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I am about to apply for the PGCE course which will enable me to become a Primary School teacher here in UK. My wife and I have a timeline of 5 years before we plan on emigrating to Australia. I have looked for advice on whether this is a valid route in which to emigrate but I am getting mixed answers as Primary School Teacher has been removed from the main skills list. My fear is training up, becoming a teacher and then finding out that I still cannot emigrate, I guess I am just looking for reassurance that I am not wasting my time.

trHi, My husband is being relocated to Sydney in September and we are faced with the tricky task of finding a school for now four year old from London. I know she is still young but we only plan to be in Sydney for 2/3 years and then move back to the UK. Having already had over 18 months of learning to read and write (as they start earlier with this in the UK) we have been advised to put her into year 1. She adores what she calls 'work' and her teachers in the UK, teachers I know in Sydney and two educational consultants have recommended this would the best move especially since we would prefer her not to be too far behind when we come back to the UK. We wanted to send her to a Public school but they refuse to even asses her for a Year 1 place. Does anyone have any views or experience with this situation? Or found a private school that worked well in this situation? Any thoughts or ideas so appreciated. It seems so daunting with never having been to Sydney and not being able to look around schools before we leave the UK. We were thinking of northern beaches as where we may base ourselves but again this is not set in stone. Thank you!

Hi I'm sure these must have been answered in various threads so apologies if so - looking for advice - we are looking to move to Mornington/ Mount Martha in January of next year. Currently our children (an August born boy - age 5 when we move - and February born girl - soon to be 7 when we move) are in primary school in the UK (a state OFSTED outstanding school). I have a couple of questions: 1. year groups of the children when they move (our son is very young in his year group - which is currently reception year - being only 2 weeks in the threshold of the year group). 2. schools that are recommended in the areas mentioned above 3. how to we go about registering them - do we need to have an address in the area first/ how have others gone about doing this logistically in terms of move/ registering/ timings etc 4. how long does the registration process take - and is there a chance they may not get in to a school at all (or end up in a school we don't feel is suitable)? We'd be super grateful if anyone who has been through this process recently with similar aged children could offer tips/ process information/ contacts that we should be in touch with? Many thanks - and apologies if this is long winded (my first post on the forum).

Hello all. I am a new user ... recommended by my Brother-in-law ... I have been researching moving to Australia to teach for a while but I am still rather confused as to the value of my Teaching Qualification. I have a 'BA Hons Early Years Education with Qualified Teacher Status' Degree - I am a fully qualified Early Years and Primary Teacher with QTS - My degree however was 3 years and from what I have gathered from research, to teach in Australia I will need a 4 year teaching degree. Please can someone clarify this for me? Don't want to get my hopes up if there is no chance! Thank you in advance for any advice given!

Dear Friends, We were considering on moving near Mount/ Glen Waverley - don't know anyone in the suburbs yet and hence reaching out here. Pls provide any feedback - have heard feedback that these suburbs are good for Primary schools (especially Public/ Govt). The websites found on google seem to be outdated. Thanks

Hi all I'm moving to Brisbane at the end of the year, and just wanted to get a bit of info re: the relief teaching situation there. I am a primary teacher. How much relief work can I expect to get (i.e. days per week)? I am looking for as much work as possible. Is it worth registering with as many relief teaching agencies as possible in order to get the most work? Should I also register with individual schools? What is the best agency to use? How far away do you generally set as your limit for schools? Thanks all, any info would be greatly appreciated

Does anyone know if an online studied (distance learning) qualification will be accepted by AITSL? I have previously been assessed as a Primary School Teacher. I am now considering doing a 12 month Post Graduate Certificate in Early Years from a UK University. AITSL REQUIREMENT An initial teacher education qualification relevant to the early childhood (pre-primary school) teacher occupation of at least one year full-time study (or part time equivalent) at the higher education (university) level. The qualification must include a minimum of 45 days of supervised teaching practice with students across the ages Birth to 8 years in education programs prior to and in the early years of primary school. The professional qualification/s must be assessed as comparable to the educational level of an Australian bachelor degree or higher. The qualification covers the requirements above but will all be done online. Thank You

Hi all PomsInOz, We are moving fairly soon to the Bunbury area and are looking at schools in the area. Kids are 4, 6 and 9 and to be honest I don't even know where to start. Help! Happy to fee-pay if that means better education. My 9 year old is introvert and likes his maths, my 6 year old is pretty good at reading and writing, would like to be an 'author' and write bout science, that tells you enough, and my 4 year old hasn't gone to school yet but loves scribbeling and singing and drawing.... Any good advice is welcome. AlandEs

Hi there, My husband and I moved from UK to Sydney in 2001 and then moved back to the UK in 2005 with a 1 year old son so that he could grow up around family. After living back in the UK for 4 years, we have decided to move back out to Sydney because I feel it is a better place to bring up my son. He will be starting Kindy in Jan 2009 and we will be moving to either Baulkham Hills or Castle Hill. I was thinking of putting him in the Hills Private Grammar School but I have heard that the Primary Schools in the Hills District are just as good. Does anyone know if this is true and if so, could someone give me some advice as to which of the Primary Schools in Baulkham Hills/Castle Hill are best so that we can make sure that we rent in the catchment for the school. Thanks in advance. Vanita

Hi there - I am a primary school teacher looking to emigrate to WA and was wondering if anyone knew anything about the DETs sponsorship scheme for teachers. I understand that secondary teachers are only being sought after at the mo, but that primary teachers will be for 2009 and 2010!! Yipeeeeee! The only thing is I have 3 children 4, 6 and 8 and a hubby who obviously will be coming with me and my worry is that 'apparently' through this sponsorship scheme you have no real say in 'where' you end up teaching. I don't mind working in a rural school - I did this 10 years ago in a fab school in mid NSW and had a great time, but I was single then with only myself to consider. My main worry is that I may end up in a 'bad' area - if there are such areas -!! Obviously I'd want my girls to go to a good school - the choice may be out of my control!! Am I taking a massive risk here? Has anyone had any experience on this scheme ! I'd LOVE to hear from you!!!! Warmest Regards The Dobbs Family xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:chatterbox:

There seem to be a few questions on here about Primary Schools in ACT and we have just gone through the process of researching, visiting and choosing a school so I though I would share my findings with anyone who is interested I did a load of research first from the UK in terms of "good" schools - alot of info came from this forum and alot came from other forums. I have a son who is gifted in Maths so I really wanted a good school for him. I do think you need to visit the schools when you get here if you can and alot of this can be arranged before you get here. Its well worth the time. I printed off a map of Canberra and put it next to my computer and shaded areas where there were the "target" schools and their catchment. I shaded area private schools differently. Jut this visual aid helped in me narrowing where we may be looking for housing and also allowed me to further research commute times and bus routes.... The list of schools I visited were: Gov schools: Curtin Primary North Ainslie Aranda Kaleen Torrens Private schools visited: Emmaus Christian School Holy Trinity , Curtin St Peter and St Paul, Garran Montsorri, Holder Girls Grammar School I wanted to visit more. Garran and Chapman Gov schools will not let you visit unless you have a confirmed place to live and paperwork to prove it in their Catchment. They must get innundated! Both are EXCELLENT schools with excellent NAPLAN results but I could not visit them. If we decided to live in either of these areas we were prepared to take a chance on the schools but nothing happened to be suitable and available at the time and this is a key thing as the rental market here is a nightmare. Will maybe post findings on this separately if people are interested. There were more private schools I also wanted to visit but they were full and therefore did not want even a speculative visit for going onto a waiting list. You can check the results of a school my going to http://www.myschool.edu.au/ and finding the school you want and clicking on NAPLAN on the left hand side. I would look at results in "numbers" as the graphs and others are confusing. I would also not take the results completely to heart as its a relatively new thing - but I do thnk its fairly good indicator of things and is a good benchmark - some may disagree. I just wanted schools that were above or exceptionally above average in most of the areas tested as this was a promise I made to myself on moving here in that I just wanted an excellent school for my son. All the Gov schools I visited were good and I would not be worried if my son went to any of them however not all were best fit for him - some had an Arts focus and were creative, some focussed on other areas etc...but once I had a short list of favourite schools we narrowed our search on houses to certain areas. I have to say if you look at the "ranking" of the schools I visited, they all had relatively good results so Im not sure how the other schools I did not visit were so cannot comment... All schools in Canberra (and rest of Ox I think) received a massive grant of around $1,5 million dollars when the world went into recession, to inject money into the local building trade so they all have a new gymnasium, library or hall or something. This applied also to private schools. In comparison to the Private schools, I would say places like the grammar school are in a class of their own but I did not choose it as they had this strange policy of wanting to put my already advanced son back a year into Pre School instead of Kindergarten which is where his age allows him to be, simply because he was a boy and therefore may not be "mature" enough!. Im sure if I pushed it they would have said ok to Kinder but it was not for us in the end.. I really liked Emmaus and have put both my kids on the waiting list there and my son will go to North Ainslie in the meantime. Some private schools are definately better - just better equipped, better results, seem better organised, facilities are newer and the libraries are lovely. That said Torrens primary had a gorgeous library and I though this was an EXCELLENT government school and was definately in my short list and would have chosen this over some of the private schools I saw. its all a matter of taste and what your child needs. The problem with the very good private schools is that they all have MASSIVE waiting lists and I mean a 2 - 3 years long at least and so we did not have any choice. If I did I would have chosen Emmaus. I like Holy Trinity Catholic school in Curtin but Curtin Primary which is a government school was just as good in some ways (if a bit chaotic). If we lived in Curtin I would have chosen Holy Trinity simply on the fact that it was smaller in size but eveything else was the same and Curtin has a good "gifted" scheme. When we arrived we looked at houses in ALL areas (except Tuggeranong) and we looked at things like commute to Civic/public transport as well as the area of the shortlisted schools. We loved the space in the massive houses in Gunghalin but when I did some research, the schools results near to houses we looked at were not great, this was only in a few of the suburbs and we decided it was too far so did not research too many of the areas here.. We wanted to try and get away with having one car (Cars are EXPENSIVE) hence choosing the Inner North in the end. We liked Belconnnen and looked in Aranda but no houses came up in the time we were here and looking and I think this is what you also need to consider. I think you need to have a few areas to consider as had we found a house in Aranda we also would have moved there.. but nothing came up.. My husband came on a 457 visa and we were advised my Saskia Hancock at the Dept of Education here that unless we were on the SOL list, we would have to pay an annual fee of 9.9K$ for going to government school. Some private schools are cheaper (the catholic ones) but the problem in some of the good ones is getting a place. Holy Trinity, St Peter and St Paul had space, Radford who I approached did not, Emmaus does not, St Josephs who I approached did not... There are many which do have space of course but you will find that the ones with excellent results will not (much like the UK) As it happened, my husbands work is on the SOL list so once we had found a property on a long term rental, we emailed Saskia Hancock stating we wanted to register Ethan at North Ainslie as we were in the catchment. She issued us a waiver, told the school of this and we enrolled him directly with the school. It is worth taking time to research and people talk about more than 50% of the population put their kids in Private schools and this may scare lots of people off and make you think that the gov schools are terrible. I do think you have to chose carefully and do your research. Definately some gov schools have problem kids there who may have been chucked out of all the local private schools... and this is a difference in that gov schools have to take kids in their area even if they are full and cannot select whereas the private system can. Look at the demographics of the area, the houses etc..I think this is often a good indication of the school overall. Definately the facilities in the private school are better, but there are good gov schools. Most private schools have lower fees also than the government imposed $10K. (The grammar is around 11K so you may as well consider this if you have to pay the gov fee. private schools are generally around 2-4K a year so not that expensive. Just find a good one that has a spot. Hope all this helps...happy to answer any questions Angela

Hi, Hello..... First post here... :biggrin: Just looking for some advice really. I'm over here working as an IT Developer on the company sponsored VISA after being transferred from the UK. My girlfriend is qualified as a primary school teacher in Scotland, and chose to come with me to Australia rather than do her probation year there. She's registered to work in Victoria, but, despite lots of applications, has never been offered an interview for the graduate positions. We were under the impression that teachers were in high demand in Australia, but we've had feedback that she's up against 30-60 applicants for each role :frown: Queries: I wondered if there were any other expats out there doing teaching jobs... Whether they've had similar problems getting a job... Whether anyone has any ideas how she could make herself more attractive to potential employers... (e.g. tutoring, volunteering as a teaching assistant, doing a local course???) We're at our wits end really - She's been registered for a couple of months, and submitted 20-30 applications all over Melbourne with no luck. Any ideas ? 457ScottishExpat

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!

Hi can anyone give any advise on primary schools in or around the Halls Head area. We are moving to Halls Head in January 2011. We have a 7 year old boy. I'm not the best on the internet, but i'm finding it impossible to get an email address for any schools. I would like a good sized school for him, preferably with a 60 children intake or more. Can anyone give any info on any of the local schools, or has anyone got a good link. What are the waiting listd like? Is it realistic to think that he could start school in Feb? Thanks Zoe x

Does anyone have or know children attending this school? I have searched and searched but cannot find out any info about other peoples experiences at the school...anything good or bad would help in deciding if its a possible school i would like to send my children to. Thank you in advance x

Hi, I'm a recently qualified primary school teacher moving to Australia in the coming months - at the moment it's looking like Perth but haven't finalised flights yet - and I'm wondering if there are any overseas trained primary school teachers working in Perth or elsewhere in Australia who can advise me on the job situation out there. What do you think the chances are of getting a job as a graduate teacher? Any advice at all would be appreciated!

Hi, I'm about to move to Sydney as a de facto partner of my OH's visa. I am a qualified teacher in the UK with 2 years experience at 1 school. I'm just wondering what my options are with teaching in Sydney. Should I: A. Try and find a job before I go out there? B. Find any old job to begin with and then look to go into teaching for the new academic year in January? C. Casual teaching? D. Casual teaching until the new term in January? E. Scrap teaching and do something else? Also, the process to get recognised as a teacher in Australia seems extremely complicated. Can anyone please offer advise on how to get through this minefield? Thanks, Nat

Hi Everyone We recently received out ACT-sponsored 176 visa :biggrin: and are making plans for the move to Canberra. I'm Scottish and my wife is Chinese. We've been bringing up our 3 and 5 year old kids to be bilingual in Mandarin and English. Does anyone know of any primary schools in Canberra that have Mandarin classes? cheers, Scott

Hi guys- hoping people in Oz have woken up by now! :rolleyes: Just looking for people's opinions on schools in the shire-- any personal experiences? I need ( as we all do) a good primary for my kids-- somewhere they will feel at home(they are coming from the Uk) , where they will feel welcomed and happy, and a good place for academic excellence. An after school club will be great if present. Not too bothered about sports as my son couldn't care less. Public or Catholic schools are both ok-- just that it should be a good school. I would be grateful for people's opinion, and please pass on any hearsay as well:biggrin:!

Hi, We are moving to Gladstone, Queensland in Feb 2012 and want to know about primary schools for our 6yr old son.....do we organise now or wait till we get to Gladstone??? so much to think about....any help would be greatfully received....any good schools in which areas...? thanks so much

Anyone know anything about the schools in this area?

Hi was hope someone could help- Im a primary school teacher, I work in a main stream and special needs mixed school and I'm the nursery teacher. I obviously teacher "pre school" children and special needs but I trained in primary. Would I still qualify for the Special Needs teacher or the Pre Primary teacher on the new list??? Or would i need another qualification- if so any ideas what?? Stressed out as Primary Teacher and IT consultant (OH) now taken off the list!!!! Thanks in advance

Just wondering if anyone has children going to a primary school in this area. We are moving next year, and I want to select the school before we go. I'm interested in Trinity College (although I'm not religous) - anyone know of this school? Or, has anyone done this research already and has some feedback for me? Thanks so much.

Hello, We are moving to Perth next month on 457 visa.We are looking to live around CBD area. I liked Highgate primary school for my daughter. Can anyone guide is that school good ? If not which is a better option? Thanks.

Hi, Anyone have came across Highgate Primary School located just north of Perth CBD? They have over 50 different nationalities in the school over 480 students. Also what I'm considering is because they have after school care located in their school itself and they have mandarin classes over the weekend. A government public school usually around 200 - 300 students in our country. Was considering that 480 over students might seem a bit scary. If you any suggestion or feedback on this school, appreciate if you share with me. Thanks Jenny