Moving house with children

Moving with children adds two things to an ordinary move. One is practical and has a hard deadline attached — school places. The other is emotional and has no deadline at all, which is exactly why it gets deprioritised until the week itself.

Schools: what to do, and when

1. 1

   Before you offer on a house

   If schooling matters to where you move, check actual availability in the year groups you need, not just Ofsted ratings and catchment maps. A popular school with no space in Year 4 is not an option, however close it is.

2. 2

   As soon as dates are realistic

   Apply to the new local authority for an in-year transfer. Ask specifically what evidence of address they require and when they'll accept it — some want a completed contract or a tenancy agreement, which affects your timing.

3. 3

   Six weeks before

   Tell the current school in writing. Ask for the school records to be transferred, and request copies of anything you might need yourself — assessments, reports, any SEN documentation.

4. 4

   If there's SEN involved, much earlier

   An EHC plan changes the process substantially and involves the local authority directly. Start this months ahead, not weeks, and take advice — a mid-move gap in provision is genuinely hard to recover.

5. 5

   Before the first day

   Ask for a visit, the uniform list, and the name of one child in the class. Walking in knowing one name changes the first morning completely.

Telling them

The general advice is to tell children early and honestly, and it's good advice — with one caveat that matters in the UK. Nothing is certain until contracts exchange. Telling a seven-year-old about their new bedroom eight weeks before a chain collapses creates a loss they didn't need to experience.

A workable middle: tell them you're hoping to move, in general terms, as soon as it's a real plan; give the specifics once it's genuinely certain.

Moving day itself

• Get younger children out of the house. Grandparents, a friend, anyone. Moving day is boring, dangerous and upsetting to watch, and you cannot supervise a four-year-old and a removal van at once.
• Older children can help, and should. A specific job — their own boxes, looking after the dog, making tea — is much better than watching their room disappear.
• Pack their room last and unpack it first. Before the kitchen. A finished bedroom on night one is worth more than being able to cook.
• Keep the bedding unwashed. It smells right. This sounds trivial and it genuinely helps small children sleep.
• Their box travels with you, in the car, not in the van — favourite toy, blanket, pyjamas, toothbrush.

The bit nobody warns you about

The difficult period is usually not the move. It's weeks three to eight, once the novelty has gone, the new house is just the house, and the old friends have started to reply more slowly.

Regression in younger children — sleep, toileting, clinginess — is common and usually temporary. In older children it more often looks like flatness or irritability than sadness. Both tend to settle. If it doesn't, or it's getting worse rather than better, talk to the GP or the school; that's what pastoral leads are for, and a new school would far rather know early.

• Get one thing routine-shaped going in the first fortnight — a club, a class, a regular walk.
• Make one visit back happen, with a date in the diary, rather than promising it vaguely.
• Let them keep the old school jumper. It costs nothing.
• Expect it to take a term, and say so out loud.

The admin, with children in it

The standard who-to-notify list applies, plus a few that only matter with children:

MovePlan builds all of this into a dated plan from your move date, so the school and GP tasks land in the week they need doing rather than competing with packing. It also drafts your address-change letters — bank, insurer, DVLA, TV Licensing, GP and electoral roll — filled in with your details. £14.99 once, for 90 days.