Been away for sometime... wow, this thread moving quite a bit.
During my time when I applied for my PR, did it ourselves (thot not worth it to pay agent to do it, it is quite straight forward actually, just follow the requirements stated in the form), I'm the primary applicant, my hubby & nbr1 were included in the applications. No need for English test back then. Got our PR in abt 6mths. Then I gave birth to my nbr2 in Sg few years back. Applied PR for my nbr2 separately, she is under child migration, her PR approved within 2 weeks.
Since there is mentioned of Rostrata Pri here, my older girl is in there now n maybe can share a bit of our thots. It has quite a good mix of locals n migrants (Chinese from China/Singapore/Malaysia, Indians, Koreans, etc). AUS pri schs in general r not very academic. Even in gd pri schs, it still depends on the teachers. Some teachers run very good curriculum for their classes, while just teachers just do their job (not sure if you can catch what I mean). Different teachers have different style of teaching. So don't be surprised for eg that 2 Yr 3 kids in 2 different classes may learn different things. Oh, by the way, Rostrata runs multi year class. In a class, there is a mix of 2 different year. PP1 mix with Yr1, Yr2 mix with Yr3, Yr4 mix with Yr5, Yr6 mix with Yr7. In this way, the kids usually stay with the same teacher for 2 consecutive years.
Hopeac has provided quite a good overview of the education system here.
I know many migrants who find that basic sch is not enough, they send their kids to enrichment/tuition classes like Kumon, chinese lessons, etc. And they are the ones who wld look out for entrance exams to good senior high sch, gift programs exams, scholarships exams, etc.
Since you got to be living within the sch boundary zones in order to get into the public sch in that area, many migrants r willing to pay high sale price or rent just to get into the area. Most people wld find that houses in Willetton/Riverton/Rossmoyne are overpriced.