St.Georges Girl

I am sorry to have to say this, but I think it is you who is living a fantasy of your own. Have you ever lived for any length of time in another country? Have you ever had to be hospitalised or use the A & E in another country? There are schools here in WA that hardly anyone chooses to send their children to. I can think of 3 off the top of my head as I'm typing to you now. What did you have to take your children to the A & E for? I know where my sister in law works patients are assessed as they come in. We waited 15 hours for my sons girlfriend to have stitches in her badly cut eye last Xmas Eve because she wasn't priority, yet she ended up having 17 stitches as the wound was so deep. Someone threw a large rock at her while she was innocently minding her own business and nearly took her eye out.

It's too easy to blame 'NEW Labour', but I can assure you, things have been worse under Tory governments.

northernbird

Absolutely, I live in a nice suburb and my catchment High School is shite!

TraceyW

Ditto to that C

St.Georges Girl

I agree, you do live in a lovely suburb and I know which school you are talking about which was one of the 3 that came to mind immediately and one of the schools with a police presence too.

You also live in a nice suburb and the other two state high schools not too far from us are worse, well one of them in particular anyway. That's why we sent our son to a private school, and of course because we knew if he was bullied again that it would be dealt with immediately.

rabsody

Great post. This whole blame culture in the UK really does get my goat, but I can remember how easy it is to get caught up in it when you are constantly bombarded with it in the media and so on.

I think those that are coming to Aus to escape a political party who expect to find things hugely different on that front here are living in a fantasy land and likely to find their illusions rather shattered upon settling. As we all know, it's the same old issues here - health, poor infrastructure, education, taxes, lying pollies etc. The naivete of posters such as bay would be laughable really if weren't so sad.

ladyofthelake

I grew up in the same area you are in. I went to school before OFSTED inspections started, and the schools were crap then too, but nobody was armed with info to complain about it. I can tell you, without any doubt, my school was incredibly crap, and nothing at the time was done about changing that. At least these OFSTED inspections are trying to identify where the problems are so they can be resolved, instead of just ignoring them.
Seems some people will always find something to whinge about.

St.Georges Girl

Meaning?

NikiL

Fair point!

We intend to do the same, however in the UK there is no way in hell we would be able to afford to do so. As my salary is going to be the same over there as here as a minimum (and yes, I have researched that throughly before anyone starts reminding me that a lot of salaries are lower than the sterling equivalent) and my OH is going to be on more than he is now (again this has been researched) we will be in a far stronger position to do so as the school fees are far more affordable in Oz than here. You don't get the tax benefits for school fees here either!

ladyofthelake

Meaning Bay is complaining about problems which have always been there, but have only in recent years been identified by these inspections. Schools weren't all perfect before Labour came into power, but Bay loves to blame the whole demise of the country on them. Practically every post by them is having a whinge about the government.

St.Georges Girl

I'm not telling you that you are wrong about the salaries, but just be aware that things aren't always what they seem. We were led to assume that our wages were on a par with what we were earning in the UK, but in reality it was very different.

What tax benefits do you think you might get here for school fees? I am curious because I don't know of any and our son went through the private school system for 6 years.

Oh and by the way, bullying goes on in the private schools too.

hudd

In East Hanney. Its very quite. My 14 year old said its the " land of the living dead". No trouble here apart from my large Canadian cat fighting off all the local cats.
hudd

northernbird

I would like to know about tax benefits too G, although I have 3 years before high school yet but would like to know how I can make my fees cheaper.

quoll

I dont think there are any tax breaks for having kids at private schools - we certainly paid through the nose for our kids with no additional support. Some employers will allow you to salary sacrifice school fees I believe but mine was never one of them! Even then it would probably be one of the things which attracted fbt.

I do see that kids who come from UK have a better early education than their age peers in Aus and I believe that the outcomes from universities are also better than from Aus universities. People who are silly enough to expect A & E to deal with their minor ills get what they deserve IMHO - A & E is about triaging people who could not be managed by a GP. However, there have been some recent horrific stories about people who have been incorrectly triaged in Australian hospitals recently and that is a big worry (cf the little lad who died this week after being sent home with meningitis from two quite prestigious places!). I have been pleasantly surprised by the service in A & E in UK when having to take my parents for quite serious episodes.

Violence is everywhere. My strapping son at 16 got mugged in Westfield Paramatta food court for wearing Oakley sunglasses and no one stepped in to help him! My other son, who was a special constable in the Met was much more comfortable walking around central London.

I think if one makes the decision to come to Aus it should be a move for something rather than a move away from something because a lot of the things that people imagine will be improvements will not necessarily be so.

misterjingo

This is great advice for anyone moving away it seems!

NikiL

I remember something about private fees being subsidised somewhere along the line, will research it some more and post again (tomorrow, rather sloshed at the mo) with something more concrete. It may be that the schools are subsidised, but will look into it some more.

Salaries wise we've spoken to a number of agencies/companies/individuals so we know what salary bands we're looking at, particularly my salary as I know of a number of people in my profession how have moved out to Oz.

I appreciate bullying can happen in private schools too - however it is usually addressed more promptly, and there are other benefits we want with private schooling for my stepson.

East Hannay - Wantage neck of the woods if I remember rightly? Nice area, proper old england. Rural, old school values, rare nowadays.