Quoll

Oh pooh! He must have been at the Basil Fawlty school of Hotel Management! Scrooge!!!! The hotel sounds like the pits so hope you can get a rental sooner rather than later.

You'll probably find Christmas is exacerbating your anxiety as well. If you come from a family which celebrates such things, being on the other side of the world in a different season just seems plain wrong (after 43 years I still find it so) - it emphasises what you have left and hones in on your isolation. Once Christmas is over it's not so bad and once you have accrued some leave you will be able to do things together which might be a little more enjoyable. Expect tears across the board though if you decide to FaceTime people at Christmas, they will be missing you as much as you will be missing them.

You are quite lucky - let us hope it stays that way for you! Here in Canberra Coke is the shiny bums opiate of choice and they are quite discreet about it but meeting someone very high on something the other mid afternoon (not just alcohol I think) at the bus stop in Canberra city (pants down around his knees, screaming every expletive known to man, throwing shopping trolleys into the road) was a bit of a shock for this little old granny. My sister in law was not quite so lucky - she was driving around Ballarat when her car (with her in it) was totalled by a couple who were off their heads on ice - my brother in law wont drive at night at all now (his daughter is a paramedic, he's heard the tales I suspec, in addition to his wife being totalled). Where my son lives, in Gippsland, cannabis is very popular but it, I thought, was known as the Ice capital of Australia, especially around the Sale, Warrnambool area. If you have kids and can keep them away from it then you are doing very well I reckon!

There's a member on here at the moment struggling to find a rental in the GC so that sounds pretty grim. I'd agree that Newcastle would be a good starting point. Bottom line though, go where you can get a job.

Do you mean for the trip? Or for when your get here? If the latter then any of the health insurance companies will take you but there will be the age loading of mega $$$$ unless you happened to have had private health when you were here before and had no age loading. We got ours back with no age loading after nearly 10 years away, just needed to get our travel records which was easily done. If it's travel insurance, we found some on the comparison websites although not then 75, quite. It won't be cheap though.

You shouldn't miss the point of no return. As long as your kids are there to start secondary school or GCSE at the very least you should be OK. Its once they get into high school that it really seems to bite. Plenty of time to go with the flow, there's time enough to settle when you're dead!

I know a family that went back after about 3 weeks and last I heard they were very happy that they had done so - they changed some essential things about their lives "back home" and that worked for them. The usual mantra is "it takes 2 years" but I reckon you know in less than that whether you'll belong or not. With a 7 year old you've got a good year or two to make a decision without too much impact on their education. If it works, you win, if it doesn't then cut your losses and move on but, honestly, there's nothing wrong if it doesn't float your boat. It certainly doesn't help that you've had employer issues and not found a rental but that's par for the course and maybe it's the area you've moved to - maybe you'd be happier closer to your sister in Vic though if you had a job lined up before you arrived are you on a temporary visa perhaps? That would be a whole different ballgame.

Surprised that you've heard bad things about Move cube. Ours left UK 3 years ago yesterday as it happened and even through Covid beginning it was with us early April 2020. It was a flawless process from go to whoa. I would happily use them again should the need ever arise.

Move cube with Seven Seas. They were fabulous for us. Cubes come in different sizes, we took the largest but had space to spare at the end of it.

Griffith has nice cherries and if you're Italian you'd fit right in.

Hire furniture or patronise the local buy nothing group (usually FB) or Freecycle or Gumtree for cheap stuff. or revise your budget and get long term airbnb or stayz.

If you are offered a job with NSW EDUCATION, that's most likely. They expect people to do their time in hard to fill positions and you earn your brownie points towards more plum positions down the track. What does your OH do? It might be better to focus on that as a career option in the first instance. Sadly, the competition for teaching positions is fierce in places that people actually want to live. Much easier to get a position in places which aren't as popular. A friend had to go out to Dubbo to get a contract - he did his 2 years but then decided to quit teaching and go back to Uni. There's nothing stopping you moving out of teaching into something else, you'd have the skills which are transferable. I see you have a 16 year old so you're going to need stability for them to do years 11&12 (may be a bit older than the cohort but they will need to do both years from the get go, starting in January). It might be useful to check out the schools which do well in HSC (and those which dont) because their education might be the most important factor in the first instance. There's a list here https://bettereducation.com.au/Results/HscPublicSchoolRanking.aspx?yr=2021

https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/curriculum/english There is only one exam board for NSW, everyone does the HSC. That covers years 11&12. Yes, K-2 is Kinder to year 2, you'll want 7-12

You're not likely to get a job before you arrive, it'd be cheaper to just resign yourself to doing the paperwork once you've landed and got an address of some description. Where will your OH be working? Maybe they're more likely to get a permanent job than you are as a teacher. If you're aiming for NSW government schools it could be a very long time before you get a decent job but your chances are better if you're prepsred to go more rural - inland rather than coastal. If you are secondary maths or science you'll probably have more luck. You've just missed the staffing round for next year unfortunately.

The state police forces only require PR. The ACT/National Police service (AFP) require citizenship. Strictly, that's what happens for all public servants but there is a little jiggle room with the APS occasionally.

Anything that is likely to cost the Australian tax payer over the threshold for treatment.

Wise move! Burning bridges is never a really sensible idea so it sounds like you are doing the best you can with what you have got. Must admit there are one or two things I would go huh??? at but as you say, their lives and it'll either work or it wont and not much you can do about it.

Well, sponsored work visas aren't always permanent either, there is no guarantee that they'll get a permanent visa at the end of it so they're wise to rent out their place. Often women, especially, decide to move home once the kids start to come. You'll be fine! I'm rather of the mind that you don't need to be in touch every day because that exacerbates the missingness! I've got one son in UK (he went for a one year holiday in 2002) and one a 4 hour drive away. I go weeks without taking to either and I'm relieved that I'm not enmeshed with my grandkids.

When you say "working visa" do you mean the young persons "working holiday visa"? If so, don't worry, she'll be home at the end of it. If they've got a permanent visa then, yes, you've got more problems! Start saving your pennies and plan to go for regular visits. You never know, she may not like Australia, some of us dont, but in the meantime, pat yourself on the back for raising an adventurous, independent young lady!!! When I left my parents behind over 40 years ago now, it was very much a case of out of sight & out of mind but now there is instant communication I think it's actually harder because you're constantly picking at the scab of your loss. It'll all be OK, don't panic!!!

Dont ignore Queanbeyan - close enough to Canberra to enjoy the work opportunities (it's hard yakka getting a tradie here at the moment!). You could do worse!

But you would be declaring that your child needs 1:1 support in class. They may require you to get a whole battery of psycho-educational assessments to show what level of disability she has.

If she is getting 1:1 support in order to manage school she is likely to be declined for a visa. Do you have any idea how much 1:1 support costs????

I think he has to take a completed form with a verified photograph (get it done at Mr Snappy and tell them you want Australian) because this will be his first adult passport. The process tells you what you need to complete and take with you.

Speak to one of the agents who specialise in medical issues. George Lombard is the one who is usually mentioned in this regard. You will need a current cognitive assessment, adaptive behaviour, current skill level, speech language assessment and any other diagnostic assessments that the psychologists may have done to confirm the diagnosis.

I did wonder if they were still doing that. They started because they were getting some diagnoses from interstate which basically came from a random selection of paediatricians who said kids were autistic but had no objective data to validate the diagnosis. In some places the diagnosis was given willy nilly just so that parents could claim additional funding to help in schools. The paediatricians thought they were being helpful to their patients' parents. Victoria has always had a more rigorous definition and actually harder criteria for special ed support than any other state so it's good that you had some reciprocity with Victoria