I have been given the opportunity to move to Perth on a sponsorship with my work, The base is in the Henderson area. Can anyone recommend any areas to look for a house that is nearby but has alot of things to do and is not "dead"? Also my wife is a primary school teacher and she will be looking to work there too, does anyone have any advise for her before we come?

areas to look at
Freemantle-preferred area
Coogee
Port Coogee-new area with marina
if those areas are to expensive then Rockingham

Cant advise on teacher jobs,they say their short of teachers for the next school year but I suspect its rural positions their talking about.

Thanks for that,

When you say rural, how rural? How far from the city and what are they areas like?

Henderson / Kwinana is very industrial. But if you want somewhere lively / bohemian and close it really has to be the Freo area. If you are in to boating etc then that Rockingham - Mandurah strip is very good. Schools are spread all over the place.

Have you seen a TV show -co production between BBC Scotland and SBS
(Australia's Special Broadcasting Service) called Desperately Seeking Doctors
It will give you an idea how vast rural WA is and how far apart most towns are.

As I said "Cant advise on teacher jobs" This is all a best guess, you may land a local job but others I have known haven't.

By rural I mean remote, not on the coast ,not preferred by other teachers, these are the areas they have difficulty recruiting teachers.

There are a couple of hundred vacant school teacher places but they tend to be in places hundreds of km from Perth teaching mostly aboriginal kids - it makes good press. But don't be put off by that unless the visa specifically says you have to go where the state sends you as a teacher. There will be plenty of opportunities in Perth.

Cheers worzel,

Im just sounding out the area as i dont really want my wife sitting in the house wishing she never came when im at work. Any advise on where she can look online at these jobs?

We are really excited about coming over but as i said i hope she doesnt regret it once we are there, it would be great if she got something in Perth.

I'm not a teacher or an expert in recruitment but I know, like the UK, there is a shortage of teachers so she'll be fine. Websites like Seek seem to cover all disciplines, though.

From what I can gather from you guys you would find some of the newer / outlying suburbs too quiet so try and stay as close to Perth / Freo as you can. Its not like the UK with a pub on every corner here. If you get one pub per suburb you are doing well other than in Subi, Freo, North Perth, Mt Lawley, Leederville and such places.

Check Teacher jobs here
http://www.det.wa.edu.au/jobs.asp

Your wife needs to register her details for relief/supply work at as many primary schools as she can in the area, particularly private schools. If a school likes her then they might offer her some long term work. Sometimes, it can take a while to get your official registration. If she hasn't started this process, she needs to start looking into it asap.

How can we find out how to do this? Does she have to register with the schools individually or is there an official body that she registers with which will pass her details onto the schools?

Thanks for the advise.

Henderson area and not dead.....eh no

Fremantle is not too far away and looks quite lively, no?

Your wife will need to contact WACOT http://www.wacot.wa.edu.au/index.php?section=1
A friend of ours is a teacher and she came out last year and has plenty of work as a relief teacher, only trouble is you might not be in the same school each day (though if a school likes you they will ask for you specifically) There are also relief teacher job agencies that you can contact & register with once you have all the approriate stuff sorted with WACOT.

Thankyou very much, ill be sure to pass this on to her and hopefully she can get the ball rolling as soon as possible.