Moving to Australia from the UK with a family

Perhaps the biggest factor in wanting to emigrate to Australia with our family is the future it will provide to our children.

We’ve talked about the weather recently in this blog, and improved weather would allow us more quality outdoor time together as a family for sure.

The abundant availability of lovely sunshine might still make the great outdoors a hard sell to a child when PS5s and Smartphones are available. However, that is in a current British mindset.

We feel (hope!) that making the move will shift their way of thinking, of course, as Parents we need to help inspire that change too.

With the effort it’s taken to even get this far, you can rest assured we will be going all out to make the move work for ourselves and the family!

We’ve listed the 5 main reasons why we think moving to Australia will help improve the happiness of our children.

1. More Time Together Outdoors
   Since 2020, we have been fortunate enough to have summer holidays in Cornwall. On these holidays we always head to Fistral Beach, Newquay.
   We love walking in front of the waves, and watching the surfers do their thing. The Children love playing in the water and exploring the rockpools.
   On these holidays, we often considered, as I’m sure many of you have, whether we could make the move to Cornwall.
   
   This would provide us with our Beach fix, which we all know we love.
   
   Of course, the huge issue is the weather. We went to Cornwall in February and took a trip to the beach. It’s not quite the same though.
   
   Carefully stepping over freezing wet sand is not quite the same relaxing feeling as going barefoot and feeling the warm sand between your toes in the Summer.
   
   The Australian beach life is something we know we’d take advantage of. It would 100% get us together as a family out of the house more often.
   
   Making those memories would mean so much as Parents, especially when you know in 5 – 10 years, the kids will be young adults off doing their own thing.
   
   
2. Sporting Opportunities
   There are plenty of studies and research articles available on the internet about the percentage of children involved in sporting activities in the UK and in Australia.
   
   We have a pair of children who enjoy organised sporting activities. Be it, football, gymnastics or taekwondo, giving them a place to grow up that provides them with a supportive environment for those activities is high on our priority list.
   
   While the indoor gym and taekwondo sessions are obviously free of weather constraints, our son’s Football has taken one heck of a battering over the last year or so due to incessant rain.
   
   I realise I’m going to sound like I’m just beating the weather drum again here, and I am. Some reliable weather to enable outdoor activities on grass surfaces would make a positive difference to our children.
   
   I am also keen to hear from people about PE in schools in Australia, so if you have made the move and have any knowledge to share on that for better or worse please contact us and let us know your thoughts.
3. Safety
   I don’t want to sound too dramatic on this one. It may just be a general feeling in England. However, knife crime seems to be a growing problem in the UK. It is likely relative to economic conditions and I don’t see much of an improvement for the UK on that front over the short term.
   
   With that said, we are aware that Australia is no utopia (The recent tragedy in a Sydney shopping centre was a nasty reminder of that). Generally, the feeling we get from ex-pats we follow on social media channels is that the streets generally feel safer down under.
   
   Socio-economic factors may also play a factor in that. Higher average wages tend to mean less poverty and crime.
4. Education
   Of course, until we arrive ourselves (hopefully) it will be difficult to compare something as huge as education between the UK and Australia.
   
   Even then, there are disparities between schools and how different children settle. However, as far as we are aware, the education system values individuals more in Australia rather than attempting to provide a ‘one size fits all’ provision.
   
   This is mainly due to the fact that children are not formally tested in the same way as they are in the UK, particularly at the end of secondary school as there are no GCSE equivalents. Many may argue that these exams are a good measure of young people, who are preparing to either take on further study or join the workforce.
   
   Although, we disagree. Exams are not for everyone. There are so many ways in which our young children can be successful and these extend much further than a piece of paper with confusing numbers on, which as you get older, nobody even looks at when you apply for jobs!
5. Dream Big
   By moving to Australia from the UK with the family, we hope to inspire our kids to truly believe they can achieve big things in the future.
   
   We hope that by showing them more of the world and broadening their horizons they will realise that it is a much smaller place than I realised when I was growing up.
   
   If they want to move elsewhere in the world when they grow up, back to the UK even, then that is fine.
   
   We just want to open their eyes to more opportunities in the world outside of the grey concrete confines of Coventry.

With all things considered. We just think moving to Australia from the UK will offer us all a better lifestyle.

When it comes to the children, they’ll make their own decisions on the move and at the moment they are positive about going.

It’s all pretty easy right now though as the move still seems a way off. I often ask them what they are thinking about the move. I want them to know that their opinions are important to us.

My thinking is that the more they feel involved in the process, the easier it will be for them to make the move and settle in to the Australian lifestyle.