Moving to Warsaw with children
If you are moving to Warsaw with children, this guide covers schools, neighbourhoods, housing and the documents you may need. You can also contact admissions before your move is confirmed.
This guide is written for parents arriving in Warsaw, and for the relocation consultants, HR teams and embassy administrators who help them. It covers where families tend to live, how schooling works in Poland, what a school will ask you for, and what changes when a family lands in the middle of a school year.
International American School of Warsaw has welcomed families moving to Poland since 1989. These pages bring together practical information for families considering IAS or other schools in Warsaw.
A rough timeline
If you have several months to prepare, the timeline below may help. If your move is sooner, ask admissions which steps you can complete before arrival.
Six to nine months out. Draw up a shortlist of schools and understand how your child’s current year group maps onto the Polish and international systems. Grade placement is not always the obvious one to one match, particularly for children moving between the northern and southern hemisphere calendars, or between systems with different cut-off dates.
Three to four months out. Apply. Most international schools in Warsaw admit on a rolling basis, not in a single annual round. What limits a place is availability in a specific year group, not a closing date. Confirm the place before you commit to a district.
Then choose the neighbourhood. Check the journey to school at the times you would travel. Morning traffic can make a substantial difference to the commute.
Six weeks out. Housing, school documents, and any translations or legalisation your child’s records need.
On arrival. Residence registration, a PESEL number, health cover, and the ordinary business of settling a child who has just left their friends behind.
Where families live
Warsaw’s family districts differ more than a map suggests. Some are apartment living with a metro station and a park; some are houses and gardens with a car dependency; a few are close to the forest and quiet in a way that surprises people who expected a capital city.
We have written this up separately, district by district, with information about transport to IAS: where families live in Warsaw.
The marker is the school, at the southern end of the city beside the Kabaty forest. Every district on the districts page is described by how it connects back to this point.
How schooling works in Poland
Poland has a well defined state system with compulsory schooling, a national curriculum overseen by the Ministry of National Education, and a school leaving examination called the Matura. International schools sit alongside it, and some, including this one, operate inside it as well as outside it.
If you are arriving from another system, the vocabulary alone takes a while: how schooling works in Poland.
Choosing a school
Alongside the facilities, consider the curriculum, support and qualifications each school offers. Will your child finish school in Poland, or are you likely to move again? Check how the curriculum fits their previous studies and possible university plans.
Two longer pieces cover this ground: how to choose an international school in Warsaw, and international schools in Warsaw, compared, which sets out the curriculum models side by side.
Arriving in the middle of the year
A work posting or family move may mean starting school partway through the year.
Schools that regularly take mid-year arrivals handle this differently from schools that mostly admit in September. Ask directly how often it happens, what the first fortnight looks like, and who is responsible for the child socially as well as academically. Ask who your child and your family can contact during the first few weeks.
Places depend on the year group and proposed start date. Contact admissions with your child’s current grade and when you expect to arrive.
If your child does not yet speak English or Polish
Ask how the school will support your child in lessons and help them get to know their classmates.
English as an Additional Language support is standard at international schools in Warsaw, and the quality varies. Worth asking: is it delivered inside the classroom or by withdrawing the child from lessons, how is progress measured, and at what point does support stop.
Polish is a separate decision. A family staying two years and a family staying ten will reasonably make different choices about how much Polish their child learns, and a school should be comfortable with both.
The paperwork
You can begin collecting school documents before you arrive. What a school asks for, what needs translating, what needs an apostille, and the timing of it all is set out here: enrolling your child in a Warsaw school.
Finding somewhere to live
How renting works here, what the advertised rent does and does not include, where to look, and which agencies work in English: finding somewhere to live in Warsaw.
For relocation consultants and HR teams
If you are helping a family relocate, contact us about places in the relevant grades and the proposed start date. IAS works directly with employers, diplomatic missions and destination service providers, and there is a page covering how those arrangements work: relocating to Warsaw, corporate and diplomatic families.
You are welcome to use anything on these pages with your clients. If a fact here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will fix it.
There is also a short question and answer page on relocation specifically: relocating to Warsaw, questions and answers.
Talking to someone
You are welcome to speak to admissions while you are still considering schools or waiting for your move to be confirmed.
[email protected] · +48 22 649 14 40 · ul. Dembego 18, Ursynów, Warsaw, a five minute walk from Kabaty metro station.
Next step
Planning a move to Warsaw?
Tell admissions your child’s age, current grade and expected arrival date. We can explain the application process and check available places. We reply within one working day.
