How do I find out about schools/catchment areas in sydney

[ComradeJing]

Im SO jinxing myself by asking about this but the topic of DH being relocated to Sydney is coming up at work again.

We're looking at suburbs again and thinking more about schools. Dd is only 18 months but we've already been asked by Sydney based friends which schools she is down for. This seems bonkers early to me but there you go.

Can anyone give me some advice for where to look for school information or catchment areas or how schooling works there? I would go private if it was a choice between spending an extra 100k to get into a good catchment area or just paying private fees every year and living somewhere cheaper.

Any advice very welcome. DHs work would be in matraville (sp?) so we would be looking within say 40mins of that to live.

This website is good for schools.

bettereducation.com.au/HotSuburb/primary/nsw/sydney_hot_suburbs.aspx

Catchment areas are generally bigger here than in the UK and schools have to take all children in the area, even if that means extra teachers being allocated to the school or a demountable classroom being placed on the grounds. Most primary schools are pretty good. In your position I'd look at areas I'd like to live in first, then check the schools out on www.myschool.edu.au/

You do need to put you child's name down early for the bigger private schools, in particular the GPS schools, but the majority of kids go public in primary.

I don't know your budget, but if your DH will be working in Matraville I'd be looking to live around Coogee which has a couple of really good primary schools and is right by the beach.

Bloody links, sorry.

www.myschool.edu.au/

Thanks for the replies Hester and Arana, those links both look very useful.

Hester our budget is probably up to a million. I think we need at least 3 bedroom as we have two dc (well, dd plus ds on the way) plus SDD and SDS who will of course spend time with us. I'd like a house too as after how ever many years of Chinese apartment living I really value a garden space.

It's SO hard wanting something that you cant control. This has been on the cards for almost two years now and after 10 years of shoveling through crap in china I just want to get out and have a normal family life.