Edwards family

We will be arriving on the Sunshine Coast in August/September. We have 3 children one in Year 4 and one due to start school this year. We have looked at schools on a visit to Queensland 2 years ago but haven't really done a lot of research as yet. Any advice would be helpful.

Also bring everything or sell everything we keep hearing different opinions. We are going to have to bring some things like bikes/toys etc. and someone is offering to buy some of our furniture and we don't know what to do.

Kim

Famous 5

Your choice of school will depend on where you will be living - we have 3 children (year 1, year 6 and year 9) and they all attend St Andrew's Anglican College at Peregian Springs, which is a private school, but fees are substantially less than school fees in the UK. So far we are really pleased with it and the children all love it. It is a new school (only 5 years old) and has some great facilities but is still being developed so does not yet have all the facilities some other schools have (for example, the children have to go to Coolum for swimming as there is no pool yet). There are masses of activities on offer for those who want them and the staff are fantastic.

There are other church schools locally (Catholic, Lutheran, Christian) as follows

• Matthew Flinders Anglican College Buderim
• Pacific Lutheran College Currimundi
• Nambour Christian College Nambour
• Suncoast Christian College Woombye
• Immanuel Lutheran College Buderim
• Good Shepherd Lutheran College Noosa
• Caloundra Christian College Caloundra

plus the Sunshine Coast Grammar School as well as lots of state schools which have good reputations.

You can check the Queensland Government website for details of state schools at

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

Children start school later here so you will need to check when your child will start school and whether s/he will be in Prep or Year 1.

As to what to bring, we brought some toys etc (probably more than we should have done so we could have been more ruthless in what we got rid of before we left) along with bikes, scooters etc. The bikes failed the quarantine inspection and had to be re-cleaned, reinspected and delivered at a later date to the rest of our stuff which cost quite a lot. Bikes are relatively cheap here (and places like Target and Big W often do really good offers) so unless your bikes are pretty special you may prefer to sell them.

All the best.

Edwards family

Thanks for that. We visited your school in Perigian when we came out there 2 years ago. We heard good reports about the Good Shepherd also but didn't get chance to visit. How long have you been out there and did you find it hard settling in. How long did your furniture take to arrive.

Kim

rebnatoli

Sorry to hijack thread but we were wondering about bikes too. Did you jet wash them and get rid of as much oil as possible? Don't really want to spend hours cleaning them then having to pay loads at customs - the adult bikes are cheap halfords and the kids from car-boot sales.

cleav007

Matthew Flinders is one of the best in QLD. Go there!!!

kevinbloomfield

Nothing wrong with the state schools here either. If you have plenty of money then maybe private schools are worth it, if you don't then spend your money on buying a house in a decent area with a decent state school

aleutian

Immanuel Lutheran has a good reputation. There is a lovely warm atmosphere there and most of the classes are quite small too.

ey up 1

If youre serious about the private schools e mail them directly as most have waiting lists (Mathew flinders 2years +)

aleutian

Some schools have vacancies in certain year groups and waiting lists for others. Not all year levels will have the same length of waiting list.