Yorkshiredaz

Hi all I am new to this webpage.
So hope people don't mind me posting for some info/advice that so many have probably done already.

Try to be as brief as I can.

Me, my wife and 2 children(3 and 5 year old in next coming months) are hoping to move to Canada - Ontario.

Who we are:

I am 32 years old and currently work as hgv driver also done bar management before the pub trade dropped.
My wife is 29 years old and is a primary school teacher.
Our kids are crazy and love the outdoors.


What stage we are at in our immigrantion decision:

We have been researching plenty since February.
Just got back from a bit of a 'travel around and see the sights' trip.
We are looking into express entry(skilled worker) through my wife being the lead applicant as she is a qualified teacher. However we understand(from what we've been told) teaching is hard to get into and she will struggle to get work especially permanent for a long time.
We have done the crs score online and we look to get around 440 points which in current/previous rounds we stand a good chance on getting an invitation.
I am aware I will have to retrain to carry on doing hgv work, not too keen on long haul initially so maybe short haul if possible.
We are currently looking at doing the IELTS tests.
We are also in the middle of emailing Ontario college of teaching to get my wife's education accredited and we have a application form from them to fill in.

We are more than likely going to be coming with a bit of equity from sale of house here and can probably survive a year or so whilst trying to find work. Ideally work coming sooner than later would be better as we don't want to dip too much into the money incase we need to move back to U.K. (If things don't work out and we can't get any work to survive)

We would just like any information or advice or help from anyone who may have been in the same situation as us and have recently moved successfully with not having job safety before leaving uk.
We seem to notice that most people who have moved have got jobs before through work transfers etc. Unfortunately we don't have that privilege so hoping someone on here has done it the way we intend to and has got any advice.

It is a big risk but we are determined to make it work. Just with anything we are having doubts but also know it will be worth the risk.


Any further help or information would be great. Anything we have not thought of or missed.


Thanks in advance

Atlantic Xpat

Suggest you read the wiki article on teaching in Canada. It's a bit old but still valid I believe - particularly the bit around the difficulties in out of province qualified teachers obtaining positions. Essentially there are many more Canadian qualified teachers than there are positions available. As an immigrant, unless your wife has some particularly in demand skillset, she is going to find that getting into full time teaching will take some time. Note that moving between provinces or even school boards is challenging for Canadian teachers. Provincial teaching unions / colleges guard the seniority of their members closely. If my wife (Canadian qualified teacher) wanted to move from Newfoundland to Ontario she would go to the bottom of the seniority list even after her qualifications and experience are recognised.

On the PR side, I'm not even sure whether a teacher would qualify for skilled worker, but others, more uptodate with immigration will comment I'm sure.

Not trying to rain on your parade but a reality check at an early stage can be useful.

Yorkshiredaz

Hi thanks for response will look for that page

Yeah we are aware she will be at the very bottom and may have to volunteer or supply or even consider being early years educator.

From what we've researched her qualification comes under the skilled workers and gains us most of our points on the crs. Her NOC number is 4032 and qualifies as NOC level A.

We've seen about specialising in special needs I think but unfortunately she isn't.

Pizzawheel

There's a huge disconnect between what immigration recognizes (which is fairly sensible imho) and what the provincial certifying bodies recognize, in many of the professions,

bats

We have a teacher friend. Canadian, Canadian trained. He's been supply teaching for at least 10 years with no hope yet of a permanent job. He rarely gets full weeks work in fact he's mostly a school bus driver.

Zoe Bell

And just to add to bats info
I've worked in education in Canada up until last year.
One colleague who is an excellent teacher waited 11 years for permanent post.

Another who qualified 4 years ago is still on the waiting list for the supply pool in three different provinces.

So don't think that supply teaching is a given either

Yorkshiredaz

We are fully aware teaching will be hard to get into. Maybe even impossible but we are coming with what I believe enough money to see us through a year without work...even if my wife had to get another job (retail/retrain in ece/waitress etc) and I still stayed trying to be a driver (short haul/long haul/van work etc) we were just hoping to see that people had done the express entry with out job offers as we intend to and have made it work.

We are very keen on the idea of moving to Canada and are willing to do anything jobwise(that we could survive on money wise). Obviously my wife has a career and a passion for teaching but for the future of our kids and a better way of life we are wiling to put that to one side. If it takes her 5-15years to get back into teaching fully then so be it.

Thank you for information on teaching.

Any further help would be appreciated.

rivingtonpike

Honestly not wishing to be negative in any way, but a CRS score of 440 without a job offer sounds fairly high - judging by what other people have posted on this site over the last few months. Might be worth double checking your score? Hopefully all is good, but nothing would be worse than finding out down the line it's a miscalculation.

Good luck either way!

Yorkshiredaz

Hi on your advice I did it again worrying I may of clicked something by mistake. Everything that we do know I have put in. However we are yet to do our IELTS. Now depending on our IELTS scores, our max crs score could be 460 without a job offer. Wife being a teacher (with English studies) I'd hope she'd do better than me ha. So I put hers at an average 7 for all except 8-9 for listening. And all of mine at a low 5 for all. Hoping I can get more. Just looked and found some full sample tests so will begin to see how we get on.

geoff52

I moved from UK to Ontario over two decades ago, so I know the province well, and I would not recommend moving your family to Ontario with out a job with the skill set you and your wife have. There are plenty of teachers and drivers with Canadian experience in Ontario.
I moved to Ontario with a job offer.
I would not dream of putting my family at, risk by moving to another country without job security.

The Canadian immigration web site is used by the Canadian Government to lure immigrants to enhance the Canadian economy. Same as in Australia and New Zealand. Getting Canadian/Australian/New Zealand visa is the easy part, finding GOOD PAYING jobs is the hard part.

TrishP

You possibly need to look outside of Ontario and think about Manitoba - Winnipeg is a trucking hub due to it being the geographic centre of Canada and so close to the US border. Moving on the strength of your ability to find a job may be easier.

nooks 57

Ontario is very short of HGV drivers. The driving standards in Ontario can be scary and the truck drivers are not disciplined as in europe. check out "ice road drivers" and the highway from hell series on tv.

DandNHill

I have no idea what a AZ license is but if you can get one you'll have lots of work. There seem to be lots of signs along the roadsides looking for such licensed drivers.

geoff52

That is because there is a very high turnover rate. I know many truck drivers in Ontario and they are a struggling to make a living.

DandNHill

Oh really? What even is AZ?