Will we have to go to school in Australia? #ouraussieadventure

I arrived in Sydney at about 5pm local time. I have no idea what time that would have been for me. early hours of the morning? I was met at the airport by a school-mum friend who had moved to Sydney with her family late in 2013. It was really lovely to see a familiar face and know that i didnt have to try and work out how to get to a hotel on my own.

I had booked car hire on the website when i booked my flights. I had really only done this as it flashed up as an option at check out and it really wasn’t that much. I think it was something like £30 for the 4 days that i was going to be there. I thought given that i wanted to do a lot of looking around then it would be easier to have a car but actually the public transport in Sydney is really good and i probably could have managed it without, just would have to have been a little bit more on the ball with giving myself plenty of time to get to places. When you have to catch a boat to get your destination things seem to take a bit longer!

My friend and her family live in the lovely leafy suburb of Southerlandshire. The locals apparently refer to it as ‘the shire’ which in my mind just has images of tractors and wellies. But it is far from that. It is a beautiful area surrounded by incredible national parks and not too far from some of Sydney’s legendary beaches.

It was dark when we finally got our car out of the garage and even though i told myself that the driving is the same as UK. In my mind I wanted it to be different! I have no idea why, the only thing i can put it down to is that the roads are a little similar to North America..they are large and felt similar in some way so i actually had to keep reminding myself to stay on the left and not try to drive on the right!

Driving the reasonably short distance to ‘the shire’ from the airport i recognised a few signs that surprised me…Woolworths..yes, not our woolworths a different one which is in fact a supermarket chain here and some of those resolute global brands that we all know that pop up everywhere! (naming no names!). We headed for the sleepy suburb and i was amazed, and this is going to sound silly, but just how DARK it was. They are clearly not as into street lights as we are. I dont know if it was that or just the fact that there was just a little bit less light pollution. But man, it was dark. The sun disappears so quickly in Australia. It was Autumn/winter time when i was there so the days were short and the sun was going down by 6. But when it went down it shot down past the horizon like a bullet from a gun. So funny to watch. Like the Truman movie when they change the day to night!

Waking up in the suburbs I got to have a little look round before i had an appointment with a school. It was a lovely sunny day, temperature of about 23 degrees. So i popped on some shortie jeans and flip flops and headed off to my first appointment. Leaving the house, theres that moment when you realise that your google maps are not going to work because you don’t have roaming! EEK. Thank goodness i thought to hire a SatNav from the car hire place. Very useful. I would have had to read a map if i hadn’t got them! *Gasp*

Driving to the area the school was in there was pretty heavy traffic. It wasnt rush hour but it seems that Sydney can be busy on the roads at any time of day! I drove to an area called Castle Hill where i was looking at a primary school. Driving into the area it has a distinct ‘neighbours’ feel to it. Large houses , large open and mostly quiet roads with soft palm trees blowing the mild autumn breeze. Its a lovely place. I found the school ..eventually.. and headed in to introduce myself. The Headteacher greeted me wearing an outfit i might wear on snowy day at home, wool tights, boots and a wool, long sleeve dress. I wondered maybe if she had really bad circulation but it turns out that sunny 23 degrees is considered cold. Okaaaay…i was all dressed for summer and we went into one classroom, i kid you not, where the heater was blasting out. Sauna springs to mind. ‘ah the kids must be feeling the cold today’ the principle explained to me with a smile.  Or trying to grow tomatoes i said with a chuckle. Tumbleweed moment 😉

The school I visited was a Public primary school. There seems to be a three tiered system of schools in Australia. You have your typical private schools. Like private schools here. thousands of pounds a year per child and out of reach of most folk who work in the areas that the OH and myself do. Then there is Public or state schools, which are similar to to our own here. Then, in the middle,  there is a non-government schools, which seem to be fee paying but not anything like a private school fees, and these appear to be church schools. There is also a grammar type school thing for seniors as well. So generally similar. They have similar age ranges to our primary schools, although the start of their academic year is January (well week before February!). All ourr kids will go into the year that they are in, in the UK system. Except for our 4th, who has a birthday in January. The principle said that they give parents the choice of which year they would choose to send their children into school. As children have to be in school legally by the age of 6. It is a bit more flexible. So as our daughter is currently in reception here we could opt for her to re- start Kindy there rather than joining year 1 ( as she will be here). They only give this option to parents of kids born from Jan- Aug in an academic year. We would probably have chosen to put her in the same year she is in, in the UK anyway but as she is only just inside this time both I and the principle agreed that she should stay in her UK year group. Our youngest would start school in January 2016.

In Kindy (reception) they had five classes! I was pretty surprised at this as it seemed like a LOT.. but it turns out they do it like that so that the class sizes are small (max 20) in each class. So the kids can get more support as they start school. They then transition them into larger class sizes in the following years. Each year had three classes. It is funny how similar schools are really. The kids were at playtime when i was there (or recess) and it was just kids being kids. Playing footie, doing loom bands or mucking about in a random puddle of water.

Chatting with the principle, she was friendly, relaxed and seemed to think that kids settle quickly when they move. Somewhere like Australia i guess they are used to kids coming from different countries and i think as a country they are very inclusive on the whole.  I felt confident that the kids would love the school. Whether or not they go there would be very dependent on where we live as the school system is still based on a purely ‘geographical’ intake. So if you live in their catchment they give you a place. This makes for the lovely status quo of all the kids in the area going to school together and living near each other. More of a community feel. One thing i loved about heading out in the morning from Hayley and Rob’s house was that you could see the kids heading off to school, on their own, on their bikes (the roads are a lot quieter) and it had such a nice feeling about it.

School box checked. Next thing to do was visit work!!