Relocating internationally with children? Structure your family's medical records into a portable vault — accessible from any country, ready for any doctor.
This page focuses on medical records specific to children — schools, paediatric clinics, and child-specific vaccination requirements. For the general guide covering all family members before an international move, see how to prepare medical records when moving abroad.
Moving abroad with children introduces a specific set of medical record requirements that do not apply to adult relocations. International schools, paediatric clinics, and sports registrations in most countries require documentation that parents must produce — usually within the first few weeks of arrival — regardless of whether it was easy to prepare.
This guide covers what to prepare before the move, what registration processes will ask for, and how to structure children's records for portability across multiple countries.
School health documentation requirements vary, but most international schools — particularly those following the IB, British, or American curriculum — require the following before or shortly after enrolment:
Prepare these documents before arriving, not after. Schools in some countries cannot issue a formal enrolment until health documentation is received. Delays in documentation mean delays in starting school.
When registering with a new paediatric clinic after relocation, the physician will need:
New paediatricians in a country with no shared records with your previous country start from zero. The quality of their first assessment depends entirely on what you bring. A well-organised, complete record allows the physician to focus on current needs rather than spending the appointment reconstructing history.
Start collecting documents at least 4–6 weeks before departure, allowing time to request records from GP practices and hospitals (response times vary):
The fundamental challenge for internationally mobile families is that children's healthcare records accumulate across multiple countries and multiple healthcare systems, none of which share information with each other. A child who has lived in Germany, then the UK, then Singapore has records in three separate systems — accessible only within each country's specific infrastructure.
The solution is to maintain a family-owned portable record that draws from each country's records and is stored independently. After each appointment, each vaccination, each specialist visit — update the family record. Before each relocation, ensure every child's record is current and accessible offline from any device, in any country.
This approach means that regardless of which country you have arrived in, or which portal your previous records are on, the essential information is immediately available at registration.
Many UAE and GCC schools require a vaccination card that meets the UAE National Vaccination Schedule. Yellow Fever vaccination certificates are required when arriving from endemic countries. The Meningococcal vaccine is required for school attendance in some emirates. Health cards are issued locally and are required for most GP registrations.
Singapore has a national immunisation registry. International schools generally accept WHO-standard vaccination records. MedSave accounts are used for local healthcare funding. New residents require a local address for healthcare registration.
State-specific immunisation requirements apply. Most states require a Certificate of Immunisation Status for school enrolment. Vaccines required vary by state — check the specific state requirements. The CDC immunisation schedule is the reference standard.
GP registration is required to access NHS care. Children's vaccination records can be transferred via the Summary Care Record system for previous UK records. International vaccination records are accepted but may need to be assessed against the UK schedule.
Complete vaccination history, current medications, allergy documentation, summaries of active conditions, recent GP and specialist letters, growth data, and any developmental assessments. These cover the vast majority of registration requirements.
Request a summary letter from your GP or paediatrician 4–6 weeks before departure. Request copies of specialist letters and recent investigations. Ask for a vaccination printout from the national immunisation register if one exists in your current country.
Contact the GP or public health authority where vaccines were given. Many countries maintain national immunisation registers. If records cannot be found, serological testing can sometimes confirm immunity as an alternative to re-vaccination.
See what a complete portable health record looks like to understand the target structure for children's records across international moves.
Key takeaway: International schools typically review children's health records within 48 hours of enrolment. Families who arrive with complete vaccination records, allergy documentation, and a medical summary from their GP complete school registration without delays or follow-up requests.Real-world scenario
A family of four arrives in Singapore for a three-year assignment. They have two children — one aged eight and one aged four. Both need to be registered at an international school within two weeks. The school health office requests vaccination records for both children (in English, with all dates), allergy documentation for the eight-year-old (who has a documented tree-nut sensitivity), and a completed health form from a physician. The family has all of this — in German, from their previous Frankfurt paediatrician. The vaccination record format used in Germany does not directly correspond to what the Singapore school expects. The allergy documentation was issued by a Frankfurt allergist and is in German. The health form requires a physician's signature, and the only physician who knows the children is now in Frankfurt. With organised, translated, and portable children's medical records, this is a one-day task. Without them, it delays school enrolment by three weeks while the family liaises with a clinic six time zones away.
❌ Without: German records in wrong format, allergy docs in German, physician 6 time zones away. Both children's school enrolment delayed 3 weeks.
✅ With PRIVAWELL: Children's records organised, translated, and in portable format. School enrolment completed within one day of arrival.
⏱ 3-week enrolment delay → completed day one.
Related reading: Doctor visit preparation guide — how children's portable records support every new paediatric consultation. Medical records guide — the full record framework including children's categories. How to organise medical records — applying the full process to children's records.
Build Portable Records for Your ChildrenPRIVAWELL is a private family health record vault that helps internationally mobile families organise, store, and share medical records across countries. It is not a wellness tracker or fitness app.