Gin100

Thanks niajp - I like the app but it doesn't cover Victoria unfortunately - shame. rosiew - yes, I've looked at McKinnon, very sought after. I'd heard that they were insisting that kids had to live within the zone for their entire time at the school - do you know if this is correct? If so, it feels very restrictive & the zone seems pretty small; I'd have some concerns about committing myself to living within such tight boundaries for the next 10 years (time for both my kids to start & finish secondary school), particularly when I've not been there before. My impression is that Brighton Secondary College might be more flexible on this front & looks like a good school too - any views welcome!

That's a *very* sensible suggestion Quoll, I think that would probably be the way to do it...

Thanks again guys, will follow up your, as ever, helpful suggestions. I think the thing with Brunswick wasn't the fact that it was busy as such, it was that everywhere was city. We went for walks around Brunswick, on the trains & trams and I didn't get the feeling of space anywhere. With Williamstown I didn't feel like this at all & I think this was because of the sea. You could be in a busy area and go to the sea front & feel free. I'm quite comfortable with busy places but I don't want to feel hemmed in & need somewhere to easily escape to, whether it's the sea front or a big park or something. I think the distance thing is going to take a while to get used to. Reminder to self - must stop trying to transplant my existing life to a new continent!

Just to let you know, I didn't use an agent, we did it all ourselves & I don't regret this at all. Doing it yourself is a lot of work mind you, you have to be prepared to spend endless evenings researching and making notes. There were a couple of things which, with hindsight, we would have realised earlier if we'd have had an agent but these were not medical related (mainly around occupational codes & ceilings) & in the end made no difference to either our timescales or our success but you do have to put in the work. Applying with a recent medical condition is a bit of a leap of faith, nobody can tell you with any degree of certainty whether your referral to the Australian immigration doctors panel will be be successful - the doctor who did my medicals (Maidenhead) said that she rarely got to know the outcome of a medical referral. Where you are to all intents and purposes healthy even though you had a serious condition a couple of years ago, I don't know what a pre-assessment would tell you - they'd give you a health check (but presumably you have follow up appointments at your hospital already), they'd say that it wasn't their decision & they'd need to refer you, and they quite probably tell you that they don't know what your chances of success are. Visas are not cheap, if the cost is a significant proportion of your life savings you might want to play it safe until after the 5 years. If you can afford to take a risk that you will lose your investment if you are refused, I'd say just do the medicals when your case officer asks you to, like anyone else would and be prepared with documentation etc.

I had breast cancer in 2011, diagnosed a couple of months after you and, like you, it was early stage. I had surgery but no chemo or radiotherapy. We were invited to apply for our 189 visa in July 2013 & had our medicals in Sept '13 so 2 years after my diagnosis. What they're bothered about is 1) are you going to bring anything contagious into the country and 2) are you going to cost the state a lot of money in treatment. The reason they say 5 years for cancer is that if a cancer is going to reoccur, it generally does so within 5 years. At 5 years you are generally assumed to be no more likely to develop cancer than anyone else. When you go for your medicals the UK clinic will ask you specific questions about your illness and they will refer your case to a panel of doctors in Australia. The clinic has to do this, they cannot give you the green light themselves. What being referred means is that the medical results, comments from the clinic doctor and any supporting documentation you've provided will go to a team of doctors in Australia who will assess your case and decide whether you should be offered a visa. The results will then come back to you via your case officer. This happened to me & I was granted a visa in November 2013. So, to answer the specific questions you've asked: I wouldn't recommend doing your medicals up front - when you get granted a visa it will have a date of entry into the country which is unchangeable (this can be a holiday rather than a permanent move but you have to enter the country by this date otherwise your visa is invalid) but this date is 1 year after the date of your medical. If you do your medicals in advance & it takes ages to process your visa application - and it will take longer as your health assessment will be referred - you could find that your medicals have expired and you need to do them again (and they're not cheap). Also, you need a visa application number to book the medicals. You can appeal if your visa is declined on health grounds but it takes ages - over a year - plus it costs a chunk of money. I think you'd have to be convinced they made a mistake to go through the process. You could apply again i.e. start the visa process from scratch after the 5 years. Yes, ask your consultant to write something for you. Also, take along anything which states the stage of your cancer, the treatment you've had, any genetics tests etc. Basically, anything which says was early stage, it hasn't come back, your treatment was successful etc. Be warned that the medicals can be nerve-wracking for someone with a recent cancer diagnosis. You worry they'll find something else wrong or that you'll be rejected and your dreams will come crashing down around your ears, that you might let down everyone else on your visa application. But hold in there, try not to worry, be honest about what's happened to you, talk about your active life now & be prepared with all the relevant documentation. It's all you can do. I am proof that they don't have a blanket ban on offering visas to people with recent cancer diagnoses, it's is assessed on individual circumstances. I wish you all the best...

Certainly is true, no separate visa required for you if you're named on the principle applicants visa.

Thanks everyone for all your comments & suggestions. Tina2 - yes, I seem to have a habit of falling for the places which cost an arm & a leg to live in! We will certainly be renting initially & will probably do so for a while, until we have sold our house in the UK. This will give us time to figure out where we want to be but I'm anxious to get it as right as we can first time so we don't have to uproot the kids yet again in a year or so's time. I'll check out that website, looks useful. Jasepom - we've been to the hills a couple of times & it is tempting; they are beautiful & the Yarra Valley just stunning. We live in a small city in the UK surrounded by rural hills but we don't live near the sea so I think we quite fancy a change but I may find I prefer the hills! That's an interesting comment about commuting distance from the city. I think perhaps we are being constrained by our UK mindsets - we are fortunate enough currently to have a 20 min walk (me) / 20 min cycle (husband) to work now so we're not used to commuting long distances but perhaps that's just what happens in Melbourne & it's a part of the package you sign up to when you emigrate. Saying that, we're not 'big city' people (we recently visited friends in Brunswick & decided we could never live there as it was too much city) so we do want that feeling of space & distance (we did like Williamstown). More thought needed perhaps! Starlight7 - those rich suburbs are just very appealing! I will take a look at Glen Waverley & Mount Waverley. Camberwell I've heard good things about. That's the thing, isn't it, nice suburbs aren't cheap. Unfortunately. Quoll - this was our original intention; job then suburb & school. Jobs are proving difficult to get from here though so temping initially looks like the way to go & the contracts could be anywhere & will be short-term. Clearly once we've got permanent jobs we could go down this route, it's just that thing about not wanting to settle & then uproot the kids a second time if we can possibly help it but that may be what we need to do. I've looked at the private school fees & they're just scary (certainly for people coming out without jobs) but maybe longer term if we get decent jobs it might be possible. We've never considered private (or Catholic) schools in the UK but maybe it's just different in Australia. Thanks for the confirmation of school years - it's what I thought but it was difficult to be sure!

Good suggestions, thanks. I don't think I'd really appreciated that schools had their specialties too - that makes it even more complicated...

We have a 189 visa & are looking to move to Melbourne in August. We've had little success in finding jobs from the UK (well, we can find them, we just can’t get them!) so we’re now thinking we should come over & go contracting until something permanent comes up. This leaves quite a lot of scope on where to live but after a lot of research, we think we've narrowed it down to south-east Melbourne; Sandringham & around. Our lines of work mean that there are likely to be more jobs in the CBD & on the east side of Melbourne & we really fancy living somewhere close to the sea but without a long commute. We've not been to this area before but it looks good on paper. We have 2 kids; if our school year calculations are correct the eldest should be due to start secondary/high school in late Jan. The move (to Oz and from primary to secondary school) is a big upheaval & we feel under pressure to get the suburb & school right first time – we don’t want to have to move again shortly after arriving. We don’t have the luxury of being able to afford private school but neither do we want to end up living in an area we don’t like purely because there is a good state school there. So, in terms of specific questions: How have others solved this suburb/school quandary – which do you choose first? Any tips or lessons learned would be appreciated Does being 12 in December 2014 mean that you go into secondary school year 7 at the end of Jan 2015? (I’m struggling somewhat in mapping UK school years onto Australian ones) Any views on the state secondary schools in Sandringham & surrounding area for academically-inclined children? I’m thinking specifically of Sandringham, Brighton, Cheltenham & Bentleigh Secondary Colleges and Glen Eira. I've heard that most government primary schools are good - is it the case? Any specific recommendations? For zoned schools, I've heard that if you live in the zone then they legally have to give you a place – is this right for both primary & secondary schools? Any wildcard suburbs we should be looking at? Ones that we've not picked up on yet but would fit the bill? Thank you so much!

Relatively (but not entirely) open-minded as to state - considering Vic, NSW and SA (possibly QLD) & would probably go to the larger cities within those states rather than to a rural area. Concentrating on partner's job in university IT but not had much luck so far, seems to be a bit of a culture of who you know as well as merit (fair comment?) so we're busy making contacts as well as applying for advertised jobs. Clearly it's always going to be harder to get a job from here but feels high risk to turn up without one. Any advice appreciated!

Hi all, New to PomsInOz, have already found useful info on here so maybe now I can also make some contributions too. Already have a 189, did it ourselves (no migration agent), just got to find a job & we'll be on our way permanently...