Any opinions on Banksia Park and Tea Tree Gully?

[NicF]

Hi, we're flying to Adelaide in July and we always planned to live in Rostrever as it's an affordable suburb near my mother-in-law and in the zone for the Norwood Morialta high school. However we're starting to wonder if ths is the best place for us and are considering other areas.

 

Does anyone have any idea what the Banksia Park and Tea Tree Gully areas are like to live in?

 

Nicola

[Guest Barney Rubble]

We live in Tea Tree Gully, have done ever since we moved here back in 1989 .

 

Banksia Park is an older Northern suburb, totally nothing wrong with that, closer to the foothills but easy access into town (and Rostrevor) plus only a few minutes from the O-Bahn, now that is a winner if your job/s are in town.

 

Being an older area the blocks of land are, may, be bigger.

Wouldn't worry too much about it as all areas have a variety of house styles to look at, who knows, you may want to build your own house once you see some of the display homes.

 

If lucky you may even find a single block to build on, most newer developements are pushing out to 20km's + out from the city.

 

We arrived in 1988 and stayed in Williamstown past Gawler (fairly well north) then in the 3 months it took our furniture to get here looked all over the place on evenings and weekends.

 

Good luck and we'll see you when you get here.

 

PS. Bring some warmer weather:cool:

 

Cheers

BR

[Diane]

If you're considering state high schools, Banksia Park has Banksia International school, Tea Tree Gully would either be in catchment for that or for Modbury High, and Golden Grove High also has a good reputation. I would say Modbury and Golden Grove are pretty much neck and neck with Norwood Morialta. Not sure about Banksia but I think they do the IB there if that's a consideration.

[NicF]

If you're considering state high schools, Banksia Park has Banksia International school, Tea Tree Gully would either be in catchment for that or for Modbury High, and Golden Grove High also has a good reputation. I would say Modbury and Golden Grove are pretty much neck and neck with Norwood Morialta. Not sure about Banksia but I think they do the IB there if that's a consideration.

 

High schools are very much a consideration. We'd really like to live near Glenunga high school but that is never going to happen. We've been looking very closely at high schools and Banksia looks good and gets good results at year 9 level. Not so sure about Modbury high - the year 9 results don't look quite so good but the school seems okay. Part of Tea Tree Gully is in the cathment area for Banksia which is why we're thinking about it.

 

I've been looking at the houses for sale around Banksia and you seem to be able to get that bit more for your moeny and the blocks are definitely bigger than many of the newer suburbs. We're not bothered about having a huge garden but we do want some outside space and we don't like that feeling you get of being right on top of your neighbours that some of the new build court yard homes have. My sister in law lives in Fairview Park so my husband is going to quiz her about the area. I'm just a bit concerned about how far away it is from the city, where I'm most likely to be able to get work, and from my mum in law in St. Morris.

[Diane]

City is easy to get to from those areas - your best bet is to get to one of the O'Bahn interchanges (Golden Grove, Tea Tree Plaza, Paradise for instance) and hop on the O-Bahn from there - or to drive in would take about 30 mins, but then you'd have parking etc to sort out. Timing wise, catching the OBahn from say TTP to the city would not take much longer than driving from Rostrevor, as the OBahn doesn't get held up in traffic etc till it gets into the city. I think it takes my daughter about 10 mins to Paradise from the city, and Paradise is about 5/10 mins drive from us here in Highbury, so it's a very efficient way to travel.

 

One of my daughter's friends did go to Glenunga HS from this area - she was on the SHIP (Students with High Intellectual Potential) programme that they specialise in there. I think Modbury Heights (not to be confused with Modbury High) does the same scheme. My daughter has friends at both Modbury High and Banksia and they all seem happy. The only local school that I would not want my children going to is Charles Campbell, but that's because their discipline seems very lax and the grounds just don't seem looked after when you go there - lots of litter and thrown away food items lying around etc! That's just my personal view... A lot of my son's soccer team go to Golden Grove and speaking to their parents, they are really impressed with that school - it has the advantage of sharing premises and facilities with two private schools - Pedare and Gleeson, so you get all the advantages of private without the costs! (Have to admit I'm still not sure why someone would py to go to either of those schools privately if their child could get into GG - apart from the religion aspect at Gleeson I guess - some of it seems to be purely "bragging rights" - when you get to Adelaide you will find there is still a lot of snobbism over which school someone has gone to, or sends their child to!)

[NicF]

Diane, thanks for the feeback, it's very helpful. We were already aware that Charles Campbell doesn't have the best reputation so we are avoiding areas that would mean the kids going there. Which is a shame as Athelstone is an area that we really like but I think that's zoned for Charles Campbell and we certainly will not be able to afford the fees to send them to St. Ignatius, even if we didn't mind the fact it's a religious school. I think we will be looking a bit more at the Banksia / Tea Tree Gully options.