Karen Gould

True to form - "I'm a first time-caller". We (me, hubbie, and twin 8 year old boys) are on the home straight and should be arriving - possibly Brisbane or Sydney - some time next year. We've got no family or friends to greet us and hope that what must be a truly unique store of knowledge at BritishExpats may come to our rescue. I guess like others who have gone before, we're as much "escaping from" as we are "looking forward to" - but there are some big unknowns and we're really grateful if anyone wants to reply to any of the following :

1) How do you go about finding what is a good school
2) Lots of UK schools are real jungles - generally, is it better in Australia
3) We've all experienced nightmares with UK A&E Hospital departments (me personally). Is a night spent on a trolley in a hospital corridor the norm or the exception in Australia.
4) Its not to difficult to pick a city, but how do you pick the suburb to live in - would love to hear from Brisbanites on this one
5) If both parents are working, how do you go about sorting after-school care for 8-year-olds. Are there good nanny agencies; are there local council lists of registered child-minders.

Sorry to have rambled on - but would love to get your great advice.

Many thanks
Karen

Ceri

I'll reply to this so to kick it up the top for you. I can not answer you on schools (I have no children) but there are a few of us in Brisbane who do. There are plenty of "private" child minding /day care services about - don't ask me about them, I can not tell you anything more than in every suburb I've lived in there is at least one house which is a day-care centre.

Suburbs - this is a difficult one, I have personally found the only way you are going to find what suburb is right for you is to rent short term and take a look at the areas for yourself. It is difficult to answer this one. I was initially going to buy a house in Redcliffe as I thought it looked quite a nice area. I decided to rent in this area first before buying... I'm glad I did, as I found Redcliffe is not the right area for me and have bought else where (built). Perhaps a good starting point would be to choose a school first then look at the areas near to the school where you want your children to be educated, and other things such as travelling time to work etc - it's a hard one to advise you on. Different people have different circumstances and needs.

Hospitals - I will not answer you on this one because I personally have no faith in the medical service here - I have had a very bad experience with them here.

Cheers

dotty

Good schools seems to be by word of mouth, the tables etc available in the UK are not published on State Schools here. Private does not always guarantee great school by the way.

Obviously good and bad schools everywhere. Here they can be very Big, 2100 kids in our local high, 1200 in the primary, uniforms are common place so can give the impression of order, but I can assure you once inside the gates it all happens here too. It seems obvious to me from working with kids in schools, the UK kids are about 2 years ahead age for age.

Many schools have after school care and many childminders pick up kids after school too.

Hospitals, look sorry trolley in the hall stuff here too, waiting lists people abusing A&E because they dont want to pay for a doc, big bun fight on Sunsine Coast cause patients have to travel 1.5 hours for cancer radiation. Private will impove your hospital experience greatly.

How do you choose a city, I'd go to both and check them out. Sydney is cooler than Brisbane, more to do, Sydney has nightmare traffic, Brisbanes is just very bad. $300,000 could still buy you a decent house in Brisbane but in my opinion would not get you much more than a flat in Sydney. Wages in Syd could be higher. Probably biggest diff is Sydney is more of a city and Brisbane is still like a Country town in comparisom to UK Cities. Suburbs in either are the more you pay better the reputation basically. If it seems cheap there will be a reason.

Good luck anyway.

renth

The schools and hospitals are no better in Oz than the UK. If you want better quality in education and healthcare you have to pay. In fact our kids primary in Sussex was loads better than the school they are at now. They seem to have a different supply teacher each day and yesterday my wife had to correct the bad grammar on a poster the teacher was creating. The teacher then went on to blame one of the primary school kids for telling her to write it that way.

The good news is that school fees can be much less than the UK because they are subsudised by Federal and state taxes, but this looks like it might be about to change.

jayr

Bit difficult this one, word of mouth probably which you don't have access to. As quoted elsewhere you will probably find your kids are 1-2 yrs ahead relative tot heir Ozzy oeers, don't know how this changes over time. As a rule of thumb, the more expensive the area to live in the better chance that the school may be filled with children who have been brought up to value education. Not a great guide but a starting point. Median house prices by suburb give a basic idea of where is 'posh' and where isn't. Try www.ourbrisbane.com for some suburb info and look at www.realestate.com.au for house and rental costs to see if it 'looks' like the sort of area you would want to live in. I live in Brisbane's western suburbs and they all seem quite nice to me with some generally good schools. With kids I can understand the importance of getting this right, you don't want to put them in a school and then find out you want to move schools/suburbs again later. Make sure you rent first, you can then take time to either buy the right property or rent something more suitable. We rented a place on arrivall based on a recommended school then moved after six months into a much better house (for us) in the same suburb. Lots of after school care about (and before school) though not used any myself. On the school front again, as I understand it you defintiely get a place at your prefereed school if in the catchment area, the local education authorities can help on this but you'll want a detailed street map to assist. If outside the catchment some scholls can be full and you won't get in, not sure how widespread this is.

jayr

Oh, and for QLD try this for schools, it contains links to a bunch of individual school websites for further info:

http://education.qld.gov.au/

Rosy

The advice you have received so far is very good. I have just one question - when you say "it`s not difficult to pick a city"... I think it is very difficult to pick a city if you`ve never been to it...

We chose Brisbane (only because hubbie had "rellies" there and they raved about it) but since visiting sydney, would have preferred it there. Why? It`s got more atmosphere, more life, more culture, more diversity, more of most things - but that includes more traffic, more crime, more highly-priced houses!!!
Swings and roundabouts I suppose.

pommie bastard

I do not wish to spoil what looks like a good post by all who replied , but I must say you are coming on Pal its easy to get carried away with all things new when you first arrive but your posts seem very level headed also your insights are not bad either , fair play to you .
This is not to say we will agree on all things but nice one.

renth

I still love the place though. To me Perth and Australia has so much going for it. I'm just looking forward to summer. This rain is pissing me off.

pommie bastard

No problem after 9 years I am tired of it's limitations and my game is a waste of time in WA but I understand those who put weather at the top of their list.
Winter here means rain and cool nights until October but there are dry spells in between , Australia is more than Perth but getting to the rest of Australia from Perth is like traveling to another country.