My teen is now going into year 9 for 2023. When he went into year 7 there was no monetary help with school costs. If you have a concession you could claim some free uniform and money towards school excursions that goes directly to the school account.

What a good question. I reckon what it is….is that Centrelink is Australiawide,miso they do as most of Australia does. They don’t look at it on a state by state basis. In Tas, grade 7 is also secondary, in WA it’s the end of primary etc. It wouldn’t hurt to call and ask, I’ll be surprised if it changes though

These are really the most interesting comments to read!

With centrelink, they don’t automatically update your children’s study details.. You have to online or via contacting them to let them know they are in secondary college now, or in tafe or university, etc..

The reason? Because your child may be kept down, or stop going to school.. Just because they are of secondary school age, it doesn’t mean they are doing the secondary school studying. If that makes sense? I was told this by centrelink last year.

After 50 minutes waiting on the telephone, we were able to talk to Centrelink. They will put into our account the rest of the money that was missing. From now on there shouldn’t be any problem.

It’s impossible to reach Centrelink. What a terrible service they have!

Hi! Do you know what? The same happened to me! I was in holiday so I just noticed today that they paid the primary school bonus instead of the secondary one! But in the website we can’t find where to change the details, so I guess that tomorrow we’ll have to phone Centrelink!

Thanks for the tip! It will be helpful to a lot of people!!

Good to hear you got it sorted out. It’s a shame we will be loosing the bonus next year when mine will be in year 11, year 10 and the youngest starting Kindergarten.

Ok so I contacted centrelink and when your child starts secondary you have to go onto tour centrelink account online and update your childs education status. So for any mums that have kids starting next year, you might want to remember that Thanks for your replies gals

My daughter will start Year 7 in February. First year that kids in WA start high school in Year 7. The school bonus will surely be a big help.
If there has been a mistake, better to let them know as soon as possible.

No, when my daughter started year 7 we definately recieved the secondary amount. They have probably made a simple mistake – super easy to do! If you have moved states at all, its possible they just dont realise she is in secondary.

Go online and get it changed I think they have made a mistake for your daughter!

Just checked for you, secondary in VIC is year 7 so go online and change it
State/Territory Preschool (not eligible) Primary school (eligible) Secondary school (eligible)
NSW Preschool Kindergarten, Years 1-6 Years 7-12
VIC Kindergarten Preparatory, Years 1-6 Years 7-12
QLD Kindergarten Preparatory, Years 1-7 Years 8-12
SA Kindergarten Reception, Years 1-7 Years 8-12
WA Kindergarten Pre-primary, Years 1-7 Years 8-12
TAS Kindergarten Preparatory, Years 1-6 Years 7-12
NT Preschool Transition, Years 1-6 Years 7-12
ACT Preschool Kindergarten, Years 1-6 Years 7-12

I am in SA so may be different but high school is year 8.. there is something on the site that tells you what grades are which I think

I got 421 in my bank today for high school daughter

i think that your best bet is to give them a call! i think that they wiil need to up-date your child’s school details and i think that you can do that online but ring them so they can fix it straight away.

Also last year they withheld immunisation payment from my tax and after waiting until christmas, i rang them and the first person that i spoke to told me there was no issue really and he said to wait two weeks and then call back with no real explanation of what was happening. it wasn’t good enough for me so i rang back and spoke to someone else who rang medicare registry and stuff and then it turned out they needed info from the doctor’s who had never sent the records to the immunisation register. The lady on the phone had rang me back, we organised the stuff to be faxed and she said that it was a big stuff around but she was putting my payment through straight away even though they were waiting for the doc. She was THE BEST person that i have ever dealt with at centrelink. So my point is that they have to pay you what you are entitled and if they don’t want to help, ring back until someone will. good luck

i think your issue will be solved very easily though