Amanda Kerr

Not long now!:biggrin:

Sorry Debs, no idea. As we used a visa agent we haven't been able to look. We didn't even know we had been allocated a CO. take comfort in knowing that your grant must be on its way...soon! Get busy with other things. I am just looking at a list of things to do before we leave at the end of October. Omg, how will I find time to go to work?? hang on in there x

A spot on prediction there, Ranjith. I have just had a call from our visa agent. We got our grant over the weekend! Thrilled as you would imagine.

Scary stuff. Planning to move to Melbourne in October where there is an alleged shortage of Design and Technology teachers. Leaving a £40+,ooo head of faculty job. Hopefully my husband, who is not a teacher will find work easily. Otherwise, in around 6 months we'll be screwed!

Hope the first day of school goes well. I was worried about our medicals; my husband has had a few health issues this year and consultant appointments. All resolved. I rang the place we had our meds done to find out if we were cat a or b. They told me that we were A and it put my mind at rest. I wouldn't have bothered if we were B, it's the not knowing I couldn't handle. Have you tried contacting the med centre? I also used an email address for medical enquiries at DIAC someone posted earlier in this thread to enquire about the status if our meds. It took a while to get a reply, but they confirmed that our meds had been cleared and on what date. No probs getting info even though we have an agent working for us. I wish our agent would just give us the password for our case file. I would live to have a nosey for myself, but would probably be looking at it daily! We are moving out of our house this week. Everything is off into storage and we will be living with the in laws for a while. It's a stressful business! When the visa comes I will breathe a huge sigh of relief and catch my breath for a few days before we start sorting shipping etc. Not long now :smile:.....I hope!

Congratulation Ranjith. You must be very excited and relieved. When and where in Oz are you planning to go? Exciting times!

Oopsy, threads on a different forum, but worth posting a link. I hope there isnt an issue with this as good info is always worth sharing. They are very comprehensive and useful. I intend to print out and tick things off. A girl can't have too many lists! :biggrin: Before you leave the uk http://www.expatforum.com/expats/australia-expat-forum-expats-living-australia/3384-list-things-you-need-do-before-you-emigrate.html On arrival in Oz http://www.expatforum.com/expats/australia-expat-forum-expats-living-australia/3509-list-things-do-when-you-arrive-parts-1-4-a.html This is keeping me very busy and is helping me push the wait for a visa grant to the back of my mind. Hope you find it useful too.

I understand your frustration. I need a visa before the 5th September, or I will have to delay our move to Oz by 6 months. I have had to accept, for the good of my health and blood pressure that what will be, will be. I cannot do anything so therefore stressing about it is futile. I have diverted my energies to other things therefore, which are related to our move to Oz such as: Sorting through belongings and car booting and ebaying Updating my CV Oz style and putting together a portfolio for interviews Writing lists of things I need to do on the lead up to our move and when we first arrive in Melbourne (there is a brilliant thread related to this on the forum) Researching suburbs and likely places we will find work, etc, etc, etc... I can't do any more about the visa, but I can be proactive in other ways to make other aspects of our move as smooth as possible. However, I too will make some calls when we have reached the magic 8 week milestone!

Very funny! It feels like that. Lost in a time warp I'm afraid. Where hv those ten years gone?!

I am not IT but I am not aware of a different points score for different occupations. I am a teacher (we all have degrees) and you can apply with 60 points. I think however at 60, it may mean a longer wait to be invited to apply for a visa after you have completed your expression of interest as those with higher points are invited first. If you get a long wait, you may want to see whether there is any state sponsorship for your trade. This would get you an extra 5 points. I had 65 points and got my invite 4 days after eoi. the other thing I would do is check out which occupations are likely to be removed from the list of eligible occupations. I may be wrong, but I think there were some IT related careers no longer in demand. This document is available on the diac website and I came across it after reading another thread on this forum. Will see if I can find it again and add a link.

Heartfelt congratulations. I hope ours arrives in a similar timescale. It's very easy to whip yourself up into a frenzy isn't it? Its so near the end of the process it's hard not to get impatient. Not long now....going to try and stop counting the days and get on with enjoying the time I have left here in Yorkshire.

Yup, just been on FB which says there will be no more posts on there during the caretaker period. Did a search and found reference to the caretaker period on the governments website. It begins on 12th apparently and will remain in place until a new government is elected. It is basically saying that no big decisions with financial implications can be made at this time. I cannot find any mention of anything related to immigration (although it does mention asylum seekers). Stay positive people, if it doesn't mention it, I choose to assume it doesn't affect the length of the decision making process for visas. Think about it, it this all came to a halt, the backlog would be horrific. People are still employed by diac and have a job to do; I have interpreted caretaker as keeping everything ticking over, but no new spending or initiatives.

This is true if English isn't your first language. For my husband, who only speaks Englsh, a British passport suffices. I was worried for a second there and went to double check!

That is very sound advice!

I am also a secondary school teacher. I worked through one example of each test to see the format. That was sufficient for me to get 4 9s. I believe that for your skills assessment you need 7s, which is a breeze. Don't forget spelling, punctuation and grammar matter on every test. You will notice that they choose a fair few words you will know, being a teacher that are trickier to spell, or homophones (e.g. son, sun) where you would need to pick the right one. I found the speaking the most stressful as I had zero interest in the topics the examiner had chosen and I thought I had blown it. When I got home I did some more digging on the net and stumbled across the criteria for this, which related to ease of listening/ ear strain. I.e. how hard does the examiner need to concentrate to understand you. I wish I had seen this before I went for the test; I would have been less stressed about. Sorry I can't remember where I found the criteria, but will see if I can find it and post a link if I have time later. I am certain you will be fine, just one if many silly hoops you have to jump through. No pain no gain? Right? Good Luck!:biggrin: