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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To emigrate to Australia?!

257 replies

DarlingDuck · 16/07/2011 14:56

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?

OP posts:

Bubbaluv · 20/07/2011 09:23

Echt, the private school I went to bough the SN school next door to provide it with better facilities and to help integrate the SN kids with the rest as much as poss. I'm pretty sure they still run it that way.

MrsKravitz · 20/07/2011 09:24

Re private education. The reason a lot of australians privately educate is because of the system.

This is it where I am from : state (public/free) schools are non faith.
All faith schools are fee paying and non govt funded (or minimal that Im not familiar with).

Therefore, if you want your child to go to a church or england or catholic, muslim, hindu, jewish, christian college or humanist...whatever...you pay.
Its not a huge amount but you do pay.

All my family went private because we went to catholic schools, my ds will too.
I was shocked and pretty chuffed to find catholic schools re funded and therefore free here in UK.

Bubbaluv · 20/07/2011 09:25

Morloth - why Kings? DH went there and won'y consider it for our boys Has it changed a lot?

lisianthus · 20/07/2011 09:25

Another reason why more children go to private school in Australia is because of the distances. I went to a state primary, but if I wanted to go beyond year 10, I had to go to (private) boarding school, as the closest school that taught year 11 and 12 was 150kms away from the town where I lived. All the children I went to primary school with did this, and the boarding school was certainly not filled with the social climbers some people seem to imagine. It was 100% country children, a lot of whom just associated with each other.

The country primary school I went to is still going strong. It's a great little school with about 60 children covering years 1 to 7, has a visiting Japanese teacher, great sports equipment, a good library and so on. I will definitely be sending DD to a state school in Australia.

Bubbaluv · 20/07/2011 09:27

MrsKravitz, all schools are govt funded. Every child gets the same funding whether they go state or private which makes the private schools incredibly wealthy.

lisianthus · 20/07/2011 09:27

Sorry, should be "the closest STATE school ..."

Morloth · 20/07/2011 09:30

Oh I just love Kings and many of our friends went there and pretty much every male boss I have ever had, I also dated some Kings boys when I started at Uni and they were both very nice (not at the same time!). The boy's were doing something in our shopping centre a couple of weeks ago and they were just so handsome and well presented.

Oakhill is closer but seems a bit 'try hard'.

We are a big rugby family and of course Kings is the place to be for that. It helps that it is only about 10 minutes drive away.

Scots is another one but they seem a bit posh for us and it is too far away.

We looked into it (especially after starting in a private in London) but decided that it just wasn't necessary. If either of them show any real 'need' for a private school then it is an option we are open too and fortunately can afford. But DS1 is doing really well where he is so I can't see the point.

I would say of my friends it is about 60% public and 40% private.

TattyDevine · 20/07/2011 09:31

True about the distances. The first private school I went to (Presbytarian Ladies College) had a big boarding school full of the daughters of rich farmers from hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away.

lisianthus · 20/07/2011 09:35

And not so rich too. My dad's a farm hand, but he had to leave school at 15, so he was determined we wouldn't have to. Some of the day girls were wealthy, but a lot of us boarders were pretty skint!

MrsKravitz · 20/07/2011 09:48

Are you certain of that bubbaluv?

Fimbo · 20/07/2011 09:51

Does anyone know how easy it would be to get a job as lawyer in Australia?

MrsKravitz · 20/07/2011 09:53

Yes looks like they do get some govt funding. I would never choose a state school as i chose catholic education for ds.

stoatie · 20/07/2011 09:58

But when the OP qualifies as a midwife in the UK - guess what? NO JOBS. NHS is not employing the newly qualifieds, both nursing and midwifery

Thats rubbish, im a nurse, we take on newly qualified staff...where did you get this nugget from?

There are midwifery jobs in the UK - but this does vary from region to region. Where I am all of last years cohort got jobs, so far (not finished yet) at least a third (poss more) of our cohort have jobs to go to.

Also midwifery training is vastly oversubscribed, on average 450 applicants for approx 25 places

ThumbsNoseAtSnapewitch · 20/07/2011 10:00

Can't help you there Fimbo, sorry!

Just wanted to check that all the Sydney residents on this thread are still in one piece and haven't been blown/washed away! We're not too bad up where we are but it's still pretty unpleasant weather.

Mummy2LZ · 20/07/2011 10:00

Where do you live Thumbs?

Morloth · 20/07/2011 10:02

It isn't that bad here in the Hills a bit windy but nothing really bad, haven't seen any trees down or anything.

ThumbsNoseAtSnapewitch · 20/07/2011 10:03

1.5h north of Sydney, just in the Hunter Valley region.

AngelsOnHigh · 20/07/2011 10:03

Morloth had a chuckle when you mentioned Kings. My DB was working at a hospital in Muswellbrook and the "Boss" there sent his son to Kings so he wouldn't get involved with the local "riff raff".

He got sent home halfway through the year for stealing hubcaps from cars in Parramatta.

Then when DB was working in Newcastle, the boss there pulled his son out of Kings and sent him to the local selective high school (Merewether).

He then donated the amount of money he would have paid in fees at Kings to the local school.

My DB is a very quite unassuming person and once said "all the money in the world won"t get you in to my old school. You actually have to have brains"

lisianthus · 20/07/2011 10:03

Fimbo, what sort of lawyer and what state? There are different qualification requirements in each state, for example in Western Australia you need a law degree.

Diff states also have diff needs for lawyers. Lots of mining work in (again) Western Australia, not so much in Victoria. The firms also tend to be a lot smaller and it is easier and more common than tin he UK to strike out as a sole practitioner.

Re private school funding, they get some state funding, but it is not the same amount each child would get if it went to a state school. (Hence the often-seen argument that if the children were pulled out of private schools and put in the state system, the government would be in trouble as its costs would shoot up from having to accommodate all the extra children in local state schools.) This can differ from state to state as the educational system is state based. Teachers are also paid different amounts depending on which state they are based in.

echt · 20/07/2011 10:06

Wow, I just looked at the radar for Sydney: raining a bit, or what?

And very apposite as I was about to turn the conversation to a pleasant note about Oz, and that's the sound of rain on the roof. The last two places we lived in had tiled roofs, which muffle the sound completely, but this one has colourbond, and the sound of the rain rattling down is very soothing, I find.

Obviously not a sufficient reason to move out here, though.:o

Morloth · 20/07/2011 10:10

I suspect we are the riffraff Angels, I went to Bidwill High School! It doesn't get much more feral than that.

The private/public thing doesn't seem as polarised here as it is in the UK. I don't really have any preference other than not wanting to drop a couple of hundred thousand on it if not necessary. If either of the boys turned out to have SN or to be really gifted at something that a private could help them with then I wouldn't hesitate, but as it stands for two 'average' kids(obviously I think they are the brightest bestest kids ever) a public school is just fine.

As I said we have a mix of friends with kids at private/public and even mixes within families according to what each kid needs. We all get along just fine.

ThumbsNoseAtSnapewitch · 20/07/2011 10:12

echt, I don't find it soothing when it's belting down on the tin roof! Which it has been doing. This July has seen more rain than in the last 23 years, apparently. But it seems ever since I got here the weather has been breaking new records in winter and summer (nothing to do with me, I hasten to add, I'm not that paranoid! )

lisianthus · 20/07/2011 10:14

Morloth, looks like you've finally discovered who pinched your hubcaps then!

AngelsOnHigh · 20/07/2011 10:16

Morloth my old stomping ground was OLMC Parramatta. Got lots of ribbing about our uniforms. DB went to James Ruse. "Old Ladies Mental Cottage" was one of the lovely names we were tagged with

Fimbo · 20/07/2011 10:33

lisianthus. Thanks Dh is a commercial lawyer and works for a company inhouse. He wouldn't really want to work in private practice I don't think. Lawyer doesn't seem to be on the job list for potential imigrants and possibly at 43 & 42 we may be getting too old to start thinking about such a move?

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