Geordie Lass

Hey

So we have been here 6 months now and what a rollercoaster.

I love living here but homesickness hits hard sometimes. My parents are due their second visit in a month so that's cool.

The Rockies and their beauty still have us in awe every time we visit the mountains - you can see them from our house. The air here is so clean and we all feel healthy. Husband works a lot less hours than the UK.

There are things here that drive me crazy - the usual that everyone talks about - esp the post. It took 7 weeks for our police checks to land in the UK. We are applying for PR when we get them back. Not because we are definitely staying but just to keep the door open.

I have made some really nice friends - some off here, others from school, others from husband's work. I have Canadian friends, British, Kiwis and South African so that's great.

Schooling - it's ok now but we had a pretty shaky start. We are considering moving our son up a grade as he's way ahead of his peers. We are meeting with his teachers this week. We underestimated how homesick our son would get and this has caused me a lot of upset. He was 6 when we landed.

We are very happy here but it's not for the faint-hearted. Would I do it again? absolutely. In hindsight I wish we had done it when our son was younger as seeing him upset has been really hard on us.

hmac

congratulations on reaching 6 months. I hope the cider helps on bad days

3 weeks to go, for us.

JBJ14

Congrats on getting through, my little one will be 6 when we land too, never thought of her being overly homesick as most people say the kids settle pretty quickly.

Glad you still have the attitude that it's still worth it, just remember why you made the move to start with.

Keep on smiling

curleytops

Congratulations hinny, can't believe its been 6 months for you already. I can sympathize with the little fella as I wasn't much older than him when I made that move myself. When I arrived in Canada I was placed in school with kids two years older than myself. I honestly believe I could have managed the curriculum in the long run and remained with the group - my biggest difficulties were with differences in teaching methods and the fact that no one understood a Geordie so at the start of the following school year it was decided I would be placed in a class with peers my own age. In the years that followed I breezed through school with no effort. On more than one occasion I missed large periods of term time and when I returned just picked up the pace without skipping a beat. Eventually I became very bored in school and that's when the rot set in. My high school years were a disaster and in the end I didn't even graduate - simply because I felt I had been held back over the years and eventually lost interest in doing the work. It's impossible to ever know for sure but I have to wonder if things may have turned out very differently had I stayed with a group where I felt challenged right from the start. If your son is that far ahead of his classmates I think you're very wise to investigate moving him up. If you don't mind my asking, what does he think of the idea?

Geordie Lass

Thanks for the input - good to hear that.

He's all for it. He says he is bored and is doing stuff that he did in reception in England. The work he brings home shows this. The maths are very simple and the spellings on the board in the classroom are very simple words. Without sounding boastful we have always been told he's very bright.

A reading assessment was done within 2 days of him getting into the school (can't fault them for that) and he has been graded at Grade 5 level (he was in Grade 1 at the time).

His only worry is that they won't like him because he is younger. This doesn't worry me as he's a kid with a big heart and doesn't struggle to make friends.

I might start a new thread about this and ask if anyone else has done it...

Thanks for the time you took to reply

Geordie Lass

I forgot my manners this morning and was getting out in a rush - I should have also said that I am sorry for the rough time at school that you had

Thanks again for your reply

curleytops

You are most welcome, be sure to let us know how the nipper gets on
BTW I eventually got my GED in 2004...oh well better late than never

Geordie Lass

Doesn't matter how you got there - just that you did!

Aviator

Think hard before doing that, it gives them no academic advantage in the end, they graduate a year early and then what? It puts them into a group socially more mature, when they get to grade 10, many of their friends can start driving and they can't.

Our kids were well ahead all the way through, honour roll (no idea which genetic throw back that came from), they ended up staying in age grade and did peer tutoring and leadership. Great experience for them.

Geordie Lass

We are thinking hard about it... have been since we got here. He is incredibly bored tho and doesn't enjoy school the way he did in the UK. Another factor is we don't have PR yet and if for some reason we don't get it and we go back to the UK he will be way behind his peers if he stays where he is.

Input and thoughts are very welcome on this one.

christmasoompa

Congrats on the first six months.

Just don't beat yourself up about not going earlier for your son - we moved when my son had just turned 4, and he really struggled to settle (took a year before he stopped asking 'when are we going home' on a daily basis, crying all the time etc). Yet my daughter, who was 6, was fine and settled instantly. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the cliche about 'the younger the child the easier they adapt' is, imo, bollocks.

I think it depends totally on the child, and although I think there are better times than others (teenage years being particularly tricky etc), I'm not sure you moving when he was younger would have made any difference if he's just not the type to accept change so easily.

Chin up chuck! I hope he settles in to school soon.

ann m

Our 9 year old was extremely bored for the first 9 months of school - she was repeating stuff she'd already done and was falling asleep in class. I investigated moving her up a year. But she'd already made some good friends, and on a social and maturity level she was in the right place. The teachers in Grade 4 gave her some extra stuff to do and that mostly worked.

Five years on, I am glad we kept her with her peers. She's 14 now and I'm kinda glad she's not fully in with the 15 and 16 years olds.

As we were so unsettled in our first year or two, I completely understand that fear that if you go back to the UK you don't want them to be behind.

Speak to the teachers again and get some advice and recommendations from them.

Ah, and well done with 6 months so far - sounds like it's going mostly great!

merylbaz

Hi hun, the school thing is worrying me too, my 2 are quite academic and I am wondering if they will be bored. My older girl does 3 languages including Latin and loves it!
A lot of the high school courses seem to be vocational as opposed to academic??
I have looked at a school in NW Calgary called Westmount, which looks like it is for the more academic child, it must be near you? But then I worry about their social life, that none of ther friends will live nearby as I assume they come from all over and it is important to have accessible friends!!!
I didn't want to go down the route of moving out of their year group for the reasons Ann m gave.

And many Congratulations on your 6 month anniversary

Former Lancastrian

Some will argue vocational education is better than academic education and vice verca. There are lots of unemployed academics or academics struggling to find jobs as well as vocational educated students.
Many argue that educating the child and preparing the child for a job or trade is better and others will argue academics is the way to go.
What aspirations does the child have (subject to 5 min change of course).
Not all can be Doctors, lawyers etc etc.

merylbaz

Not saying that vocational courses are bad at all!!! Just that both types of pupil should be catered for.
My adult sons would have benefited from some of the courses I've seen offered, ie car mechanics, one of whom did an apprenticeship in said trade.
My daughter though is very good at traditional learning,
Neither are wrong, just different.