How to help children cope with moving
We are thinking of moving to Australia when my son is eight and my daughter is five. I am worried about how well they will settle in at school with such a big change.
Has anyone had experience in this area? What did you do to help settle them into a new country and school?
There will be some settling in time for your kids that happens in new schools etc. Some things that are different in schools are year levels are numbered differently (in NZ 1-13 in Oz kindergarten - year 12) same number of years at school.
Private schools are more expensive in Australia as they are not all subsidised by the government. Catholic schools are a good alternative to GPS schools which are very expensive, however some do give preference to practicing catholics where places are in high demand.
Within a couple of years you will find your kids will have Aussie accents and will be loving it. We are Australians who have lived in NZ for 5 years (only suppose to be 12 months) and are going back end of July.
Our son in 14yrs and he is in Year 9 here but will go into Year 8. As a teacher, something I have noticed with my new job is the Maths that students are studying in Year 9 (Year 10 NZ) is the same as the work students are doing in Year 11 Maths in New Zealand. This depends on the curriculum of each state.
We are going to Western Australia. If your kids need learning support you will find the funding in Australia is amazing. New Zealand has terrible funding, to get support a student needs to have intellectual disabilities like Downes Syndrone to get ORRS funding. In Australia mild learning disabilities like ADHD, dyslexia, etc has funding that allows a student to have a teacher aide in all core subjects.
The NZ education system rewards mediocrity and is dumbing down students. In Australia, they reward students for reaching their full potential. University places are awarded to those who get the best marks.
I dont know how much help I can be, but we are some what in the same situation, considering the move over but our daughter is almost three so in a way id think the younger they are the easier it is, but children are pretty good at fitting in and adapting to new situations.
If you think your family would benefit from it then give it a go, if you end up staying youll prob just end up wondering the same question(as to them adapting well) when it comes time to change school or move house withen your city. good luck to you all
Actually, I have found that private schools on the Sunshine and Gold Coast are anything from half to 2/3rds of what we pay in NZ but that there are a swag of add ons for building fund, extra activities as well as fees for lodging a child's name and enrolling and so on - often an extra few hundred a year.
All in all the Australian private schools are less as far as I have seen and there is agood web page. I forget the actual address but found it simply by entering 'private schools Queensland' on Google Australia - it has them all!
Many of the private schools on the Gold Cosat and Sunshine Coast are fairly new so have very nice premises. They do have more children in their clases 27 to 29 whereas in NZ my duaghter had only another 14 classmates (more the economic situation as the class max is 25. I am pretty sure most classes have teacher aids to assist the teacher.
Good schools have a waiting list and you may have to wait for someone to move away but if you search hard enough thne you will find a place at a good school.
I am planning to move to Brisbane from NZ. My son (15 yrs Old) is in year 11 and my daughter (12 yrs Old) is in year 8. Can anyone please tell me about some good state schools in Brisbane. What is their criteria for enrolment into an year level - age or ability.
My son is now doing NCEA level 1. Would it be a good idea to move in July or wait until end of the Dec to complete NCEA level 1 and start school there in Jan? Is there anyone out there who has moved with a 15 yr old? I am worried whether it is the right time to move.
Hi we are looking at moving to Brisbane in the next few months. We have friends who will help us over ther, but was wondering as we have 3 daughters aged 9,7,5 and our oldest one has ADD. How do we find out what to do, do we bring as much medicine with us or do we make contact with Medicare will they help us out.