Hey

I'm hoping to emigrate next year when my son will be 11 and have been told the education system in the UK is more advanced than in Canada, i.e. He'll be in year 5 in the UK which is the same level as year 3 in Canada due to them starting later and finishing later.

Is this advice strictly true and is there anyway around it or do ya kids have to be bored for a couple of years until the rest catch up?

It is most likely that your son would be put in with his age group. Things may be taught in a slightly different time sequence but it all works out quite well.

However, if he is obviously bored there is a good chance he could be advanced a grade or two. That even happens with the brighter canadian kids.

Best bet if you are concerned is to talk to the school concerned. Its a fine lie between keeping kids academically stimulated, and keeping them socially comfortable.

My 3 have just started school in Canada today so I'm not an expert but...

My eldest is 14. He should be starting Year 10 in the UK but he opted to start Grade 9 today with all the other 14 year old who are just starting high school. I'm worried that for an academically able kid, he's going to be bored but he wants to make friends his own age more than he wants to race through school and finish "early" by Canadian standards. The school was happy to go either way - it was entirely our choice what grade we put him in.

My middle child is 11. He skipped a year a few years back in the UK so he would have been starting Year 8 in the UK. He started Grade 8 here today so he's with kids 12-18 months older. (He's a December baby so that makes him doubly the youngest in his class here). Again, the school was happy for us to make that decision. He came home for lunch today and said the math test and English work he did this morning were easy. But it's early days.

My youngest is 5. She'd done a year of full time Reception already and so it seemed a backward step to put her in a part time Kindergarten class here. So when I filled out the registration form at the school, I just put Grade 1 and so far nobody has asked any questions. We'll monitor the situation and if she's in over her head we'll move her but hopefully she'll be fine.

So - seems like schools are happy to listen to parents and help them make the right decision for their child. Schooling was my biggest concern before making the decision to move and it continues to be now we're here. I just hope we've done the right thing for our kids but only time will tell.

Good luck with your decision making.

Hi weener,

So how are things going for you?

I do not have any knowledge of the UK education system, but we having been here almost a year now are quite happy with the canadian system. Our daughter is just starting 1st grade now at the age of 6 and it is expected that the kids graduating from kindergarden to 1st grade can write full sentences in their journal without any help (however spelling doesnt matter yet) and read simple books (like e.g. the Dr. Seuss). That is actually quite advanced in comparison to what is expected in Germany or Switzerland.

In addition we decided to have her go into the French immersion programm, which is designed to develop bilinguality, which of course is only possible at certain entry points (1st grade, and in some areas 6th or 8th as well), I would not worry too much, but as suggested by the others call a school in the area you are considering for your move and talk to the principal or a teacher)

btw. it looks like we will be moving from ontario, to BC soon, as I am in final discussions to take a job there.

Hope all is well with your family and the Visa process.....

My Son is only 5, he done a full year in reception year in England and was due to Start Primary 1 today.

When I registered him in school in Pickering they couldn't beleive that he was able to read and write and they said he was at grade 1 level, although the things he was doing they would only just be starting this year, subsequently they have said he should go straight into Grade 1 as opposed to SK. Since your child is obviously older you would assume they will enrol him a level which he is academically able.

Although I am sure this will vary from province to province or even each school having different policies regarding this, but it would only seem right otherwise he is only going to get bored going over the same things again.

raine

Don't mean to hyjack thread or anything but can I ask a question too? (There you go I just have )

What happens if one of your kids have already done GCSE'S but are still only 16? Do they have to go back and catch up on stuff not taught over here and does that mean they would then not be with their peer group but younger kids?

Ta

Usually as other posters have said - the child is assessed and placed accordingly. They attend school util the age of 18 here, so it's important to finish School and get the high school diploma for entry into futher education or work.

I would think you get the school to look at what their GCSE results were and then they'll likely go into their own agegroup, probably grade 11?

They should/might be awarded some high school credits based on what they have already done. To "graduate" from high school they will need a certain total amount of high school credits. (not sure how many)

Here in Ontario they need to do a certain number of hours of volunteer work in the community too.

The irony of compulsory volunteer work is totaly lost here it seems.

I know I have been here and said this before but just in case anyone is looking to move to Montreal beware! In our experience at least they will NOT allow your child to go into a different grade than that for which they are the correct age. The only way a child will go up a year is if their birthday falls very close to the cut-off date and you pay $500 for a psychologist's report and the board approves it.

Our daughter came here after completing reception in UK so could read, write, do sums etc. and within 2 weeks of finger painting and playing with lego in kindergarten was incredibly unhappy. The only option for us was private school with an advanced curriculum and going up a year.

Good luck anyone looking at schools - the hardest part of moving IMO!

We went the other way with a 11 year old and 9 year old. My sons did their schooling in Canada and we returned for our eldest to start secondary school in England.

They had no problems moving back to the UK. Eldest son was in grade 6 in Canada (he had been assessed at grade 9 for maths and grade 10 for English). They streamed him into the top grade in his first year at secondary school. Teachers looked at his report and work covered in Canada and said he should cope with the grade 7 work.

The only difference my eldest said he found with English schooling at 11 he said he found its was much more structured and with specialised teachers. He would have been 15 in Canada with before being taught by more than one teacher(we lived in Rural Ontario), so I can not say what its like in other parts of Canada.

Basic education such as Maths and English we found was very good in Canada. Schools tended to specialise in subjects a few years later in Canada. than UK.

I think I posted on another thread about my choice to not send our kids to state schools here. I think the prairie schools are more like the German/Swiss school that also start with kindergarten- a German word of course. I was happy to see a big difference in schools in Nova Scotia- they do not have kindergarten - they have primary year and it is the same as the reception year in England. Children start Grade 1 already reading, writing and doing arithmetic as they would be in England. Whereas I was shocked at the kindergarten in Calgary which was not even better than our kids nursery school. Hence the move to private schools.

I haven't come across a school board that allows parents to chose which year the children should be in. I remember being told by the Calgary school board when I pointed out that my children at 5 were already reading what a Canadian 9 year old would be reading, that "all mothers say that and it is amazing how, when the children go to our schools, that turns out to not be the case" . . I did respond and told them that was perhaps indicative of the standard of the curriculum and the downgrading of the children.

As far as junior high goes - let the kids stay with kids their own age- that is a social benefit and is of paramount importance at that age, and just hope that your kids are going to stay in Canada to complete all their education. Remember they can go to university and do a beginner's French course and get a university credit here. We had to study Moliere and Satre for our French A level; the only school curriculum comparison to that is with the IB programme here in Canada.

We moved over here a year ago, 3 days after our then 16-year-old daughter received her GCSE results.

She enrolled in school here and was placed in grade 11 (S3) according to her age. She was awarded 20 credits for classes taken in England towards her 28 credits required to graduate in Manitoba. Just received a letter from school today to let us know that she has now got 27 credits and with the classes she will be taken between now and next summer will graduate with 35 credits in total.

Ang

Our son was 10 when he started school in Cochrane last November. He was in year 6 in the UK which corresponded to grade 5 here, based upon age.

I've heard that some British kids after assessment can be "promoted" a year, but I'm not really sure that this is necesserily a good thing. For most kids the stresses of leaving friends behind and settling into a new country can't be overestimated. It's much easier to fit into and make new friends in the same age group.

There are also issues such as differences in the curriculum to consider. You might have a little genius in the areas of maths, science and literacy but in the areas of social (what they seem to refer to as anything to do with Canadian history, geography and social structure) and French language tuition he/she will almost certainly need to catch up.

This has actually considerably helped our son who although entusiatic when it came to maths had some learning difficulties when it came to reading / writing / literature. This was not helped by the fact that his school in the UK was had a teaching staff with no control at all over the bullies who made his life a misery. He now gets A grades in most subjects, except for French which he considers to be some kind of throat disorder , and has never been happier.