[claire25]

hi we are looking to move to la marina or gran alacant in sept we need alot of onfo about schools in both areas we have a 3 year old boy will be 4 in nov and a girl who will be 6 the end of july so i need to know what i need to do regarding registering them and what schools will be suitable please help

[Landlady]

Don't know about Gran Alacant - think its Santa Pola. For La Marina urb its San Fulgencio school and for La Marina village its La Marina school. Can't advise about registrating until you choose where you are going to live. Best to ask the headmaster/misstress of the area/school you choose as requirements differ and are often updated.

If you do a search on schools in this site, should give you quite a lot of information on the SF one as there have been lots of previous posts about it. Nothing wrong with the junior school in my opinion - Spanish state schools are different from UK ones, but if you live in Spain - you have to accept the way they teach and do things - otherwise you need an international school, which would be very expensive for two kids - and they won't learn Spanish as fast....

No two ways about it, you will need to personally go yourself to the school in the area where you live to register your children - there is no way, as far as Im aware, to do this from the UK. You will need to take a good translator if you don't speak English and book an appointment at the school beginning of September to start the process. Take your padron certificate - that's the first essential - take lots of passport photographs - that seems to be a requirement everywhere - and your childrens health cards - in other words, bring everything!!

Great age to bring your kids b.t.w. Just be advised that you will need private English lessons in a few years if you don't want them to fall behind with their English grammar, litrature etc. - this will be equally important for them in future years....

[claire25]

hi landlady thanks for the reply my in laws are in gran alacant so would prefer to be as near to them as poss they said about the schools in santa pola and that there is a new one opening in gran alacant they also have a friend in la marina who went with them and translated for them when they went to get there nie numbers and stuff