, we never had any trouble at all and people who knew we homeschooled were very very nice about it (positive comments). A couple of general things we had a lot of trouble with in France that, depending on your situation, you might want to clear with the employer. We were supposed to have health insurance. A year and a half later we still didn't. We paid everything out of pocket and can supposedly get everything reimbursed. The company said we'd have our magic cards with our magic insurance numbers within six months but this didn't happen and they didn't help us. I really wish we'd put into the contract that the company is obliged to help us with this as it has been a nightmare. Now everyone except for me has health insurance. Still working on that so that I can get reimbursed. Other thing was taxes -- you said you're in Ontaria I think so perhaps it's not US taxes (not sure of yr citizenship here) but we got smacked with US taxes because income taxes are low relative to social taxes, which meant that we couldn't take the US tax credit. Euro is high relative to dollar, which lowers the impact of the foreign earned income exclusion. This applies only of course if it's US taxes but it has been a HUGE problem for us. My French is pretty okay. I didn't find English to be very useful in France. I hate to say it, but because of all the admin problems we had I will not be moving back to France and am very very happy to be gone. If dh's company had been helpful, I would not feel this way, so it's not really that I hated France, just that our experience of it was so awful. If we'd insisted on certain things in the contract, we would have had a far better time.

I've stayed at the Hotel Russell fairly often. You can often get a good deal. Location is great and it's really fancy for the price, so I always felt like I was getting a really really good deal. My favorite thing is to hear Evensong at the Abbey (ds is in the choir, so I can recommend only the Abbey and not St Paul's, although their Evensong is nice too). If you get there very early (30 to 45 minutes early) you may be able to get seated in the choir. If you're going right after Christmas the boys won't be singing as they have holidays. I think they go back the 9th. I also like London Walks. Not pricy and quite fun. All of the big museums are fun of course. I don't know if anyone's mentioned the Imperial War Museum, but it's really good (and free). The Florence Nightingale Museum and Sherlock Holmes Museums are small and interesting if that's your thing. The Geffrye Museum also does fun exhibits of Christmas past. Also Hampton Court Palace, very nice. My aunt and uncle have recommended the Hotel des Carmes in Paris. They've stayed there nearly ten times, I think, so it must be okay. I don't have much experience of hotels there since we lived there, but one time we stayed at Citadines (convenient but can be pricy). Last year there was a small ice skating rink set up on the first floor (I think it was first) of the Eiffel Tower during Christmas holidays. The skating wasn't great and it was lots of people who clearly had never skated, but the idea of skating on the Eiffel Tower made it entirely worthwhile. There are also other skating rinks around the city (same goes for London, I'm going to go for skating at the Tower this winter, could be interesting).

We haven't had anything quite that bad, but my China-born adopted son gets a lot of people who insist on saying "ni hao ni hao" instead of hello. We had one weird episode last year. D was in French preschool all year in a dorky little French village. All year long I brought him back and forth to school, picking him up for lunch some days, going back and forth up, up to four trips daily. All that year none of the French mothers would even say hello to us. Finally, in the last month of schoool, one mother (whom I had seen countless times) comes up and asks whether D is adopted. I said, yes. She said, from where. I said, China. She said, how old was he at adoption? I said, 2.5. Then she looks down at D and starts barking at him "NI HAO NI HAO NI HAO"!!!!! D just gave her this "what the dickens?" look. I was stunned into silence. When she didn't get a response, she went on into the school. The next day, when I saw her on our way back from school, she cut me dead. She never even smiled or said hello and never spoke to us again. Weird.

You might want to consider what could happen if you had to do a test twice -- so if you do private testing with test x now but the school district requires test y but you cannot do test y if you've done test x too recently (hope that makes sense). We dealt with this a few years ago with DS, then 6, when we did an initial IQ test in one country knowing that there was a good chance we'd be doing a second IQ test in another. We knew the second one would be the WISC, so we made sure that having taken the first IQ test did not disqualify him from doing the WISC within the necessary time period. He did the Ravens first, then the WISC. There were a few tests that he could not do and then do the WISC. Not sure if it's relevant to your situation, but it could be if the district will accept only tests given by its own testers or something. Good luck with the situation. Sounds like it is a bit of a challenge to get it sorted out and I hope it works out well.

I don't know what area you're in, but my girls did swim team for a country club a few years ago and many kids on the team swam yearround with Issaquah Swim Team. It's been a couple of years, but as I recall, the kids all seemed quite nice, nice parents, etc. It's been a few years so I suppose it could have changed but it might be worth checking out.

UK. We're in South London, near Borough/Southwark.

We moved here from France last week, and I'd be interested in getting in touch with other homeschoolers in the London area. I have twin dds, age 13 (homeschooled), ds 10 (boarding choir school), and ds 5 (independent Christian school). DDs would really like to get involved in some home-ed groups/classes. Thanks! Sophie

We've been a few times. Anything in particular you'd like to know?

If it's just going to hang and not be used as a bed-covering (and so will not be subject to intensive use/washing), I would use that double-stick fusible stuff (I think it's called steam a seam), apply to my fabric, cut out the states, and iron on to the background. Personally I wouldn't bother stitching the edges but might outline with puffy fabric paint, add rivers in puffy fabric paint, maybe add buttons or something for state capitols, etc. Sounds like it could be quite fun -- you could get mountain fabric for mountainous states, grass-like fabric for prairie states, etc. I did a hanging quilt with steam a seam years ago with a Christmas wreath and never stitched the bits of fabric, and the steam a seam has held up well. I probably would just machine quilt around the map and maybe do a fun wave-like quilting pattern for the water on either side. Sounds like it could be quite a fun project.

Continental tried to do this to me once when I was travelling alone with twin 3 yo dds and 6 month ds. Although I called and called to explain, asked at the ticket counter, asked at the gate, I was forced to board with each of us sitting in different seats (quite far apart). I had to put ds in his carseat in one row and go sit elsewhere. Once everyone was seated, the flight attendants moved us around. Stupid stupid stupid. Having flown lots with kids on my own, my backup plan is to go to the child sitting alone, hand her the airsick bag (whether or not this is the child who gets airsick) and explain very loudly what she is to do WHEN she starts to throw up. Another backup plan is to ask the flight attendant who will take legal responsibility in the event there is a problem and the child is seated alone (oxygen masks etc). I've never had to had the kids sitting alone, though, the flight attendants always come through in the end.

DS's name can sound very very rude in Dutch, so when we lived there he used his middle name and continues to use it whenever we're using Dutch. It was quite easy, he is very used to having an English name used when speaking English and a Dutch name when speaking Dutch. He even use a version of his Dutch name when speaking French because it's easier.

When will you be there? I'm there every couple of weeks. If you're there when I am, you could (if you like considering you don't know me!) come with me to Westminster Abbey (I have a pass to get in free, saves about 15 pounds) and almost certainly to sit in the choir for a service (depending on special events). I'm there a couple of times in July but not in August. Just send me a PM if you want. Sophie

We went to Parc Asterix last summer. It was lots of fun, and we're not even huge Asterix fans. It might be a nice break from more traditional sightseeing things. I remember there seemed to be quite a lot of water rides and all the kids got very very wet, so you might want to be prepared.