To emigrate to Australia?!

[DarlingDuck]

DH and I are 30 and have 3 DC's, we've wanted to emigrate for a long time. It would mean me re-training and doing a midwifery degree but I would earn twice the salary in Australia as I would here in the UK. The only cons we can think of would be missing our families and all the huge spiders/snakes!

I realise it will be a huge upheaval and our eldest will be around 10 years old when we plan to go which may be hard for her. Ideally we would like to do it sooner but we want to make sure we can earn a good wage.... AIBU?

Back to education, the specious argument that private schools are somehow saving the taxpayer money would work IF those schools took all comers with money. But they don't. They cherry pick.

The Finnish have the right idea: go ahead and have a private school, but you can't discriminate against anyone who wishes to go there.

very little private education in Finland because there's nothing to be gained by it and , oh, what a surprise, they do really rather well in the education stakes.

Such is the infatuation of successive Australian governments with private education that it was even mooted recently that well-off parents with children in state schools should pay fees to subsidise the less well-off.

So all taxpayers pay for all schools.
Some taxpayers are paying for schools who wouldn't let their children in the front door.
Well-off state school parents can then pay an additional tax.

Genius.

If that actually happened I think there would be a lot more private schools springing up.

I wouldn't be very impressed at paying an extra tax for public school so would go private.

Sorry Fimbo, I don't know much about in-house jobs, but suspect the senior ones would probably be out of Sydney or Melbourne. 42 and 43 is probably a nice age to do it, still young, with enough experience to get decent jobs and do it with a bit of cash.

However, I don't know about the immigration requirements- perhaps a secondment with a UK based company or an Oz company with branches here like NAB, Macquarie, Westfield or BHP might be worth thinking about and give you a chance to check the place out without committing? Good luck!

I think that each child is allocated a certain amount of government funding. Then if you choose to go private you make up the difference by paying fees.

Catholic schools are generally pretty reasonable but C of E schools are very expensive.

Morloth I have a friend who was captain of Bidwill high school. Or should that be "Head Girl" as in Mallory Towers?

Thank you, have been toying with the idea for quite a while. Dh's sister lives somewhere in Brisbane, her dh is a manager of a mining company. Dh and her are not close though so any info comes 2nd hand through his mum.

Oooooh what year Angels?

Bidwill was my family's version of the boarding school. Instead of sending us away to boarding school, my parents bought a cheap house in a cheap suburb and we lived there during school terms and then spent all our holidays back home.

Dad stayed at home and Mum lived with us there. It was an interesting arrangement but probably cost a LOT less than trying to pay 6 sets of boarding fees.

Bidwill (bolding required!) was feral then and I think it is worse now.

Do it! I miss living in OZ.

Not sure what year morloth,. She's 41 so I guess around 1993 or 1992.

The funny thing is, no matter where we go to school, we all end up at the same Universities.

It has been said that students coming from so called disadvantaged areas actually adjust to Uni a lot more quickly, because they haven't been spoon fed at school like a lot of the privately educated students.

When you get to Uni it is basically sink or swim on your own. A lot of self motification is required,

I love that word, motification! Brilliant. Far better than motivation. Mind you, I have neither.

Before my time then, but bang on for my older brother and sister.

It was pretty rough. My TER was the highest in the year by a lot and it wasn't that great. Once you have survived Bidwill High School pretty much everything else is a piece of piss.

One of the reasons we have gone for a 'posher' suburb (though how posh the Hills are is debatable!) is for the schools. So we have in effect bought the boys something better by buying into a rich area instead of staying in the Outer West and paying for school feels instead.

I think there is less of a class system in Australia than in the UK, being from Mount Druitt was never actually a barrier to success (though a lot of ribbing ensued). I do wonder whether people from really deprived areas in the UK get the same sort of experience.

Yes it's really great isn't it. Can't see how I did that. I was trying to change the TV channel at the same time to see if the Danny Green fight had started .

I reread it as well.

Not that I watch the boxing. DH has gone to the fight as his friend from school is one of the show fights. We had to purchase it on Foxtell.

Can't understand why he is at the fight and still wants to pay $49.95 to record it.

Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it. That's what a private school education does for you

Yeah well at least they taught us to spell at Bidwill.

I think that's the best thing about Australia. Everyone has an equal opportunity to go as far as they are MOTIVATED to go.

My sister in law lives in Hunter's Hill and as far as she is concerned anything past Strathfield is the wild west.

She's originally from Stratford. Came to Oz when she was 16.

Aw hey, I wasn't picking you up on spelling, I thought it was a jokey way of saying it, like edumacation. No?

Morloth - there is a sort of class system here it seems but very different basis to the UK. From what DH and friends tell me, it's more based around money than anything else. Nouveau riche in Australia just isn't an issue, whereas in the UK, the area you came from mattered more than how much money you have. So, in the UK you could be rich as Croesus but if you were brung up wrong and didn't talk proper then it made no difference - you were still low class, just low class with money. It's changed a fair bit now but remnants of it still hang around; and then there is all the inverse snobbery as well (working class taking the piss out of the higher classes just because).

hahaha I met a baby lawyer like that once, she was from Mosman and for some reason thought her position as a junior lawyer meant that she could give me orders.

Quite a steep learning curve for her there.

I have friends in Hunter's Hill, but they are Kiwis so might not be quite as entrenched. Is she not at all worried about the radiation?

I like being back home. I enjoyed my time in London but really struggled with some of the cultural differences, am glad to be back to where everyone makes sense!

Spot on Thumbs we have money, but bugger all class.

Is the way to be, you get all the benefits of wealth without having to spend any time at all worrying what people think about you.

Thumbs no offence taken. I think it's a great word . It actually sounds right.

I love the wide open spaces of OZ. Although Sydney has started to get a bit overcrowded. We used to be on the outskirts and now we feel hemmed in by all the Mcmansions on small blocks of land.

It's not actually possible to pay your own way through a midwifery degree in this country - the NHS pays fees for all home students and there's not an option to self-fund. The NHS could give the option to either self-fund OR tie the funded degree to a requirement to work for the NHS for X number of years (provided there's a job), but they don't. So I really cannot see what the OP is doing wrong. And who says she is definitely going to decide to go to Australia or won't come back and work here one day...

Bue thanks for reminding me of something I meant to say to the OP, who appears to be long gone but never mind!

DarlingDuck - if you try to do a degree in Australia in midwifery it will probably cost you a huge amount of money because chances are you will be charged as an overseas student. This means there is no Govt subsidy for your place at all, and would therefore cost you much more than it would cost for an Australian here. It's the same in the UK - non UK residents have to pay a fortune for their degrees; in fact, if you do more than one first degree (Bachelors degree) you end up paying full whack for the second one because the Govt only subsidises the first one. Full whack is thousands more than you'd think.

Bubbaluv

No, not angry.

Am I right in thinking there is an upper age limit in emigrating to oz? I would do it tomorrow but suspect we are too old, we have no ties at all to the uk.

Fimbo, I'm a lawyer in Australia, but in South Australia so that's probably not a lot of help. I do know quite a few English lawyers who've successfully made the move, although you're right that it's not a 'desirable job' in the sense that it'll help you skip the immigration queue like nursing/teaching would. If your husband's a good lawyer with good references, he should be able to find a job, in my experience.

Admission to the Bar is state based, but once you've been admitted in one state it's a very easy formality to get a practice certificate in another jurisdiction, no retraining or further exams to take - I think it's just a matter of filling out an application with the relevant Law Society. There's an increasing move towards national professional standards, etc., which helps.

If you're looking at NSW, look at the NSW Law Society webpage for information on how to practise there as a start.

If Bazza O'Fazza ever stops hiding under his desk masturbating, or whatever he's been doing for the past three or four months, and manages to sort out Sydney's public transport I would highly recommend Scots, Morloth. My brothers went there and loved it. It seems to be one of the few schools capable of catering for both tough sporty boys and sensitive little arty boys.

Vicar, it works by point system. Points are based on your age, education, number of years of relevant work experience and English skills. You also gain points when sponsored by a state, or by a relative living in designated areas of Australia.

My father tried it about ten years ago and was unsuccessful, in part because he was over 40. They ended up in New Zealand, which is much easier. But I don't think being over 40 automatically disqualifies you, it just loses you points. It looks like being over 50 might disqualify you from the Skilled Migrants program, though, because I guess Australia doesn't think it'll get enough working years out of you to make it worth it?

Here is the skilled occupations list.