We toured a private school two weeks ago and liked it enough that we booked an interview almost on the spot. Then, being the fairly relaxed parents we are, we did basically nothing to get ready for it. We didn’t even know if the interview would be aimed at our son or at us. We […]
Switching My Kid From Public to Private School — What It Was Actually Like
A lot of people assume that if you move your child from public school to private school, it must be because the public school wasn’t good enough. In our case it was the opposite. My child had a great run at their public school. Teachers noticed him, backed him, and gave him more opportunities than […]
How Much Does an Australian Private School Cost for International Students
Our daughter started Year 1 this year! I was so excited, orientation morning tea, matching backpack, the whole thing. Then the first invoice landed and honestly, the excitement wore off fast. Now when I see an email from the school in my inbox I just leave it there for a day. I can’t open it […]
We Looked at How Hundreds of Aussie Mums Handle School Holidays — We Found 6 Patterns
My son finished his second Lego set by Saturday morning, and school had only been out since Thursday. He’s five, he started Prep a few weeks ago, and last week was his first ever school holidays. I honestly thought I was ready for this. I was not ready for this. He built the first set […]
How to Find Your NSW School Catchment
My daughter has just finished her second week of Kindy and she’s already telling us she loves it, which is the kind of thing that makes all the admin from last year feel worth it. A few friends have asked how we actually worked out which school we were zoned for, and then how we […]
Brisbane Prep Interview Questions – What to Expect
I honestly thought being in catchment meant we could skip the interview. That was my first mistake. A few weeks ago I started hearing from other parents nearby, their Prep interview letter had landed. Mine hadn’t yet, and for a couple of days I genuinely wondered if we’d fallen through a crack somewhere. We hadn’t […]
Queensland Prep Age Cut-Off, Year Levels & How to Apply
We haven’t landed on a high school yet. That’s still a few years away. But so many people have told us how lucky we were to find such a good primary school, and honestly, it wasn’t luck. It took a fair few wrong turns to get there, and I have a feeling secondary school is […]
How Much Do Australian School Uniforms Really Cost?
Free Education, Uniforms Not So Much Public education in Australia is free, but nobody warned me the uniform wouldn’t be. It depends a lot on the school. Some don’t actually require every single item to carry a logo, in which case you can grab generic pieces in the right colour from somewhere like Kmart and […]
What We Actually Did to Teach Our 8 Year Old About Money
She asked me once why we don’t just tap the card for more toys if it works every time at the checkout. That was the moment, more than any birthday or any “she’s old enough now” feeling, that made me think we should probably start on the money stuff properly instead of just handing over […]
What Vacation Care Is Actually Like
I finished my first proper stretch of vacation care last week, running between a few different school sites near home, and I am still catching up on sleep. It was tiring in a way that after-school care never is, but also the kind of tired that comes with actually feeling useful. If you have only […]