adamstoaus

If you're about to embark on the arduous journey of applying for your Australian visa, you need to know that you are going to require tons and tons of motivation, encouragement, patience and strength. It is something we did not have 7 years ago when we first attempted to immigrate to Australia. When we started our immigration journey again last year March, we made a lot of changes to ensure that we did not lose motivation or get derailed by anything or anyone. We hope that the tip we are about to share may help you in the same way... One thing that has helped us more than anything through the whole process, is keeping a personal blog! We have never been into blogging / "vlogging" / twitter and whatever else but when we decided to start up a blog right at the start when we employed our migration agent. We use it to document every stage of our immigration journey. We can honestly say that by documenting every little milestone along the way, we ensured that when discouragement started to set in or we felt anxious, it has made such a difference to be able to read back on all the little successes along the way. Everything from the day we completed the IELTS test, to getting the IELTS results, to sending off our skills assessment to AITSL and then receiving the positive skills assessment outcome certificate in the post! Literally everything. My husband doesn't get too involved in the actual writing of the posts, but he gets the updates sent to his email account to read them as I post them. He said it has helped encourage him to read through the dreams we share and see how far along we have come since we first started the visa application process, especially when he is stuck at work and not having a great day! We thought we would share this tip in case it helps anyone else. We have also found that it helps to share the link with friends and family who ask the same question over and over. We let them have access to the blog so they can read the updates and see where we are at with the whole immigration thing! We are most likely going to carry on with the blog in the future when we finally get to Brisbane! It is a fantastic keepsake for the children, who can one day look back on everything mom and dad had to do to get the family over to Australia from the UK. Best of luck in your migration journey, whatever it is! Paul and Tracey

We are moving to Brisbane in July, (fingers crossed our 189 visa's are approved any day now...!) I am a secondary science teacher and I am trying to find out, if I teach at a semi-private or private independent school - will we receive a discount in school fees if our 3 children attend the same school? Thanks for any info at all. Tracey

Hi My husband is a health and safety coordinator (5+years experience). He has a UK NVQ 3 in Health and Safety in the Workplace. We are trying to figure out where we go to get his qualifications assessed/verified/recognised...? We're hoping that someone can help point us in the right direction. He is keen to enrol on a Certificate V in WHS online course via SEEK Learning but we are trying to figure out if his qualification makes him eligible according to the pre-requisite qualifications for the course! Thanks in advance, Paul and Tracey

We are using the Visa Bureau, we signed up with them in March last year. Sue Tempany was our case worker until she left the bureau before Christmas and now we have Kimberley Chatt as our case worker. Darren Chatt is the registered MA at the Visa Bureau. They work well as a team. They have been exceptionally efficient with everything. Ours was a slightly complicated case but we have now submitted police checks and medicals and are literally awaiting the news that our 189 - skilled independent visa applications have been approved...! I am very impatient and this waiting is killing me. We are anticipating hearing back any day now. Best of luck...!