Re: differences in schooling..
 

wow, thank you all so much. I had really no idea of the differences across the provinces.

Re: differences in schooling..
 

Of course there is overlap between the various qualifications that may be taken in different places at different ages/stages.

Essentially A levels/Advanced Highers are matched to 3 year degree courses. Highers/north american high school certificates are matched to 4 year degree courses. Advanced placement/IB allow some to go further at school and may provide credits for the 1st year of a 4 year degree course and also help candidates get into the better (or more popular at least) universities where admission is more selective and AP/IB may be the norm.

UCAS provide tarrif tables for assessment of the equivalence of qualifications for university entry in the UK. As an example the table for Scottish Advanced Highers/Highers shows the difference the extra year makes. There is an overlap clearly and a measure of equivalence between the Higher and Advanced Higher but a good Higher is not the same as a good Advanced Higher. The student that does well in the Higher will most likely go on and do well in the Advanced Higher but they still have to do it.

Re: differences in schooling..
 

It's Steve says, it depends on the size of the catchment area.

Since there's fewer Catholic kids more of their schools tend to be k-9 and their High Schools have a larger catchment area.

Re: differences in schooling..
 

Do schools provide free lunches in the UK then? The ones my kids went to didn't, unless income of the family was very low.

I don't know of any local schools in Calgary that provide free lunches either, so I doubt it is a Vancouver thing.:p

Re: differences in schooling..
 

It isn't so much that they don't provide free lunches - it is that they don't provide any lunch at all...

so if you pay the lunchroom fee, not only do you have to provide a packed lunch for your kids, you have to pay a fee for someone to sit and watch them eat it.

At least in the UK, if you provide a packup for your kid, you don't have to pay anything else.

Re: differences in schooling..
 

here in lethbridge we have the public, catholic and french schools........
All are run different and all have there own plus side
Other posters have said about the bus system, mine live far enough away and we dont pay for the lunch program or the school bus, so i would say that even in the same province there is different rules :eek:

Also there is a massive difference in schooling in town, from north,west and south, i was told that all schools are the same no matter what, but after experience i can truely say this is not right :sneaky:

The best bet when viewing schools is give it ago, see how the kids get on, what suits your kids may not suit the next set of kids ;)
Overall i am happy with the school system compared to the uk, my kids have settled in well, i stressed so much on the kids schooling before we moved here, but they have done well, but i would say that i am more involved here than i ever was in the uk.


LB

Re: differences in schooling..
 

I suppose in theory you have the option that the child can come home to have lunch in which case the fee wouldn't be payable. I can't imagine many doing that though.

Re: differences in schooling..
 

[QUOTE=Helen Parnell;8021610]There is no 'Canadian education system' it is all done at a provincial level. So the person who wrote about NS and french immersion and late french immersion is not offered the same here in Alberta, we just have french immersion.

QUOTE]

I have to disagree here. French immersion is offered at elementary level and then again at the beginning of Middle school as late entry French immersion. We really considered the late entry option for our daughter, she was quite interested in doing it, she was doing well in elementary school, we weighed up the pro's and cons and decided against it, she carried on doing French as a subject in middle school and is now doing French in High School.

Some schools offer K-12 education, Kindergarten to Graduation, some do K to G9 and some do the breakdowns as mentioned beforehand. Our daughter met a kid over the summer who goes to a K-12 school, he said there were a total of 12 kids in his Grade 9 class.

Our daughter was 10, she went into the last year of elementary school - effectively repeating a year as she had already transitioned into Middle school in the UK. We decided to keep her with her age group, she settled really quickly and was invited for her first sleepover by the end of the second day.

We had some confusing moments - what's a Duotang?:blink: Daughter needed to know what a 'period' was, y'know just little things like that. She has grown so much within herself and has done so well at school here, the 'big' move and new friends haven't done any harm at all.

Re: differences in schooling..
 

As I understand it all the provinces have different curriculum too.

Calgary Board of Education offers a whole load of choice varying teaching style (eg normal, montessouri, traditional learning etc) as well as focus (french immersion, spanish bilingual, german bilingual, science school, arts school etc)

Re: differences in schooling..
 

That is true in Calgary as well. Could be specific to school districts if late French Immersion isn't available in Cochrane.

You can start French Immersion in Kindergarten or grade 1 OR late immersion in grade 7. They say (whoever they are) that if you start in grade 7 that within a year the kids are up to speed with the ones who started in grade 1. I'm not sure how true that is - probably depends a lot on the kid.

My kids are both in French Immersion (grade 7 and 8) and do some classes with the late immersion kids.

Re: differences in schooling..
 

Grade 6 in Red Deer for Late entry - beginning of middle school for the public schools around here.

Re: differences in schooling..
 

It's true that by the time they reach high school, they're all at the same level. The major difference is that early French Immersion students learn by observation (ie: listen to me and repeat after me) while the late French immersion students learn more by grammar and the rules for conjugating verbes.