Day two - Tuesday -
Quite a busy day again. Out early in the morning to set up our NAB bank account. Rose who is part of the NAB migrant team in Brisbane CBD, Queen Street branch is lovely and very helpful with things not even relating to banking. From here we set off for a couple of house viewings in Albany Creek area and then onto Albany Creek State School.
I came down to Brisbane in May for a couple of weeks (work related), however I spent all of my spare time, driving around and must admit, do prefer the North side of Brisbane. Anyway my wife's first impression of the North side was very positive as we are both rural / country people and this ticked the boxes there and off to a good start.
During the tour of school, we got a really good feeling from it. The teachers and staff were very nice and you could see that the children were happy in their environment. This school had now moved up to first on our list over Belmont State School. We then viewed a couple more houses in Albany Creek / McDowall area in the afternoon. Some of the houses that are put out on the internet do not look like they do in today's day and age. I think the Real Estate companies either take old pictures and post them from years ago or take pictures in away that is 'trying to do the property justice' when in fact it's really run down and falling apart. Our budget is not low - $400 - $550 PW.
We also decided to cancel school viewings on the South side of Brisbane due to our mutual preference of the North side. Schools cancelled - Gumdale and Carina SS.
Day 3 - Wednesday
Today was our busiest this week, with 3 school viewings and 4 property viewings... not too bad if it was just the wife and I, but our two boys have really lost interest on living inside the car everyday. Our eldest Ewan (5 1/2) is doing really well and is enjoying looking at all his potential new schools and houses, however our youngest Noah (4), is playing up and wanting attention all the time. I think this is down to him having a cold and being disrupted from his normal routine in Brunei.
Anyway our first visit was to Patricks Road SS in Ferny Hills. Our selection for this school was pretty much an after thought after we were quite set on looking in the Albany Creek area. Both my wife and I are so glad we visited this school as it most certainly lives up to its reputation on the internet / local word of mouth etc... After 5 minutes of being at the school, we got that instant feeling of... 'this is where we want our children to go to'. The setting of the school / the surroundings / the warm family feeling / really happy children .. the list goes on... Now the rest of the schools lined up, need to beat this one. Also on the plus side is the huge amount of conservation area and the mountains..
The next school we visited was Aspley SS... hmmmm ... Not really sure what to say about this one. Nothing positive at all. On arrival, we met who I presumed was the Deputy Head. She never introduced herself to us. After walking about 50m on our tour of the school I knew that I wanted out straight away and what was funny is that as I turned to my wife Sam to give her the look... she did the same to me that we both wanted out ASAP. The children appeared to be quite unruly and there was lots of rubbish / graffiti / lunch boxes all over the place. I think that I will leave the rest of my comments to myself, as I do not wish to upset anyone who may go to this school or know of anyone that goes there. On a positive note - The Coffee Club just down the road does really good coffee and hot chocolate with marshmallows for our boys.
Our final school was Eaton Hills SS. For a big school (average 1000 kids) you would not even know that it had this many children. It is a lovely school, very clean, children looked really happy over their lunch break, apart from the rain. There was a good feeling from this school and my wife and I are most impressed with the schools new hall, whereby it has a full production stage. We've only ever seen this in High schools. The assistant Deputy Head was a great guy and gave us a really good detailed tour of the school, which was wonderful.
Last part of the day was viewing a couple of houses in Albany Creek area again, however we are now shifting our attention to Ferny Hills / Ferny Grove / Arana Hills / Upper Kedron / Keperra area for houses due to Patricks Road SS (no catchment area), being the clear winner so far. Tomorrow is our last school viewing at Albany Hills SS, so it has to blow us out of the water for us to shift focus again back to Albany Creek area.
Fingers crossed by end of tomorrow we will have our selection for our boy’s school.
Day 4 – Today
This morning we had an appointment at Albany Hills SS (approx 750 children enrolled) and what a lovely school it is. The school is set over a large area and has a mixture of old and new buildings. The Deputy Principal who showed us around was really lovely and covered a lot of areas in detail, to which left my wife and I with no real questions to ask. This was a real positive. We visited various classes whereby children were being taught at different school years. All of the classes we visited were full of colour, imagination, well behaved and happy children. We got a nice feeling from the school but felt that it was lacking something. They do strive on Academic excellence and music which are real strengths, but we were comparing to Patricks Road SS that we saw yesterday. My wife and I both mutually agreed that Albany Hills SS was better than Eaton Hills SS.
Now it was down to us making our decision as to which school we would like our children to go, Patricks Road SS or Albany Hills. We both like the Albany Creek area and feel that there is more for us to do there, so decided to drive over to Ferny Hills / Grove / Arana Hills / Keperra to get a sense of feeling from this area. Once we had a drive around the area, I took a drive out to Camp Mountain / Samford Village / Mount Glorius / Mount Nebo. Wow, beautiful scenery, rolling hills, countryside, woods, nature trails and parks… HOME !!!
After our drive we took lunch at Mount Coot-ha which is always lovely to visit and the view is magnificent. From here we drove back to Arana Hills for a house viewing later in the afternoon, so decided to spend a couple of hours in the parks / footy field with the boys, soaking up the winter sunshine and getting a nice warm fuzzy feeling from the area.
So as our week is coming to an end, I think we have achieved our aim of school selection. The school if you haven’t guessed by now is Patricks Road SS in Ferny Hills. Not really had any luck on the houses, but to be honest knew that it was a long shot. At least we got a feel for the properties within our budget so all is not lost. Tomorrow is our last day in Brisbane before we move down for good on 1st August in a few weeks, so we are either going to go to the Sunshine coast (weather permitting) or have a little jolly around the river / CBD / Southbank etc.