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Registering for School - advice please!


gchapman1965

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We are due to get our visa by the end of Nov to arrive early Jan, can anyone tell us when we can register for schools and if there is a general criteria for enrollment? We have a specific school in mind in Carine / Duncraig, Perth, for our 10 year old as he already has a couple of friends attending there. The problem we have is that when I emailed the principal she said we had to live in the catchment area to get him in.

 

This makes sense but as a new arrival in early Jan we will need furnished accommodation for a couple of months until our stuff arrives, and as the catchment area is purely residential and quite small there is nothing at all, it seems all furnished properties are by the coast.

 

Once we have our furniture it wont be such a problem as there are always a good few decent long term lets within the area but until then we seem stuffed.

 

It seems we will either have to register him somewhere else (as you can imagine a 10 year old moving to the other side of the world wants to be with his friends) or wait until we have our belongings and can secure a property before we send him to school, which means he would miss the first month.

 

Has anybody else had the same issues?

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Guest Lexylou

Hi,

We arrived 7 weeks ago and had a similar problem. Before leaving the UK I had researched the area that we wanted to live in and this was mainly due to the primary/secondary schools. On arrival we stayed with our friends for around 5 weeks which was not in our preferred area. I then went to enrol the kids in their respective schools however was told that I couldn't because I had not secured a rental in the catchment area. I was quite upset but could understand their reasoning. However what was then worrying me more was that we couldn't secure a rental in our preferred area as there were so many people applying for each rental. Given this I then decided to enrol my children in the local school where my friend lived as the children had missed quite a bit of school due to the summer holidays. What's now happened is that we have secured a rental in the area the children are schooled in and we are really happy with the outcome. The school is really good and the children are happy there. In addition we are still in the catchment area for the high school that we prefer.

 

You might want to research other areas as a plan B just incase you have difficulty in securing a rental. It might not be ideal for your son but Im sure he will adjust, my 3 kids did and so far so good.

 

Good luck.

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We are due to get our visa by the end of Nov to arrive early Jan, can anyone tell us when we can register for schools and if there is a general criteria for enrollment? We have a specific school in mind in Carine / Duncraig, Perth, for our 10 year old as he already has a couple of friends attending there. The problem we have is that when I emailed the principal she said we had to live in the catchment area to get him in.

 

This makes sense but as a new arrival in early Jan we will need furnished accommodation for a couple of months until our stuff arrives, and as the catchment area is purely residential and quite small there is nothing at all, it seems all furnished properties are by the coast.

 

Once we have our furniture it wont be such a problem as there are always a good few decent long term lets within the area but until then we seem stuffed.

 

It seems we will either have to register him somewhere else (as you can imagine a 10 year old moving to the other side of the world wants to be with his friends) or wait until we have our belongings and can secure a property before we send him to school, which means he would miss the first month.

 

Has anybody else had the same issues?

 

This may come across as harsh but I don't always think it is a good thing for children to automatically go to the same place as people they know. Live close by and see them socially but personally, and it is only my personal opinion, it would be a good thing for him to start making friends of his own. At 10 it won't take him long and by the end of week 1 he will have heaps of friends I am sure. We often rely on the familiar which doesn't always encourage us to be independent. Lots of kids start new at the beginning of the year and whichever school he goes to he won't be the only new kid. Good luck.

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