Family moving to Sydney

[Andrea T]

I am moving to Sydney with my husband and 2 children (10 and 7) with a job lined up in Malabar.

 

Can anybody suggest areas to live with good child facilities but hopefully not too expensive!

 

We had a look and the areas standing out are so far are Narwee, Roseland, Penshurst, Padstow Heights, Peakhurst and Beverley Hills.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks in aniticaption

[maya12]

Hi,

 

We are also moving to Sydney and areas we're looking at are the hills district- kellyville, baulkhan hills. We've done a fair bit of research and they appear to be more affordable and very family friendly with great schools. Sutherlandshire would also be worth a look.

 

When are you heading over? We're aiming for September but have a lot to sort out here first-busy but exciting times ahead.

 

Hope this helps :-)

[Rupert]

Work would be quite close to Coogee and even Bondi, but these are of course expensive areas to live as are most of the eastern suburbs. You wouldn't be too far from Sutherlandshire so that might be worth a look. The Hills (previous post) are not right for you in terms of travel to work.

 

I don't know what the places you mention are like, but they are getting quite close to Bankstown, which is not desirable but could be far enough away.

[Joebloggs]

I am moving to Sydney with my husband and 2 children (10 and 7) with a job lined up in Malabar.

 

Can anybody suggest areas to live with good child facilities but hopefully not too expensive!

 

We had a look and the areas standing out are so far are Narwee, Roseland, Penshurst, Padstow Heights, Peakhurst and Beverley Hills.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks in aniticaption

 

I would have a good look at these places first and decide afterwards, also have a look at other places mentioned.

[Andrea T]

Thanks alot for the reply. We had heard that Banktown was not a great area. We shall have a look at Sutherlandshire and also were have heard that Oyster Bay nice

[spottydog]

Oyster Bay, Como and Bonnet Bay are all nice and fairly close to the train as well as the Princes Highway for driving. Personally I'd avoid the area's you originally suggested and take a look at Sutherland Shire

[Andrea T]

Thanks for your reply. We plan to move to Sydney by May. I am applying for police checks at the moment and waiting for my 457 visa. I had heard that Sutherlandshire was a nice area and also Oyster Bay. We will check both out

 

Good luck with your plans

[Andrea T]

Thanks a lot for your reply. We shall look at Sutherlandshire, Oyster Bay and Como. I think we will forget the areas we mentioned before as they appear to be close to Banktown.

[whoiam]

 

I am moving to Sydney with my husband and 2 children (10 and 7) with a job lined up in Malabar.Can anybody suggest areas to live with good child facilities but hopefully not too expensive!We had a look and the areas standing out are so far are Narwee, Roseland, Penshurst, Padstow Heights, Peakhurst and Beverley Hills. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in aniticaption

Hi there,If you could name your budget I may be able to help for we too recently looked around in all these places so I have a fair idea of rents. I wouldn't discount these areas for being near bankstown as they aren't that close and all have a train line. At the end of the day it would depend on what your budget is, what kind of home you are looking for and the facilities you need. And last but not the least the commute to work!

[SydneyAnne]

Why not try Malabar as a place to live. It's lovely – has the feel of a quiet seaside town yet only about 20 minutes' drive to the CBD. Good choice of schools, good community spirit, gorgeous beach, close to Maroubra Junction shopping centre. Perhaps you should consider arranging short-to-medium-term furnished accommodation for your arrival so you can look at the suburb options before you commit to one place. Loads of great choices, but housing is a significant cost. Might help to think about the kind of school you want the children to attend (the new school year starts end of January) as another point to start your search. Three systems of education to choose from: the state system, the Catholic system, the independent system. Choice will depend on budget, education priorities (i.e. do you want a sport school or a more academic one?) and catchment area you move into. Happy to help further. Cheers, Anne (relocate-east.com.au)

[maya12]

Hello SydneyAnne

 

How do you know if a school is more sport or more academic focused? We are moving to Sydney in September and are at the point of deciding on areas to look at closely. School's would be a big factor for us in determining where we settle. I have no idea about the school system in Sydney as yet so any advice would be welcomed.

 

Many thanks

[SydneyAnne]

Hello. A schools league table comes out each year for the various primary schools across the state, giving each school's results in the national NAPLAN (National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) tests. Children are tested in Year 3, Year 5, Year 7 and Year 9. You can look at the website Myschool.edu.au to see how a particular school performs. Of course there is academic debate about how useful such results are, but people do pay a premium for housing in the catchment areas of state schools that perform particularly well. Two such schools in Sydney, for example, are Woollahra Public and Balmain Public. Private schools also do these tests, although their funding is not related to how well they perform – that's more down to parental pressure. The other option you have if you go private is whether to choose a single-sex school or co-ed. Boys schools tend to have a stronger sports focus, but not always. Sydney Grammar, a top-ranking and costly boys private school, is highly academic in its focus. Coogee Preparatory, as another boys' school example, also has a great reputation but is cheaper and more sports focused. Depending on your visa type of course, you could be paying fees for any school your children attend – from about $4500 for a local primary school to $19,000 a year for Kindy at Sydney Grammar. The school websites have all the information. Perhaps a good start point to identify suitable suburbs is to look at where your employment is situated and what the transport options are. I can help you this if it would help. Cheers, Anne (www.relocate-east.com.au)

[maya12]

Thank you so much for the information. I'll certainly have a look at the website to get a better idea of how the various schools are doing. We have a 175 visa so I believe that public schooling would be free and this would be our preferred choice. We're going to do an online search of areas in Sutherlandshire and then also north Suburbs as these are areas we'd like to focus on. I think final decision will have to rest on where we are able to find work and also where we get the better feel for in terms of meeting our requirements once we get to Sydney and are able to look around properly.

 

Really appreciate your help and will be in touch once we're a bit further down the line with areas we want to concentrate on.

[Ellie 2]

There is no league table for schools! Would not base your decision on the naplan results either. Find a good suburb to live in and you will almost certainly find good schools. Look at the My school's website if you like but visit the schools, talk to staff, parents and get a feel for the place. Remember also most government schools have a catchment area so make sure you find a house within that for the school you choose.

[northshorepom]

Hello SydneyAnne

 

How do you know if a school is more sport or more academic focused? We are moving to Sydney in September and are at the point of deciding on areas to look at closely. School's would be a big factor for us in determining where we settle. I have no idea about the school system in Sydney as yet so any advice would be welcomed.

 

Many thanks

 

I think it's quite hard to determine from a distance which schools are more sports or academically focused especially in the public system. At primary school level there's a small amount of specialisation but not much, at high school level it increases a bit.

 

The state government website tells you about some of the types of schools - for example, there are high schools that are selective (academic) or ones that specialise in sports or creative arts - see here:

http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/gotoschool/types/index.php

 

Or try trawling through the myschool website:

http://myschool.edu.au/

 

What is harder to find out is what enrichment/extension classes are offered by schools outside them being recognised as a specialist school - schools have quite a bit of freedom to offer this sort of thing but the only way of finding out about it is look at their individual websites, which takes a while. This is why the general recommendation is to try and narrow down the areas you might like to live in and then research the local schools in more detail. To get into a particular public school is usually quite a simple thing to achieve - live in catchment

 

The stock advice is to find a suburb you like, good suburbs are likely to have good schools and that doesn't seem to be a million miles off the mark.

[SydneyAnne]

It might be useful to watch the Sydney Morning Herald – about this time every year since MySchool began they have been producing a league table of the top 50-odd primary schools based on the NAPLAN results which, as mentioned, have their critics. The table is not produced by the MySchool site, it is produced from independent analysis of the website's data by the Herald. Of course nothing beats visiting schools and talking to people connected with it when trying to find the right school "fit" for your child. That way you'll be able to see what it offers and what "extras" it has to attract you.

[Captain Roberto]

Why not try Malabar as a place to live. It's lovely – has the feel of a quiet seaside town yet only about 20 minutes' drive to the CBD. Good choice of schools, good community spirit, gorgeous beach, close to Maroubra Junction shopping centre. Perhaps you should consider arranging short-to-medium-term furnished accommodation for your arrival so you can look at the suburb options before you commit to one place. Loads of great choices, but housing is a significant cost. Might help to think about the kind of school you want the children to attend (the new school year starts end of January) as another point to start your search. Three systems of education to choose from: the state system, the Catholic system, the independent system. Choice will depend on budget, education priorities (i.e. do you want a sport school or a more academic one?) and catchment area you move into. Happy to help further. Cheers, Anne (relocate-east.com.au)

 

 

Are there any good public high schools around here?

 

As I understand it, primary education isn't too problematic, with quite a lot of decent to good schools. High schools appear to be a bit trickier. We aren't 'pushy' parents, and don't feel that our kids need to be at 'the best' school, but obviously we'd still like to get into a decent one.

 

 

We are looking at Maroubra, South Coogee, Randwick areas, or even possibly around Bondi Junction. The more affordable parts of the eastern suburbs.

[MARYROSE02]

If you can afford to live in or near to Malabar, then I suggest you do so, as commuting in Sydney is rarely a pleasant experience. There is no railway line to Malabar, and the bus service, whilst OK, goes mainly to the CBD, and maybe Bondi Junction, which means another bus or train to most of those suburbs you mentioned. There is nothing wrong with any of those places, by the way, but it's probably at least a half hour drive to Malabar, assuming the traffic is OK. If you can afford to live a bit closer to the City than Malabar, well that would be nice. Then again, maybe around Mascot and Botany would be OK too, and not too far a drive to Malabar.