Luppers

Thank you Andy, advice noted :-)

Thanks everyone, plenty of food for thought. We would of course do plenty more research into exactly what area we'd be moving to based on more than younger-years childcare, it's just a starting point to make sure we could afford to move and still work in the short term. I was born and raised in rural Yorkshire, 30 minutes drive to the nearest supermarket, two buses a day and cows for neighbours - so I'm pretty used to being remote but I will bear in mind that it may be a bit more of a time warp than we imagine from our current cosy suburban existence! Internet accessibility would be vital so that's certainly worth considering, and I'll look into healthcare costs too. Thanks for your help, I realise we're pretty clueless at the moment!

Now that sounds more my level!

Hm, clearly I need more practice on how to use quotes..

[quote user="Chancer"] Translated as "he doesn't know about it yet" [:D] [/quote] As it happens, it's his idea.

Hereford - thank you for your pointers, and of course we realise a lot more research is needed, hence this being an initial enquiry. Everyone has to start somewhere! I've started with childcare because as it stands, childcare is an enormous outgoing. It would cost us over £2400 per month to put them into preschool full time in the UK. Comparable costs in France would immediately blow the idea out of the water and render research into healthcare and the education system fairly pointless!

Thank you Eurotrash, a good point. Yes, we're trying to get our heads round the differences in various taxes/contributions and will bear this in mind, although to be honest we'll probably have an accountant look over our sums to make sure we don't miss anything glaring.

Thank you for the pointers, I'll have a look at those websites. The girls were all born in April, twins in 2014 and the youngest in 2015. Vaccinations not a problem, they'll all be fully up to date and realistically we won't be moving until around their next birthdays at the earliest by which time they will all be toilet trained (if it kills me, which it might), two down and one to go on that front!

Hi all, first time posting so do excuse me if this has been asked before. My husband and I are just starting to look into moving to France in the next year or so and I'm doing initial research. We have three children aged 3, 3 and 2. I think as I understand it they'd all be entitled to free places at the ecole maternelle (please correct me if this isn't the case!) but from what I've read places seem difficult to come by - is it likely we'd struggle to find places? If it helps we haven't settled on area yet but have mostly been discussing rural/coastal Aquitaine. Any help or info on schools/childcare etc would be very gratefully received as with three children the difference between free and paid childcare is the difference between moving and not! (I don't know if it's relevant but we own a small business in the UK and would initially be reliant on that for income). Thanks!