'Good' areas to live in Melbourne and Sydney and a question about schools...

[Gem13]

I'm starting to explore the options of us moving to Melbourne or Sydney and have a couple of questions about house prices and the school system.

Could anyone recommend nice family type places to live in either city? I know the cost of living, wages, etc. is lower, but we would hopefully be coming over with some equity. As a guide to what we would be looking for in equivalent terms, in England we would look at paying around £450,000 for an old 4 bedroomed house in the South East of England.

Also, in terms of education is there an equivalent of Ofsted reports or SATs results available online?

Finally, with a child born in July and one in February how does the school year work? I'm so used to it being 1/9 - 31/8 that I couldn't work out the April cut off point I saw on the Victoria education website.

Thank you.

school goes from feb to dec iirc

here you go

Thanks RTKM. What I'm after though is how old the children will be. For example DS will start school here when he is just 4 and a month as he has a July birthday. His September friend will start a year later and will be almost 5 when he starts reception.

DD (February) on the other hand will be over 4 and a half.

is this better????

so I think the cut off is APRIL 30th in Aussie

Like in UK it is sept 1st

does that make sense????????

Thanks - yes. So there would only be one academic year between DS and DD rather than the 2 here.

Thanks - yes. So there would only be one academic year between DS and DD rather than the 2 here.

We lived in Sandringham (4 bed rented house with pool on Sims Street) and in South Yarra (2 bed rented apartment).

If we went back again, I would head for Sandringham, Hampton or Brighton. You probably know already that you can have a good look at property using www.domain.com.au

DD was only 4yo at the time so I didn't worry too much about schooling. When we looked into moving back about 6mo ago, I looked into school a bit - she's now almost 9yo. She's in private here and private primary was expsnive there but ISTR that seniors worked out cheaper than here.

I think I looked at stae schools through links on Victoria Online

Bumping for those mumsnetters down under who may be awake right now.