Rachel Mcc

Hello,
My husband and I are hoping to move to canada in March time from the UK. He has already been offered a job in the halton area. I wanted to enquire on how to go about applying for a classroom assistant jobs in this area if anyone has any information or knows of any openings.
Thanks

Siouxie

Hello and welcome to BE!

Congrats on his having been offered a job! Have the employerss received a positive LMIA and has he been told to apply for a work permit? - It can take months at the moment, so best to get that organised as soon as you can. Fingers crossed for you both! If this is a temporary job, have you worked out a route to gaining Permanent Residency?

What type of job does he do - some jobs will allow you to get a spousal open work permit, but not all. When you say Halton - which area of Halton?

You will find in Canada that most jobs require certification... Classroom assistant is known as Educational / Teacher Assistant. You may struggle to secure a job, unfortunately.
https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/marketrepo...ation/25517/ca
https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/marketreport/jobs/25517/ON

Oakvillian

First port of call, as Siouxie suggests, is to make sure all the paperwork is sorted for your husband's job - and that you will be granted a spousal open work permit if you don't already have the right to work in Canada yourself. My information may be way out of date, so hopefully somebody will be along to correct me if so, but it used to be the case that SOWP often limited one's ability to work in education or healthcare fields, so watch out for that.

Educational Assistants (EAs) often struggle to secure employment. Funding for EAs is mandated by the needs of the student cohort at a school, and by the school board's budget, so does tend to fluctuate quite a lot. In Halton, the two boards are the public board (www.hdsb.ca) and the catholic board (www.hcdsb.org) - take a look on the employment sections of their website to see how the land lies. Bear in mind, too, that EAs operate a unionised colelctive bargaining process, and that newcomers may have a challenge to build seniority to be first in line for a job opening. I'm not familiar with the hiring process, but do know a couple of EAs who have assisted in my kids' classrooms over the last few years, and know that it is a very competitive and often frustrating job market.

Good luck!

Lichisadave

Hi as Oakvillian said SOWP does not allow you to work in Education although I believe that you can get a medical to allow for this but I am not 💯 sure. I was a support worker in a special needs school prior to coming here but non of my qualifications are recognised here. Good luck with the move Canada is a great country.

Rachel Mcc

Thank you for all your reply's. My husband is a Canadian citizen and I am a permanent resident. He is just gone through the process of applying for the Halton Police service. I am currently looking for a job. In the UK I currently work as a Prison Officer but am keen to try something new. I have experience working with special needs children and I am a qualified classroom aide here in the UK. From what information I have found I gather that in Canada this will not be recognized. I will be looking for a job in these areas Halton, Hamilton ,Grimsby, Stoney creek. To be honest I would be happy with any job in the beginning just for peace of mind knowing that I will have some sort of income. If anyone knows any good sites to look for jobs ?
Thank you

Siouxie

Good news that you have your PR already - and good luck to your husband with his application for Halton - he might find this link of use

Unfortunately EA is a regulated trade.. but the good news is that it's regulated and classed as a trade and you may be able to use your experience to challenge the certification process.
You might be able to challenge as an experienced worker and obtain a Certificate of Qualification for Ontario - it might not work but worth a try!
https://www.collegeoftrades.ca/trade-assessment - go to "experienced workers (Trade Equivalency Assessment"
You'll need these links
The application pdf opens in a new tab https://www.collegeoftrades.ca/wp-co...March-2020.pdf

As to jobs - EA positions are generally advertised on the school board website.. https://www.oasdi.ca/district-list/
For other jobs, www.indeed.ca / www.jobbank.gc.ca or one of the others on our 'how to find job opportunities' list in our wiki https://britishexpats.com/wiki/Categ...Hunting-Canada - it's probably not worth your while applying from overseas at the moment, better to wait until you get here.