Grandpère

Thanks Val. Is there some easy-to-find guide to the forms and entitlements? After doing some searches I found a DWP application form which cleverly didn't say which form (S1/E106/E109 etc) it was an application for. Something a bit more user-friendly would be a real help.

Thanks, Frenchie and Idun. I may take up Frenchie's very kind offer of further advice later. For what it's worth we're in the Auvergne, and what little we've seen of the local primary schools suggests that they are a little less formal than the norm. But it is only a little that we've seen. The five-year-old was born in 2006, and the 3-year old in 2008, so as I understand it now the two boys would both be at the maternelle together for a bit. As for the kidnapping issue (!), the separated husband suggested this arrangement and so has no objections. Of course he could change his mind. I now wonder - from having explored some of the healthcare threads - whether I should suggest that our daughter defers getting divorced. This is unlikely to be a popular suggestion, for reasons I will leave to your imagination, but right now the son-in-law is working and paying tax/NI in the UK. I think I picked up a suggestion that if a husband works in the UK and the dependent wife/children live in France, they can get French medical cover with an S1/E106. But maybe being separated stops that from happening. Would it be sensible to start a separate thread in the Healthcare section?

[quote user="andyh4"]To be brutally honest, with the amount of French you have between you, I am not sure how you can help the children through French school.  When they come home with homework and you cannot understand the question, I am not sure how you can help with the answer.   I know many manage to do it, but I question whether this is best for the children. [/quote] Andy, I don't know whether 3 and 5 year olds get much homework, but if they do I am confident we will be able to understand the questions, and help with the answers. We weren't initially planning to make this a permanent arrangement: just for a couple of years.

Thanks - I had begun to think about healthcare and I'll try to find out more. I imagine the combination of EHICs and children at French state schools might not work very well. The schools here are undersubscribed. It's a rural area that is gradually depopulating. We're on good terms with the maire, but perhaps we'd do better to present it as a planned permanent move and then privately review options after a couple of terms. I wonder how the French education system works (if at all) for the children of "gens de voyage"?

My daughter is separated from her husband (and now on benefits) and our two grandchildren are aged three and five. My wife and I are pensioners and have lived in France for three or four years. My daughter has asked whether there is any possibility of spending extended periods with us with the two boys, so that they could attend the local French nursery/primary schools. But she would prefer to try just a couple of terms at the French schools first, without committing herself to moving here permanently (supposing she could). Her main reason is so that the children could enjoy the quality of life we have here and learn to speak French at an age when it should be relatively easy. Her French is pretty well non-existent, ours is considerably better than basic but not yet fluent. We'd just about be able to support her and the children, adequately if not comfortably: and as she gets very little financial support from her ex, her immediate financial position in France wouldn't be that different from in the UK. I'd be most grateful for comments and suggestions. I imagine we're not the only grandparents in a similar situation.