Vaccination/school record requirements caught us off guard

Same trap here. Our home schedule didn't match theirs, so the school flagged 'missing' vaccines that our kids had actually had under different names/timings. Get an official, itemised record from your doctor before you leave — a summary letter isn't enough.

Translation was our bottleneck. The records existed but weren't accepted until officially translated, which took weeks we didn't have. If you can, get them translated before arrival, not after enrolment stalls.

A local paediatrician sorted ours quickly by mapping our records onto the local schedule and topping up the one or two genuinely missing. Worth booking that appointment early rather than fighting the paperwork alone.

Beyond vaccines, they wanted school reports and proof of the year completed, also translated. I'd widen your 'gather and translate' list to the whole education file, not just health.

OP here — yes, it was the full file in the end, not just jabs. Lesson learned: assume nothing transfers automatically and get everything certified and translated in advance. Adding a paediatrician visit to the arrival list.

Keep digital scans of everything in the cloud too. When they asked for a document we'd 'already submitted', having it instantly to hand rather than in a box on a ship saved days.

Check the specific requirements for the exact school/district, not just the country. Ours varied between two schools in the same city. What one waved through, the other insisted on.

And start early — some entry vaccines have a required interval between doses, so if one is genuinely missing you can't just get it the week before term. Time can be the real constraint, not the paperwork.