From my experience, I'd second this.

but how do you go about finding out which school is better - i mean here we have ofted but i'm not aware that oz has anything like that.
I know word of mouth is always good but if you have just set foot into a country and need to pick a school within a few day or week. I have been checking out prospective shoool websites, but they don't tell you if the school is good or not.
How is a parent supposed to choose?

Good point and that's exactly why I'd love it to come from the teachers so it helped her. Perhaps it's better she is the youngest in the year. I can see where you r coming from and it is such a good point. Boredom and a quick worker never helped me out at school!

good question? I'd also be interested in this answer. My friend asked me if I knew about the Australian version of ofsted but I wasn't aware

Ive decided I am going to review schools again in the area and also look at some co-ed ones that could take dd and ds. I'm not saying I will change schools but going to put some questions out there

At the moment we're working on Magnificant Maths for ages 7 to 9 published by Leckie and Leckie priced £3.99

I think they were ordered from Amazon but I notice there is a website

www.leckieandleckie.co.uk

The workbooks used in daughter's old school were Scottish Heinemann Maths, I googled them and found a source but they are sold in packs of 5. I have asked the school if they know where else I can get them.

I've posted many times on this subject - but it's mostly WA-based.

If your focus is on the academic, you need to find the results tables which are published each year. This will give you a good insight into how your child will do if you get him/her into the school.
First stop would be the Dept for Ed in your state. Ask them where the results are published.

That's the problem. A secondary school teacher recommended the High School we originally sent our eldest to, we looked around it on our reccie and I thought it looked a bit shabby, but other than that quite similar to the school he was at in the UK so we decided to go with it, choosing where we rented accordingly. It was clear very quickly though that it wasn't going to work for us. I then phoned another school recommended by someone I met while viewing houses and that one turned out to be pure gold.

My top tip to anyone now is to research schools by all means from the UK, but don't make a decision until you get here. Trouble is, by the time you make the move you can be desperate to get the kids back into school asap - it's much better to wait a couple of weeks and make the right choice. We nearly had a riot on our hands when we uprooted our son AGAIN just as he was starting to make friends.

I agree totally with you on that.

Ours does much more homework than her UK cousin at the same age.

I am fully aware though, that some schools are different, in both countries.

My 7 year old son went to a private school in England where he did well. However, the teaching was intensive and made him very unhappy and stressed. We have been in WA for 2 months now and he goes to a private church school which he absolutely loves. The system is more laid back here and my son has become more confident and his self esteem has increased. However I think he has forgotten a lot of what he has been taught in England. His literacy is sound but he has always found maths a little harder. Numeracy was taught every day in England, whereas here it seems to be taught twice a week. My son also had lovely small joined up handwriting in England, but because of the line spacing on the paper at school here he is now expected to write using big letters which he was doing when he was in Reception, and is discouraged from writing joined up.

My husband and I now do additional work with him, and today I'll be enrolling him in Kumon classes. If we decided to return to the UK I think my son would he behind his peers.

There are many positives about the Australian educational system, and it's great to see him change from being an introvert and anxious boy. But there are also negatives about the system, and you may find that you have to do supplement it by doing extra work such as Kumon.

I decided that I would just ask at the school office today if I could speak to someone about pre-primary and a few things. As I was there a lady who I've bumped into a few times and has been rather friendly struck up conversion.

She really did put my mind at rest. Her son is currently in pre-primary. She assured me that the teachers seemed pretty good. Her son shows a lot of interest in learning at home and she is all for encouraging it. The teaches have been supportive with all the children. Homework is certainly not compulsory in PP but she did say that teaches talk to the parents. If the kids are interested they give material that is relevant to the learning. Her son is learning to read pretty well and she seemed very informed on where he was at the whole way through.

There was a more formal structure for feedback as well for parents which is what I wanted to hear.

It was good to hear her thoughts on it all and certainly the school does encourage the kids to fulfill their potential not just a set criteria.

I guess I'll have to see how it goes but feeling a bit more relaxed about it now I know that some of my concerns will be addressed.

Can I just say well done for taking that approach. Too many people suffer in silence, when all it takes is a word with someone ...

I agree.

I went in to my 7 year old daughter's art class yesterday to help out. The teacher got the kids to divide their paper in to 8 sections and draw something in each one. In box 5 they were asked to draw 3 fluffy chickens. One little boy stuck his hand up..."Miss, I went to a farm and there were baby chickens that had just hatched". "that's nice" says the teacher "did they die?". The little boy frowned and answered "no they were alive....well one died because it had caught it's leg in the egg shell" Teacher gives sympathetic nod before speaking again "children, do you know, when my daughter was young she had a baby dwarf rabbit. It was lovely. One day I was holding it and it dug it's claws in to me...I tried to grab it but it ran through my fingers, over my shoulder and....that's right children, it fell down and split it's skull and died". I'm staring at her in disbelief, she does more sympathetic nodding to me and to the class who are all wrapt in this story and then she carries on "so, children of course we had to buy her another baby bunny and do you know what happened?...my daughter and her friend dressed it up in baby clothes..." Phew, I'm thinking, we're back to cutesy stuff " and of course they were two rough and both it's legs were broken and it died" OMG!

Thankfully I seemed more disturbed by this story than the children! I'm all for Aussie honesty but WTF LOL!

You are kidding aren't you?

Haha - did this happen around this time of year? You know - Halloween.