PickledRic

It’s completely understandable to me that this is how things are, I think the current economic climate and the way people are feeling about population growth means the government has to respond. I think the 491 visa is a good idea and hopefully it will serve the purpose it’s designed to; it’s a shame people only want to live in the major cities when Australia has so much else to offer. But I do understand why this happens. i really love hearing from people who have a very realistic viewpoint on things and give honest perspectives so thank you. The UK isn’t a place I enjoy anymore; I work in the third sector and I’ve seen over the years how funding cuts have greatly impacted on this and people are suffering as a result. Staff are underpaid and overworked and the expectations are just outrageous. My partner works 11 hour days and has to do all the school trips etc. And yeah he gets the stupidly long holidays but it doesn’t make up for the stress he has every day. He often says he feels there is very little respect for his profession and parents view school as a day centre for the kids basically. I can honestly say there isn’t much about the UK I will miss other than my pet rabbit I’ll be leaving behind friends will visit and we have very little family. Everything else is just possessions and I’ll be glad to see the back of it all to start again somewhere new

Ahh fingers crossed for you, that’s so exciting It’ll be nice to have an Australian winter to ease you into the summer too I imagine! The conditions are very frustrating, it does seem to be pushing out a lot of high quality international migrants due to the restrictions but I also understand that they want to encourage migration within the country itself. I’m still hopeful though too, I think anyone scoring relatively high has got a good shot it just might take a bit longer than it would have 6/12 months ago. We’ll get there!

I think it’s good to be flexible in terms of location anyway, like you said it’s only 2 years and you might well learn to love it anyway. If not you’ve got the permanent visa under your belt anyway and can move on, it’s well worth it I think. Amazing that you got invited so soon after applying, that must have been so exciting for you when are you planning on moving over? it sounds so much more relaxed and just an all round better environment for working. I think the U.K. has the mentality of working people into the ground and even then it’s not enough; it will be nice to live somewhere that values different things in life. very chuffed about the shorts and t shirt situation, I was a bit worried about wearing smart clothes in the heat but it seems to be a very reasonable, practical country! We’re so excited. The more we hear about it the more excited we get. So looking forward to making a home somewhere new!

I think it’s basically to quantify your work experience which is useful when it comes to submitting evidence for the visa for points claimed for work experience. We got one but as it was done in March and my partner has since gained an extra five points for work experience we’ll need to show wage slips alongside the statement to make up the extra year. That sounds amazing. I think he’ll find it dead weird not wearing a suit to work but it just sounds so much more relaxed and appropriate to the heat.

Ahh that’s frustrating, sorry I didn’t realise they’d changed the process. when we applied to AITSL in March it wasn’t any extra for the employment statement and you couldn’t upload documents it all had to be sent in the post. It’s a big expense no doubt, but if it helps you on your way and is likely to make the process simpler when it comes to getting the visa then I’d say it’s worth it in the long run. Still doesn’t take the sting out of it though. It seems a lot of this process is a few hundred dollars here and there with putting in applications to individual states; teacher registration with each state etc. and it all adds up. Still worth it though if it’s something you really want. You can’t put a price on living out your dream I guess!

I would get the skilled employment statement; it’s no extra and it confirms your work experience for your points. yeah it’s mad with the 189, it makes me think that maybe people who can get the 189 might be tactical and go for a different visa with quicker processing times and if that’s the case then it will take places from people who don’t have enough for 189 frustratingly. Hopefully they start inviting soon so we can have an inkling of what things might look like! Congrats on the job offer!! You must be pleased to be able to go back, if not just to escape the horrible weather here! It sounds very different which is good, my partner works ridiculous hours and despite the huge amount of holidays he’d rather have a better quality of life year round with less holidays. out of curiosity; what do you wear to work if not shirt and tie?! My partner is intrigued and finding it hard to get his head round this

I wonder if it will be people with 80 points + 5 state nomination and above; surely anyone who can achieve 85+ points without the extra five from state nomination would go for the 189? Unless they really don’t want to wait for it? i have no idea how they’ll work it, does anyone know what the state nomination point scores looked like before Nov 16th? What do you think it’ll be?

It’s really handy having some insight from someone who’s already there and working the job. Interesting about the influx of newly qualified teachers, I assume that’s why they’re looking for teachers with experience to perhaps take on some of those coaching roles in schools?

Ah. I’m in my phone and the formatting for the SA website is terrible. It seems to be a trend at the minute then for most states to want a job offer of some kind and/or more experience. I guess it correlates with what a lot of people have been saying about there not really being that much of a shortage of teachers?

I haven’t had chance to look properly but the SA skills list has secondary school teacher on the supplementary one and is available for 491 nomination?

Do we know when they are planning on sending out the 491 pre-invites yet?

That does sound amazing, we definitely plan on visiting WA at the least, in fact we’re hoping to do some travelling for a few months around Oz before we settle in our sponsor state just so we can see lots of it and experience all that it has to offer. Very excited about that I think we plan on spending our first few years worth of holidays travelling Oz whenever we can. It’s such a huge place and everywhere is different and we don’t want to miss what’s on our own doorstop. We’re really outdoorsy so the weather for the most part will enable us to do more of what we love hopefully! we’ll give anything a go so fingers crossed we can make it over there. We look forward to starting from scratch and doing everything again and accept that this will mean potentially starting at the bottom career wise but we’re not moving for our careers as such, we’re moving for a better quality of life and whatever career comes from that then that’s brilliant too

That’s really good to hear! subject area is History though so appreciate this may not be as in demand as the sciences but we’ll give it a go anyway. partner feels quite confident about getting a job and I think there’s a lot in his favour, including gender. It may not be the case but it’s good to go with a sense of over confidence I think ready to be knocked down

Hi Benj1980, WA would be my first choice but unfortunately secondary school teacher isn’t on the WASMOL at the moment; it’s on the graduates list but we don’t have any Australian qualifications. As the 189 visa is basically inaccessible to us now we have to look at state sponsorship and we’re limited in terms of which ones will actually sponsor, most have restrictions attached to this profession at the moment which we don’t meet. i read somewhere that WA is looking at a new skills list come December so hopefully that changes and we can apply there. i get what you’re saying about everyone wanting NSW and QLD and the job prospects not being so great due to the demand; we’ve kind of accepted that it may be difficult to find teaching work and are just hoping for the best; the other states don’t appeal to us the same really, aside from WA, so fingers crossed they adjust the skills list and open it up! how do you find Western Australia as a place to live? It looks absolutely beautiful!

Hi Lambert, that’s really good to know that secondary school teachers are likely to be invited with those points! we are more than happy to live in regional QLD so will just go with whichever one we get, we’ll feel lucky either way. also great news about the teacher registration! I was a bit worried about the timing of this but if they don’t pick the EOI up without it anyway then there’s no need to worry. Fingers crossed our documents arrive in Oz soon and they can start processing it. whats the teaching life like in Queensland? Are you from UK originally? How does it compare?

Hi Dean0703, if I remember correctly our AITSL assessment took about 10 weeks, and if I'm honest the frustrating bit was waiting for it to actually arrive at the postal address in Australia; it took about 2/3 weeks for it to actually get there... We had a look at agents and did get some advice from a reputable one but in the end decided to forgo the huge cost associated with it; I have a very flexible job so I can spend a lot of time researching things fortunately and I've basically dedicated all my spare time to it, it's pretty interesting once you start I think! I don't hesitate to ask for advice though if I feel stuck with something, it's like a minefield navigating everything. I'm feeling pretty confident that secondary school teachers with relatively high points will be invited; particularly as some states have removed a lot of pro-rata occupations from their skills list which opens up the quotas for other skilled roles. Is NSW your goal state? anywhere in particular you were thinking of going? We haven't really considered anywhere specific at the moment; we want to travel for a bit before we settle into the sponsor state first anyway so I imagine it'll be a case of wherever there is work! I get so excited about it and then a little stressed and anxious and then back to excited, it's such a rollercoaster of emotions it's exhausting haha!

Hi Everybody! I've been browsing this site for a loooooong time and it's been so useful throughout the whole process of trying to get to Oz! I figured it was finally time to share my story so far and hear from other prospective or successful secondary school teacher migrators! My partner is the main applicant; points breakdown are as follows: age: 28 - 30 points work experience: 5 years - 10 points qualifications: BA and PGCE - 15 points English competency: Superior - 20 points Partner: competent English (no assessable skills) - 5 points Total = 80 points We have a positive skills assessment from AITSL and applied for the 189 in April/May time this year. Unfortunately we had 75 points at that time and the invites just weren't coming in for the 75 pointers and since the rule changes in November, we had to manually update the EOI and lost the initial date etc. and still are very unlikely to get an invite on the 189 with 80 points. So; we've now gone for the 190 and 491. We managed to apply for QLD for both when it briefly opened yesterday, we have 85 points for the 190 and 95 points for the 491. We are not using a MARA agent, I've done the work myself and have found the process to be very complex but can understand most of it with it enough research - I have dedicated a stupid amount of hours to this! We're currently awaiting registration with QLD college of teachers but expect this to go through without a hitch so I'm feeling hopeful we'll get invited eventually but no idea when! Just wanted to share where we are at currently and if anyone else is in the same boat? It's a little frustrating as when we first started working on applying beginning of 2018 we would have gotten there no problem with our points and things have changed so quickly since then. But, staying hopeful and positive Would love to share the journey with other people!