lawrenson

My teenagers are weighing up the pros and cons of going to Oz and would like some feedback from their own age group. Girls 17 & 15 and boy 13. He is the one who doesn't want to leave his friends and thinks it would be the end of the world. The girls are curious and have not ruled it out.
Obviously we can paint a picture from what we have gathered but they would rather hear stuff from their peers.
school
friends
sports
evenings
music
We would probably end up somewhere in Victoria. I know Nicky is there, is there anyone else who could help too?

Lee Family

we will be watching this tread with interest as we have 2 girls 15 and 13 who are weighting up the same stuff . We are hoping to move to Brisbane

OMG

.

Hi,
I know its a tough one. We have a 15yr old daughter and have been through all the ups and downs with her. But, we have just come back from our validation trip in Mornington. We have bought a house, looked at schools - she will finish her GCSE's here next June, as we thought it unfair for her not to finish her UK schooling. She will join YR11 half way through in July - her GCSE's are equivalent to Y11, and then complete Yr12 and her VCE's. So she has visited the school and is happy, likes where we are going to live, and she has come back much happier and settled with the idea. She is very sporty and the Peninsula caters for all sporting needs. She likes the shopping, and you can certainly shop til you drop there! She has seen groups of kids that seem to be into the same thing (apparently you can tell this by the way they dress and hairstyles, which apparently suggests that they are into the same sort of music?? - don't understand any of this but hey!). Also we are going with the attitude that its not forever - when she has finished schooling/uni etc she will be travelling all over and can meet up with old friends and make new. She will also have the choice of living and settling in Oz or back in the UK. So will have to see how it all goes!

shiels

We have a son of 13 who doesn't even want to go for our reccie visit in August but a daughter of 9 who just cant wait! But we are sure that when they see what its like they wont want to come home!

maggy

hi im maggys daughter i moved here about 9 months ago im 17 i lived back in the uk while my family moved 2 oz i stayed back in scotland beacuse i didnt want 2 leave my mates and i hated the fact that i would have 2 start all over again.but i just wanted a holiday so i took a holiday for 6 months here n i love it i have made so many friends so easy everyone is so friendly i have a great job there is sunshine evrymorning and the lifestyle here is so laid back
its so hard to explain but i thought i would miss evryone so much but its so easy to make friends and fit into the new lifestyle its hard to explain i mean i havent felt home sick at all i think its really weird because i was out evrynight with my mates back in the uk and nothing has changed here its just new friends and a new place i can understand where your daughter is coming from i didnt want to leave at all but i think she would be so suprised how quickly she will adjust to the lifestyle. pitty your werent coming to perth i would have taken your daughter out meganx

maggy

Ok Scossie, Soapy, Biggy, Bordy bless the wee doll she is a bit lke her mother blethers shit and her spelling is crap.

FFS but she is having a ball over here lol

mags
xxxxxxxxx

Alive and kicking

kellyjs

Hi everyone
As a mum of two girls 12 and 13 I must admit it would have been so much easier to move BEFORE secondary age for various reasons mainly friendships,and pending commencement of gcse's (for 13 year old) My girls go through ups and downs of moving to Oz, the ups being BOTH times we've been over when they always fall in love withh the place. Lets be honest though, we ALL feel like that when we go on holiday so maybe that shouldn't really be counted as enthusiasm more like holiday happiness?!
Thing is though, what Im getting at it that you can tie yourself in knots thinking is this the right thing to do for my kids? But the main thing everyone should be thinking of is, Is it right to let my kids think that what you got and where we are living Is all there is?
Try to make yourself (and them in the process) realise that moving to Oz ISN'T the be all and end all, its a stepping stone that you may move on from. All this talk of moving to Oz like its the end of the world is a bit rubbish. THATS what people find so hard to cope with, that they may never see their friends or this coountry again. For all we know our kids may end up getting married to a brit and moving back or deciding to come back for Uni!! Let them know that they have ample opportunity to make their own decisions and move back if they want sometime down the line and you'll find most will not find it so daunting
Kelly x

Dreams of Oz

Hi Kelly and what a great post!
I am going to try to think more like that from now on as i have a nearly 17 year old daughter who is really finding it hard to even contemplate coming over to Oz.
She has agreed ( begrudginly)to come over for a recce next Easter to validate but cannot get her head around coming over to live.I will try your approach and make it all seem less final to her and point out that she can come back ... as we all can if it doesn t work out.I just don t want to wait until we are too old and then regret not trying.Great post!!

thebears

Could they not search for penpals through local school websites? Perhaps BE parents could introduce their teenages to give a UK perspective?

From my own experience in being brought up in NZ the pros will far outweigh the cons. I dont personally know of kid sites but would of thought these days they would be the ones showing us??

Leaving of friends is always hard no matter how old you are. However it does show you how good some friends are, or if they are just ships in the night.

Making friends over here will be easy for the kids if they maintain a positive attitude - who would want to be friends with a bore? or someone walking around with a sad face all day? At 13 the lad is going to paradise especially during the summer - Ah the memories.

My daughter is only 2 and a half but she is having a ball First day of nursery no tears but boy did she get dirty in that sand pit

Kiwi
Ps It is the right decision if you are going for the kids to have a better lifestyle.

Wendy

There is a Youth club on BE. It's down by the immigration forum.

mand8002

My daughter was 17 when we moved here. Fortunatley she was keen to make the move.
Regarding schooling, she was going to go back to school but the school here suggested she went to TAFE as she had been in a college in the UK so might find going back to school difficult. They offer lots of different courses so she managed to find one she thought she would enjoy.
She has made friends easily although for some reason they tend to be older than her as the class at college is very mixed.
She has been to a few concerts (or gigs do you call them?) and met people there too.
As for sports she plays netball so joined up in one of the local netball teams. There are lots of sports available

All in all she is really glad she made the move and does not wish to ever live in the UK again.

kt.2006

Hi, I'm sure I read somewhere else on another thread that a student is considered to be an overseas student (and has to pay overseas student fees) if they wish to attend university in the UK if they have not been in the UK for the previous 3 years. My friend is worried about this at the moment because her 17 year old wants to return to study in the UK (mostly because of the girlfriend he left behind). She is hoping that he will change his mind but is now worried that she will have to pay the overseas student fees, even though he has only been in Australia for 6 months.

jdt3000

As long as they are sociable kids, and they are all within school age, there should be no problems at all (fingers crossed!)

My little sister (12) was very homesick and upset when we first got here, she missed all her friends in the UK, but as soon as she joined the local high school she fit right in, and made LOADS of friends (all her aussie mates think she's cool just because she is English!)

As for myself, I am above school age, and so making mates is a teensy bit more difficult...Without a central place to socialise and meet people from similar backgrounds and who have similar interests, it's hard to meet people. I have done a few TAFE courses, but as previously stated, the courses have people of very mixed backgrounds and age groups. Also, making friends through work will obviously only happen once you have got a job, which is no easy task in itself, as certain places in Australia (Sunshine Coast particularly) have unemployment issues. Some places in Australia don't have such unemployment issues though, so it's not going to be like that everywhere (I don't think anyway!)

It'll all work out for the best though, all it takes is to meet one like minded person and they will be fine!

lawrenson

yes, I have seen that but it may be easier for parents reading this to ask their kids to respond than it is for me to persuade my 13 year old to look through that as he is so not keen!

Paul&Nic

We've been on The Gold Coast for about 6 weeks and our 15 & 13 year old love it here! They love school which seems unreal as altho they did well in the UK, they wasn't happy there. This is 100% true, but they actually moan if they have to take the day off for a bank holiday or something! ...

Both have made their own circle of friends and regularly stay over. Our stuff only arrived last week, but their both keen to have their friends stay over here too.

My son was always 'out and about' in the Uk, but my daughter was a bit of a MSN girl and was glued to the PC and always moaned we didn't have enough 'decent' music channels on the TV.

Now tho, total u-turn and is always out and about. I asked her for her thoughts the other day on Digital TV as the picture from the roof ariel is real poor, and her answer was "whatever, I don't care!"

Going on what she was like in the UK I would NEVER of dreampt I would hear that answer, NEVER!

Recently she said that so far over here it feels almost like a holiday, but with school, her brother agreed!

She was supposed to go into year 11 but altho she is very able, we decided to hold her back to year 10 for her best interest. Thing is, she was doing the equivalent of 13 GCSEs in the UK, but now she does 6 subjects! The obligatory English & Maths, a Science, one called Futures, and she picked 2 others. She loves Art so grabbed that, and also loves Dance so went for that too. What I'm getting to, is in the UK she didn't do Dance at school at all, but over here not only dies she do it at school, she does it EVERY day! Both Art & Dance she does EVERY day!

The boy loves his sport altho complains the Aussies are crap at Soccer ...lol, but in their school every other Wednesday is all sports! ... so he loves that, but also there's a few of his subjects that he'll do for the whole afternoon! He'll do a subject for a whole term and I'm waiting for him to start his 'Rock Music' term. A whole afternoon with a guitar or drums, I know he'll love! ...

No wonder they love it at school, and I'll not complain! ...