LathaReddy

Hi all,

We are considering moving to Ontario from the UK.

My main question is about the education.
My eldest is in year 6 in the UK, the other one is in year 1.
I am positive that my younger one can adapt easily as it is still early stages of the schooling.
For the one in year 6 in the U.K., how hard it is to adapt to the Canadian education system?
I think it is one grade lower in canada compared to the UK, my one will be still in year 6, if we plan to move before Sep 18. I do not any concerns moving to a lower grade.

I think grade 6 is when the middle school starts in Ontario.

Are there any exams on how they can apply to the middle school?? What is the criteria to select a middle school?? I heard there are some tests that children write before moving to middle school that determines the place at middle school. Is that right ?
I think it is very important to get into a good school as middle school is crucial.


Thank you for reading my post and I appreciate any info on this.

Siouxie

Hello and welcome to BE!

You may find the wiki articles on Education to be of help.. each Province has their own regulations on when children start school, grades etc., too, so I've included the website for Ontario.

Category:Education-Canada : British Expat Wiki

Ontario Schools, Kindergarten to Grade 12: Policy and Program Requirements, 2016

Regardless, the most important thing to look into at this time is whether you can qualify for Permanent Residency - without knowing that, it's somewhat early days to be looking into the school system.

LathaReddy

Thank you for your reply and also the links about canadian education.

We are in the process of PR application and going positive so far, hence the questions about education.

Siouxie

Perfect!!

Glad to hear that it's going well so far.. and please forgive the intrusion, I'm just pre-empting the comments you would get if you hadn't said that!

Oink

Welcome to the forum. As someone who has studied, researched and written about education systems in North America. If I was concerned about the quality of my children's education. I would not emigrate to Canada.

Edited to note. That's not to say a child can't be educated to high level in Canada but it takes a lot of effort.

Atlantic Xpat

That's a rather sweeping generalization. Has your research, study & writings also covered the education system in the UK (or elsewhere for that matter)? Has it included comparisons of North American education to say the UK? Are there specific areas that are of concern or is it generally all crap?

Oink

Yes. I have studied many systems of education. Like any field of social science, it has infinite variables.

The quote from the OP though was, "I think it is very important to get into a good school as middle school is crucial." So using that as a criterion, I wouldn't recommend a Canadian public school over a UK school.

dbd33

Well, I've only as many children as I was allowed to make, so not enough to be a representative sample of the student population, but the exams here, the IB exams, are the same as anywhere else. I thought that, given the lack of education of their parents (I believe parental qualification is a common predictor of child success in education) the children did well in those exams. Certainly better than their cousins in the UK (a reasonable comparison I think, similar ages, similar genes and background). I attribute their success to the (state) schools they attended, they were motivated students and they were largely motivated by figures within the system.

What I'd say is that it's important to seek out the right schools and that's a gamble as there are no reputable published rankings. A quick way to get an impression is to read the property advertisements, they'll often say that a house is in the xyz school district which, at least, indicates that the market thinks the local schools to be worthy of a price premium. Other indicators are an IB program and courses geared to gaining good results in the (US) SATs. High school websites are also instructive; how many students last year went to universities people in the UK have heard of?

It may be that the overall outcome for the school systems indicates that the system in one country is better than the other but it seems to me that the overall picture is not of great concern; a parent has to be focused on a very small subset of children. Relatively few people here take an interest, "any school will do, they're all the same" is a view sometimes espoused on here. That's nice, if you're the parent who does care you've less competition.

If you anticipate the children staying in Canada then having lots of money to spend on their education is a good idea. A school like UCC will not only provide exam passing education but contacts for the future; given enough money, your child could be a Canadian David Cameron or Boris Johnson.

DandNHill

My two younger kids started at the beginning of grade 7 and grade 1.
This was however in Nova Scotia not Ontario.
They adapted very well. I was surprised how easy it was. The older one did find history a challenge as he knew nothing about Canada but beyond that there weren’t really any issues.

scilly

Disregarding Oink's comments on Canadian education, I must point out that it is not important to find a place to live within the catchment area of a "good" school, as seems to be the case in Britain.

There is not that much difference between schools .......... partly because every province is responsible for education within that province, the Federal Government only provides an amount of money. Plus every province is divided up into different school districts, each of which has a School Board composed of elected officials.


I've been involved with education in one way or other for about 70 years, from attending British schools and university, teaching in a British school, having several family members teaching at school and university level in Canada, having a daughter go through the Canadian system from kindergarten to Masters degrees from 2 universities, while working within 2 universities in North America myself.

I maintain that there is no difference in the end educational product between children going through the British school system or the Canadian one.

There is often a difference in the maturity and future behaviour at the university level.

Canadian school children are taught to do much more on their own, to take responsibility for doing homework, for planning their time.

Oink

You make some very valid points. There is no one system of education and to quote an old professor of mine, there is certainly ‘no one best system of education’. All I was trying to say, if the formal schooling of my children was important to me, I wouldn’t put them in any Canadian public system, especially if I had the opportunity to put them into a British school.

Oink

I conjecture the main difference is the ethos of education. I favour, dynamism, intensity and to some degree competitiveness. And I suggest, qualities that I have not found to be the driving forces in Canadian schools.

Siouxie

Rather than debating the pro's and con's of the educational systems, could we please concentrate on the OP's actual questions?

Thanks

Oink

1) Fairly easily. While there may be some cultural adjustments, they'll adapt to the social norms pretty quickly. If that's a good thing or not is up to personal reasoning.

2) While there's is lip-service to the of notion choice, in reality schools are determined on your residence.

3) No, see point two.

4) There are tests but they are more about the collection of data rather than an assessment of an individual child

Siouxie

Bearing that in mind (2) - Zoocasa now have school districts / schools and ratings (such as they are) on their search function.

https://www.zoocasa.com/blog/top-of-...st-got-easier/

Drag the map to the area you are considering, then click on the 'mortar hat' symbol (which has options) and it will list the schools in that district. Clicking on a school then loads more info. You can also filter property searches to specific schools.

https://www.zoocasa.com/real-estate