Moving, where to live and good schools!

Hi, we are currently looking at living in nsw for 2-3 years as my husband is discussing a potential job offer in cbd, Sydney, July 2012 onwards. We have visited oz twice and love it, my brother emigrated there a few years ago with his Aussie girlfriend. We have a 16 year old daughter taking her gcses and a 18 year old son taking his a levels.

Any advice on nice areas to live with good schools for our daughter to finish year 11 and 12 would be gratefully received. Also my son may want to get work while he's here. Has anyone got kids of similar ages and looked into the IB? Unfortunately they only offer it at private schools.....very expensive! It's a minefield to me and I just want to make the right decision regarding where to live (rent is more than I thought!) and good schools and stuff going on for teenagers...please help!!

Hi and welcome to the forum, I will move your post to the NSW section in the hope someone can help.

Kate

I can't really help with this as I have no idea about high school exam systems and tertiary education, but I thought it needed a bump

Try using the myschool website - www.myschool.edu.au for school statistics. There's a lot of info on there but it takes a bit of digging to try and get to it, you sort of have to start with an idea of area first, and the schools that it uses as "similar" from a demographic PoV for the comparisons seem a bit odd to me

As for where to live, it's hard to say without knowing a bit more. Budget? Acceptable length of commute? What sort of requirements you want from a house (like, you must have a pool or something like that)?

It sounds like budget is a big factor, so you might start looking in some of the outer suburbs where you get a lot more for your money - somewhere in the North West arc from the Hills district around to places west of Parramatta for example. You can find nice houses out here for reasonable cash, and can get into the CBD in an hour or so. They're generally decent family areas, as to what there is to do for your teenagers, there are sports clubs and social clubs all over the place

Moving over and starting from scratch without existing networks of friends can be tough, you won't be making dozens of close friends in a few weeks, you have to work at it (this isn't an issue with Australia, moving to the other end of the UK would be no different). So outside interests are a must IMO. Even if you don't really have any at the moment - eg for us, we moved over here in November with a 4 year old and are mostly making friends via clubs (running & golf for me, yoga for my wife) and activities our son is involved in (school, golf, tennis & swimming lessons). If we'd just stuck to going to work and taking H to school we'd probably be a bit lonely. I think it's especially hard for teenagers so have a think about what they would like to do outside school/college

You probably need to think about what happens after school for them too. I don't know how higher education works here either, but there are people who do. And if your stay's only a short one and you come back and they have to enrol in a UK uni or similar, what that means as I think there are implications for fees

Not trying to put you off, but obviously with kids of their age there are a lot more considerations. What they might actually want to do also being one of them, ultimately our son does what we tell him (sort of!) but if he were older he might not

If your daughter wants to go to university in Australia, then there's no significant advantage in doing the IB.

Once she has a degree, it really won't matter what school qualifications she has.

If she's wanting to go back to the UK for uni, IB might be easier in terms of fewer hoops to jump through when applying, but be aware she may end up having to pay international fees as she won't have been resident in the UK for the three years prior to study, so financially this may not be an option. Unless she's looking at going to oxbridge, the tertiary education at the G8 unis in australia is pretty much comparable to the red-bricks in the UK.

Thanks for your replies, very helpful.

We have spoken to a few schools, wish we could afford private but might not be able to so looking at good state schools - will check out that website thanks.

We all have outside interests so looking forward to making new friends. We appreciate that we might have to live a bit away from Sydney as it's rather expensive but there seem to be quite a few nice ones - at the moment it's northern beaches vs the likes of st Ives/pymble....would like to hear from anyone in these areas??? They look nice - would be great to find stuff for teens there too although being near a beach would be great.

It's still a minefield!!! If anyone has experience of a good state school in the above areas please let me know. I'm not looking forward to sorting the education bit out...and will have to cross the uni bridge when we get there...my daughter wants to study law at a good possibly Uk uni.....!

Thanks.

Both of the areas you mention are pretty pricey tbh, so if you can afford those then you ought to be OK. Decent high schools in both areas I think, the public school in the latter area is St Ives High although parts of Pymble are possibly in the catchment for Ku-Ring-Gai High instead. Northern Beaches a bigger area so more high schools, I know there are ones at Davidson and I think French's Forest? Not sure on how good they are but it's a start point for searching on the myschool website

Commuting to the CBD is easiest from Pymble as you have the train. But St Ives is a nicer suburb IMO, very good shops and a really nice centre around "St Ives Village Green" (don't be taken in by the "village" bit!!). Both are pricey areas, not sure what you're expecting but for a decent sized and nice family home you are looking at upwards of $1000 a week. Parts of the Northern Beaches are cheaper as the commute isn't as easy - Davidson/Belrose/French's Forest can be had for $800+ a week, then it gets a bit more expensive again close to the beach, but that has its own attractions

Come and live in the inner city, sounds like your kids are old enough that they don't need a garden but they will appreciate being close to the 'action.' Plus many of the uni's and colleges will be closer and for ones out in the 'burbs, it's easier to travel out from the city.

Living in the inner city - Surry Hills in my case - is like living at the hub of a wheel and most of the places that you want to visit are on the ends of the 'spokes.' Bondi, Tamarama, Bronte, Clovelly, Coogee, beaches are all about 7 or 8K from me. The CBD is one or two stops on the train or I can walk it in 20 mins. UTS, Notre Dame Uni, Sydney Tech College are all easy walking distance, even Sydney uni is only 20 mins walk and the bus to UNSW is outside my door.

Central Station is less then ten mins walk and from there I can go practically anywhere in Sydney, or travel by bus from one of the many stops around the edge of the station - Eastern Subs from Eddy Ave, Western Subs and maybe North Western Subs from Broadway.

I like the Northern Beaches, used to live at Narrabeen, but it's 30K instead of 8K if I want to swim there. I like St Ives too, my best friend Bill lives there, has a lovely home in a bush setting but I think he said it's a 15 min uphill walk to get to the nearest shops. Here in Surry Hills all the shops are on my door step and of course many are open all night if I need emergency milk/bread etc.

I guess perhaps when you live in the 'burbs, you make your life around your home - pull up the drawbridge! My brother lives in Picnic Point, out to the south west about 26 K from the CBD - lovely area too, cheaper version of St Ives in some ways. He's been there for over 20 years so I guess I've got used to the area too.

It all comes down to what you can afford of course.

Thank you for all your info.

We have been trawling the web looking at rentals and accept we will have to pay $1000pw plus. Would like a decent sized house (to accomodate inevitable visitors) and a pool would be fab...if poss. I think schools will determine our location and would love to live near the city but accept might not be able to. I realise pymble, st Ives etc is near a train line and northern beaches aren't...it would be great for my hubby to have a shorter commute than at present...an hour+ drive into London.

I will continue searching different sites and hope we get the job sorted soon so we can plan properly...assume a work visa (can't remember the number) isn't too difficult to get through?

Thanks once again.

You'll get much better value in the Northern Beaches (east of Middle Harbour) than on the Upper North Shore for rentals - $1000pw gets you a nice spacious house with a pool somewhere like Belrose or French's Forest, over this side of the water (I live in Wahroonga) you're just about scraping into an OK 4 bed house but you'll see a lot of tired and/or grotty stuff at that price point

The commute from the beaches can be a pain as Pittwater Rd, the Spit bridge and Military Rd get very congested (as they're the only way in and out towards the city). It's better on the west side of the area like Belrose/FF where you can cut across Roseville bridge. So if you want to keep commute times down, then stay west and/or south (it's not so bad getting into the CBD from Manly, Seaforth, Freshwater etc as they're closer, the ferry is also an option from Manly). The other benefit of living properly near to the beach is that you really don't need a pool - the sea is right there, and the sea breezes also help keep things cool in summer. This comes at a cost though, but it's no more expensive (in some cases cheaper) than places like the Upper North Shore. Got no idea what schools are like in this area but it's a fairly wealthy area so unlikely to be bad. Also not so clear on rental prices out this way as we didn't really consider it. I reckon your teens would love Manly or nearby too, tons going on and a stack more cool than the outer family 'burbs

If a really nice house with pool at an affordable price is really the most important thing, then look west of the Lane Cover River into the Hills District - North and North-West of Epping. Decent commute (once you've got to the railway), good family areas, good schools by all accounts, much better value than the Upper North Shore or beaches

This is all on the north side of the city, as that's where I live so I know it much better. I'm sure there are a dozen options south too, if you're prepared to pay $1000pw then you have the pick of a lot of places tbh

I agree with much that Pintpot has said - I'll add the following anecdotal opinions of local state schools on the Upper North Shore:

Turramurra High School gets good reports as a traditional high school.

Kuringai High is a little more slanted toward the creative types apparently.

Hornsby Girls High School is a selective school, very good.

Killara High School is excellent but you may have blown your rent budget out the water by then...

Turramurra to Wynyard on the train is about 35-40 minutes.

Personally, if I had a choice of where to live for a couple of years in Sydney, I would say the beaches. I reckon I could hack the commute for that amount of time for the joy of returning close to the sea. Whether the schools are any good i don't know. When I ask my Aussie OH what the schools are like on the beaches, she says they all smoke dope. But then so did she (allegedly) and she was in the Upper North Shore.

Cheers