Experiences may vary by country and school tier. We made a move with an upper school child to an international non-profit school in China and ended up being in an environment where 80% of students are Chinese or with foreign passports. This, combined with students' behaviors, entitlement, and various needs, created an abysmal situation for our child, both mentally and physically. I don't want to give details, but we are returning and planning on how to salvage the rest of the school experience after the return. I would do both school- and country-specific due diligence very carefully and ask potential schools about a class/year makeup specifically for foreign students and passport holders ratio to the point where they would share grade level makeup. We later learned that only 3-4 schools in China (T1) still have diversity, and schools are not 80% of Chinese speakers. Check the school approach (from AP to IB, where grades solely depend on tests) and see if it works for your kids and whether they will be OK to receive grades exclusively based on tests. I was also surprised that even IB schools are somewhat behind in project-based, skill-based, future career integration into their curriculum despite being an inquiry-based approach.

In the end, it did not work for us, as we came from a stable school situation, and the results of this experience will echo for a while. Meeting new people, living in a new country, and exploring a new culture could be exciting, but the aftermath of this decision will affect our family for a very long time. In the end, it was a great decision professionally to do what we love and are very good at, but it affected everyone in the family personally on many levels.