Sydney catholic primary school places

[Kate Saidi]

Does anyone have any experience/ advice on finding places at good catholic primary schools in Sydney? We are emigrating in April with our two children of 5 and 3. Our oldest child goes to cathoilc primary school here in the UK so we wanted to continue that education on. What evidence may we need of being practising catholics? Am I right in thinking we need to be on a permanent visa? Am slightly worried from posts saying competition for private school places is fierce, is it the same for catholic schools? We are unsure where we will end up living but we are willing to let the school determine this but perhaps Northern beaches or Maroubra??

[summerhill]

Hi Kate,

There are 2 types of Catholic schools in NSW. Systemic , which means the are run by the Catholic education office of the Diocese , and non Systemic or independent . Most of the non Systemic schools used to belong to religious orders of nuns , priests or brothers . But as we all know they are in short supply these days . The biggest difference in the two types is the fees . Systemic schools are much cheaper than non systemic schools. When we lived in Sydney the fees for the systemic primary school our kids went to were about $1200 per year with sibling discounts for subsequent children . My friend is sending her son to an non systemic primary school and is paying $12000 approx so a big difference. By the way we are citizens , I would imagine if your are not Pr the fees are higher but I am not sure. The school my kids went to they didn't care if we were practising or not though I know this varies from school to school . The private / non systemic schools often have big waiting lists especially for secondary schools. The independent schools also do better academically on the whole though it would be best to check them out as we all know that paying more doesn't always get you a better service. I don't really know about schools in the areas you are looking in as I didn't live close to those areas. Have a look at http://www.myschool.edu.au/ which gives info on the schools including naplan results (these are like sats but done in primary year 3 and 5) unfortunately there is nothing like ofsted in NSW. For Maroubra it might also be worth looking at schools in Randwick .hope this helps.