nic0218

Hi there, best of luck, in advance , with your possible/future move to Rocky. The following answers are obviously subjective and I'm sure you'll want to have a good look around once you get here. 1. Best places: The Range area has some lovely older houses, Queenslanders etc. close to the Botanic gardens and the two grammar schools. Frenchville is one of the best suburbs. If you want lots of space or are thinking of building your own there are a couple of areas in north rocky: Glenlee, Olive tree estate etc. 2:The best schools depend on area and budget. If you're happy fee paying there's the Grammar, Girls grammar or some of the catholic schools: St Anthony's, St. Peter's. State school wise: Frenchville has a good reputation. Mount Archer has also been rising in their results. 3: south side, ( Rocky's divided by the Fitzroy river and everything is either south side, or north side!), is generally prone to flooding, but only in sections. Saying that there are areas near to Lakes creek, north side that regularly flood. Your best bet is to google Rockhampton regional council's website and there's a section which maps areas that are affected by flooding. 4: Everywhere takes 10 mins to get to in Rocky! However, there are people who commute into Rockhampton from "The Beach"- Yeppoon/ emu park, takes about 30/40 mins depending on traffic. There's obviously the airport that does daily flights to Brisbane and the train service. Hope that helps a little!

I'm not that clued up about kindergartens in Rocky, although my daughter may need to go to one for a short while, if we get there before Jan 2013!! I'd probably look at Kindies near to the better schools. Frenchville primary, is one of the best, but since they stopped their catchment area, is rapidly growing, (currently has 7 prep classes!!!). Mount Archer is another I visited and looks to be as good as Frenchville, but not as large, (only 4 prep classes!). Kindergarten wise, I agree with you, its really hard to judge how good they are on the internet. Best bet, is probably to spend a day visiting a few and see which one fits best for you and your daughter. Hope that helps a little, let me know if you want any more info!

Hi, We went to visit Rockhampton and Yeppoon in Feb. Since my daughter has started her first year of primary school, we also visited schools. Yeppoon is nice and certainly somewhere that we would enjoy going to at the weekend -beach, cycling etc, but we preferred Rocky's suburbs. The 2 best schools in Yeppoon are: Yeppoon State primary & Taraganba primary. Yeppoon state is good, (facilities and staff were good & it has it's own outdoor swimming pool!), the only down side that I could see, are that the buildings are older and some need work on. Taraganba had amazing facilities, but is absolutely enormous. I'd say it was the size of of an average secondary school here. I can't remember the exact number, but around 5-6 Prep classes. If you wanted any info on Rocky schools, let me know. I visited several of the best ones, (recommended by a fellow primary school teacher in Rocky!). Hope that helps.

Thanks Alaska, for the link. I've been on individual school websites, but not this one. I'll spend the weekend, adding to my research..thanks again!

Thanks to everyone for your replies. We're thinking of heading to the Yeppoon area, as my brother has advised not to touch Rockhampton!! We're also going on a reccie visit in Feb, so we'll check out the local schools and enquire into the catchment areas. Many thanks again to everyone who replied!

Hi there, Anyone had experience of getting their kids a primary school place in a QLD school? Do you apply centrally, as we do in the UK, Or do you apply directly to the school? I'm assuming that if it's the latter, there's waiting lists for the good schools?! Any replies about your experiences would be gratefully received!!

Hi Shirley, Thanks for you reply. Yes we have somewhere to stay sorted! My brother lives in QLD, so we're invading his house for a couple of weeks. Then back to the UK to sell our house!!

Hi there, Just a quick question. We got our 175 perm resident visa in June 2011 and will be going out to Aus in Feb to validate the visa. But we need to return to Uk to sell our house..pack up etc. My understanding was that we didn't need to get a returning resident visa, until our 5 years was up?! Is that correct, just having a minor panic that I've overlooked something...and that when we finally go out to AUS again they'll say "you need to have xyz..."! Thanks in advance for any replies

Thanks Geoff, that's a brilliant answer and really helpful. My husband is currently pitching this idea to his boss to become a night-shift graphic & Web designer!!

Hi there, If this has been covered in a previous thread, apologies! We have got our PR visas and were planning on going out to QLD in 2012 and looking for work. However, my hubby's company have started discussing the option of employing him remotely in AUS. (He's a web designer). Does anyone have experience of working for a UK company whilst in AUS? Did you get paid into a UK bank account -pay UK taxes or did you have it transferred into Aussie bank account and pay full taxes that end. We are going to consult an Aussie accountant when we go to validate our visas in Feb, but any advice from people in a similar situation would be gratefully received!!

Hi there, Would really appreciate some views about any primary schools in/around Yeppoon QLD. Thanks!

Hi there, Firstly, don't panic!! The writing is fine as long as you have a look at the format that they expect, and do a little practise if you feel you need it. There are a couple of threads that have some good advice from people that have already done their IELTS. Do a search for "IELTS Rant" & "IELTS this week". Hope that helps. Nic

Apologies to all PIO's if this has been mentioned in a previous thread! Could anyone tell me what happens to my daughter's Child trust fund, when we leave? Would she be able to access it when she's 18 from Oz, or does the government scrap the account? My husband is currently topping it up with a direct debit, so I'd like to stop it if the answer is the latter! Many thanks in advance, for any replies, Nic

Hi there, May be having a blond moment, but was wondering whether anyone has started a thread showing the progress of SA SS applications? Did a search and there are ones for Vic, WA etc, but can't find one for SA. Just wanted an idea of how quickly the applications are being processed! If anyone can point me in the right direction, that would be great, or if there isn't one started... Many thanks :huh:

Hi there, All good advice from the previous post. I started a thread called "Ielts rant".( Don't worry it's not as scary as it sounds!) There's lots of good advice from an IELTS examiner and other people who have been through the tests. Check it out for lots of good tips. What it essentially boils down to is practise, particularly the format of the written tasks. Best of luck

We travelled to Oz, with my daughter, when she was 16 months old. All of the above advice is good. The only things that I would mention is trying to book the intial outbound flight, ( the longest part to Singapore etc) for the evening, so that they can sleep as much as possible. We took the little sets of mini books, crayons, colouring books, playdough etc. I wish I had taken a mini DVD player with a few hours of CBeebies, as the inflight kids film was too old for her! Lollipops are great for take off and landing & don't forget to take some sachets of calpol- nothing worse than the sudden onset of teething etc mid-flight!! Best of luck -(don't forget the valium for you!!!)

Hi there, My headteacher notarised my docs for AITLS, (I'm assuming that's who your getting your assessment from). I'd do your IELTS as soon as possible, some places can get booked up fairly quickly, plus it takes 2 weeks to get your results. I'm sure you'll get the required 7.0 in each band, but if you need to take it again, that delays things! Hope that helps, Nic

Hi there, Most IELTS sites says it takes 8 weeks for a paper to be re-marked. As another poster mentioned, that could be slightly less. If your'e not in a hurry, it might be worth it, but they do ask for a fee of £60, which, (if I remember correctly), you get back if your grade is marked differently. You request which section you want re-marked. If your'e in a hurry, like I was, its often easier to sit another one! But you have to fork out another £115. Hope that helps, I know how gutting it is to be 0.5 of a band away from what you need, in the ridiculous farce that id IELTS!!!!

Ok..I brought a pencil sharpener & that seemed to be fine, no one commented. You can also bring some water with you, but it has to be in a clear plastic bottle ( remember you don't get toilet breaks.. so don't glug 2 litres of the stuff!!!) I believe the reading & listening are "read" by a computer, but also by humans! I wrote in capitals both times & that seems to be fine, they do penalise you for spelling mistakes. You can use pen or pencil for the writing tasks. I would really recommend a pencil as it allows you rub out sentences/spelling mistakes rather than crossing out loads of bits. (I've no idea if they penalise you for crossing's out). The writing task comes as 2 separate sheets. One is basically a lined booklet where you write your answers the other is your question booklet. You can jot down notes on the question booklet- it's taken in, but they make it clear that the examiner only looks at the answer booklet. Hope that answers everything, and please don't worry, as long as you've had a bit of a practise you'll be fine! Nic

Don't worry, you'll be fine! Other good tips that the IELTS chap gave me for the writing, are: don't use contractions- like "that's", write "that is", and don't use abbreviations like -"etc"- use ".. and so on". It's almost old fashioned, the format that they like to see in the writing test. As long as you have a clear argument, not too many spelling mistakes etc, you'll get your 7.0. Best of luck for Saturday! Nic

Hi there, I took my Ielts, (academic) twice! I found that to succeed you basically have to practise the format that they require. I started a thread called "IELTS advice", which runs through some of the basics. (Do a search & you'll find it!). There are differences between the Academic & general tests that you have to be aware of. Best of luck to your OH.

Yep, you have to do the whole test again, and pay the whole fee again!

I started a thread a few weeks ago called: Ielts Rant. It's basically started with me having a moan about how I had got 6.5 for my writing section, whilst scoring 9.0's on the other sections! As a teacher & native speaker, I didn't understand it! I then discovered that there were many others out there who were either in the same boat, (re-sitting Ielts), or were just about to take their Ielts and were worried. Well, 2 weeks ago I re-sat the test and I got my results today. L-8.5, R-9.0, W-9.0, S-9.0! I know that if I had looked a bit more closely at the format that Ielts want for the writing etc, and practised this, I wouldn't have had to re-sit the test. On my original thread, a very kind chap/chapess called- "thelongwait" replied and as an IELTS examiner gave me some invaluable advice -particularly on the writing section. I thought it would be useful to those of you on the forum who are about to do their IELTS to collate all the advice I got, with the hope that you won't have to go through what I did. Basically IELTS has 4 sections, (Listening, Reading, Writing, Speaking). If you're a native speaker, you'll get 9.0 on your speaking section. It's the easiest section, as all you have to do is talk about yourself, where you live etc. Then they'll ask you a general question that you have to speak about for 2 mins, ( discuss a small business that you know about, a visit to a river etc). You would have to sit there and be mute to fail this section! The listening section, is relatively easy, but you have to concentrate! You'll listen to taped conversations, people with different English speaking accents etc. If you read ahead, in the time they give you, you'll see what you need to listen out for. After that it's just concentrating and remembering to check your spelling! The reading section can be quite hard, particularly the academic test. You get 3 academic papers and have to answer questions. The answers are either multiple choice, fill in the missing words, or "true, false or not given". My best advice is to go through some practise reading papers to give you an idea of what to expect. You can get them for free on: www.ielts-exam.net, www.canadavisa.com/ielts, or IELTS practise books are available at the library. Remember to split your time- 20 mins for each reading section, and give yourself time to transfer your answers to the answer sheet. Again, check your spelling! For the writing section you'll get 2 sections. The 1st asks you to look at some form of data and comment. The 2nd will ask you to give your opinion/comment about a general trend. EG- "does TV have more of an influence on children's development than their family?". The 1st section needs to be a min of 150 words & it's not asking your opinion, you're merely stating what you can see on the graph etc. Make sure that you have a brief intro, a few paragraphs on what data you can see,(make comparisions etc), then a concluding paragraph. There are some good example questions on both sections on www.ielts-exam.net. YOU NEED TO PRACTISE! Most of us have been out of Uni/school for awhile and you need to get back into the swing of writing in a certain format. The 1st section should be completed in 20mins & carries less points than the all important 2nd section. For the 2nd writing section, it's again practising using the format that IELTS require. I did a dummy IELTS paper and "thelongwait" marked it for me. I've included it below: Successful sports professionals can earn a great deal more money than people in other important professions. Some people think this is fully justified while others think it is unfair. Discuss both these views and give your own opinion. Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience. In the world of professional sport, players are no longer classified by how much they earn in a month or year, but how much they earn in a week. Some argue that because their working lifespan is so short, sports men and women need to earn substantially more than their average (non-sporting) counterpart. Others argue that there are far more deserving, skilled workers that should be earning a similar sum. Recently football records in the Premiership were again broken by a footballer, bought for £35 million. He can expect be earn around £6 million pounds a year and that’s excluding further income from various sponsorship deals. At the tender age of 22, he could conceivably play for another 10 years, earning more money than the average worker could hope to in 40 years. However, there is also a real chance that he could be plagued by injury, shortening not only his working life, but also his earning power. Whilst the average professional will work to increase their yearly pay over several years, a professional sportsperson’s pay can decrease due to age or injury. The argument against professional sports players earning such vast amounts of money, must stem from a comparison of jobs and skills in other sectors. Should a professional golfer really earn millions a year whilst a cancer research scientist earns a tiny proportion of this? It could also be that being paid for your natural ability rankles those who have had to study and train for years before they are allowed to work in their profession. In a society where working long hours is considered to be a necessary part of your career, why should someone who seems to work for a few hours at a time be paid so much? In conclusion, I believe that there are valid points in both arguments. A professional sports person has an unstable, unpredictable work life. They could work, at their peak, for a mere 10 years; equally they could be retired due to injury in just 2 years. Earning significantly more than the average professional must be necessary because of these factors. However I do believe that we should reward those professionals, whose work contributes significantly to society. Doctors, nurses, teachers etc deserve to be paid as much as footballers, even if this is merely a wish and not a practicality. This is how "thelongwait" scored my essay: for task response i would give you an 8. it's a great response which is totally relevant to the question. the format is correct, you have a good introduction which rewords the question and you use a formal writing style. this question really has 3 parts (the argument for, and against, and your opinion.) It's important to give fairly equal amounts of space to each of these parts, which you did. this score is subjective and your answer is possibly a 9, but it's very rare to score 9 for this aspect, as 9 means nothing could usefully be added - and you can nearly always think of something you could add. perhaps for example you could have mentioned the long/intense training a sportsperson requires. for style in ielts, avoid using contractions. thus instead of 'that's', use 'that is', or 'which is.' instead of 'etc' use 'and so on' because 'etc' is an abbreviation. (You didn't use any other abbreviations, but students often write eg or m or km, kg, it is preferable to write these out in full.) for coherence/cohesion (organisation) I would score an 8, possibly a 9. paragraphing is good. 4-6 paragraphs is about the right amount for 250 words. since your essay is 381 words you could possibly have had more paragraphs and split for example the second paragraph. the main rule is there should be a new topic for each paragraph. one sentence is not a paragraph, therefore each paragraph must contain more than 1 sentence, even if it's a very long sentence. You used a good range of link words (however/whilst/because of/even if/in conclusion) But you repeated the word 'however', perhaps you could replace it with another word that means the same thing (although/despite/yet) and you could add even more link words like: firstly, next, due to, despite, in order to, the final point to consider is... Aim for about 12 of these words. The logical order is good, it was easy to follow your essay. lexical resource score (vocabulary): 9 a great range of vocab including some rare words like 'rankles', 'mere,' 'lifespan.' Again, this is subjective, another examiner may only give an 8. it's rare to get a 9 for this aspect - you need a pretty wide range of vocab. I didn't see any spelling mistakes or repetition of vocabulary. grammar score 9: accurate grammar, a range of sentence structures, some complex sentences with relative clauses (who/whose, etc.) there's a mistake in line 1 of pargraph 2, but i suspect this is a typing error. you wrote: he can expect be earn, it should be 'to' earn. so overall, you're looking at at least an 8.5, possibly a 9. I was trying to work out how you could possibly have scored a 6.5 in the previous exam. might you have misinterpreted the question or included something irrelevant? that might mean a 4 or 5 for response. some students focus too much on one aspect of the question and don't answer all parts, or go off on a tangent about something they feel strongly about but isn't totally relevant to the question. if you forgot paragraphing, you would score only 5 for coherence - ielts is very strict on paragraphing. perhaps a few spelling mistakes would give you 8 for vocabulary or 7 if they felt you repeated the same word a few times or the vocab wasn't relevant to the question they set, with a 9 for grammar. average these out and i suppose it could be a 6.5, but it still seems very strange. *I really hope this helps, and if anyone else wants to add any advice to this thread that would be great!

I agree with Dunwa -we do need an IELTS sticky thread. There are so many of us going through IELTS, for state sponsorship etc, that good advice is needed. There's some fantastic tips and advice on this thread from our resident expert (thelongwait) that I would recommend anyone read before they take their IELTS. It may stop people who, like me, waltzed into their first IELTS thinking "this should be relatively easy..." What do you think moderators?

Thank you so much "the long wait", I appreciate the time you've taken to assess my mock essay. I'll take on everything you've said and hopefully get a much more respectable grade on Saturday! Thank you again, Nicola