SueJamesH

Hi all,

We are moving to Sydney in ooooh 3 weeks!!! And I'm now looking at the best suburbs to rent a temporary place with a view to staying in the same suburb indefinitely. We have 2 children, ages 6 & 7 and I would like to try and move to a suburb with a very good public primary school. I will be working in Mascot, so would like to live close to the train line so that I can commute by train. Am happy to go as far north as Lindfield or Killara for the right school. Can anyone advise the best schools in the suburbs along the Northern train line?

Many thanks for your help...
Sue
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lapin_windstar

Any particular reason why your preference is along the North Shore and Western line when you'll be working right on the other side of town and would have to change trains anyway? Bexley North, Bardwell Park etc are nice suburbs that are closer for example.

(This isn't a criticism!)

SueJamesH

Actually I hadn't considered those areas at all... people advise to stay away from the Western suburbs, and I hadn't really considered what was classed as "West" so had stayed away from the south west too. Is Bexley/Bardwell suburbs quite nice too?

And don't worry about criticising - any advice on nice suburbs is very much appreciated!

lapin_windstar

When people criticise Western Sydney, they're usually talking about further our than that. IMHO there's a lot of hyperbolic nonsense talked about Western Sydney but considering you'll be working in Botany, it would be a dog of a commute so I wouldn't bother considering it.

The area map on this page may well be helpful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_West_(Sydney) Inner West is a different kettle of fish complete to Western Sydney; Canterbury/Bankstown is the transition between the two. Bardwell Park and Earlwood, for instance, are very nice suburbs, not superexciting, but decent schools, nice little shopping centres/strips (a bunch of smaller shops/cafes etc clustered around a supermarket) and well-connected by bus and train routes. Frankly, you'll probably get an idea of the relative desirability of different suburbs by comparing rental costs.

Four other issues to consider:

- how close is your place of work actually going to be to Botany station? NB that there is a premium for using Botany or the airport stations due to the crappy PPP arrangement used in construction of the stations.

- are you working regular office hours? if not, that might open up driving and change your priorities. I have a mate that works in Botany, lives in Rockdale and makes it back/forward to work in about 14 mins...offpeak. (Mind you, he owns a car anyway and has employer-paid parking, so...)

- are there any decent bus routes from e.g. Coogee and Maroubra to near your place of work? Trains are not the only fruit.

- do your kids have Special Educational Needs? SEN provision is not terribly well-regarded in Australia and varies widely between schools and system (Catholic, state, private). How enthusiastic/clued-up the local school might be would be much more important than everything else mentioned!

The concern I would have about living on the North Shore and working at Botany would be that a) it's a fair distance and b) you'd have to change trains at Central or Town Hall in the middle of rush hour, which is a crush at peak times. That's not to say that plenty of people don't do it.

In fairness, I should also point out that I have a track record as a bit of a North Shore sceptic with a particular dislike of the Pacific Highway...

seayork2002

My sister went to Greenwich Public (she is now 22!) and my mum was happy, it is near Wollstonecraft train station.