Hey y'all. Beth is quite right, our oldest daughter was 16 when wel eft the UK last July. We waited for her to finish her GCSE's before coming over. When we first wanted to come, three years previously, she behaved much like your 14 year old is doing now, 'You're ruining my life', 'You can't make me do anything I don't want to do', 'I'll ask my grandma to adopt me', 'you don't understand how hard this is for me'. I bet you've heard them all and more. At 16 she behaved more like your 16 year old but again really didn't want to leave her close friend network. Out of all of us she was the one who got really home-sick and wanted to go home after the first fortnight and then a month, and then 6 weeks and then 2 months and then....you get the picture......and we didn't understand and we weren't her and we couldn't know her thoughts and her feelings........
It was vair vair hard. She's just about settled in now but if anyone's gonna get upset t's her.
Our 12 year old son on the other hand is a different kid. He's so much happier. And our 6 yr old, well she's just what she is, you'd have to meet her to understand, those who have, do.
I think you should be OK on a WTR for domestic student status but it depends what your oldest decides to do. Lauren is going to uni next year and tertiary education isn't covered on a WP, we will have to pay international fees for her if our residency hasn't come through by then. So if she goes to secondary school to do yr 12 and 13 that's covered, if she decides to go to college or uni it's not. Remember the term differences because I think your schedule will be similar to ours if you're talking about 6 months from now. When we got here Lauren had left school in July but they were half way through the year here. They said it wasn't worth her going back to school for the last few months of the term as most of them would be sitting exams and there wouldn't be many classes taught. Then the new term starts in February and that's when she'll be 17. They recommended she either go to college or do a bridging course at uni.
Let me know if I can help further
Oh yeah, we're in Hamilton too