Education, GCSEs for Canada
 

Hi,

Does anyone have experience moving to Canada with post-GCSE kids?

Our son will have just completed his GCSEs before moving, but not A-Levels.
What's the situation in that case? Would he have to take 'extra' subjects to get into University/College in Canada?

We're looking at Calgary, have visited a couple of times (must get in touch with school board for sure...)

Im' thinking he'd have to enter High School and 'catch up' to reach a standard for Calgary University or other.

We'd really appreciate anyone's experience/ideas on this.

Thanks.

Re: Education, GCSEs for Canada
 

Just enrolled our Post GCSE son and our ex Grammar School daughter in a lovely school. They will be given credits for exams taken and levels achieved. But if the school thinks an area is in need of extra work they will let us know. But thankfully our Son is not expected to take all subjects and has been allowed to join Grade 11 and is doing a mix of Arts and English and History so he has a broad mix. They will total his and our daughters credits and then outline a goal to achieve for either college or Uni entrance.

Hope this helps.

Basically very straightforward.

And they like the school which is a big plus.

Re: Education, GCSEs for Canada
 

He will certainly go into Senior High to complete his high school education and graduate, but it will probably not really be a case of catching up. Kids here graduate from High School with a "diploma" before going on to uni, so it won't be a lot different to if he'd stayed to do "A" levels in the UK. It may be a broader base though, as I think they like for their kids to have a certain amount of taught "English" as well as their options.

You may find this link useful to look into Alberta High School curricula:
http://www.education.gov.ab.ca/k_12/

And this is the Calgary Board of education site.

http://www.cbe.ab.ca/

Re: Education, GCSEs for Canada
 

THANKS, Morwenna and SANDRAPAUL, really useful.
I guess kids just adapt to the new system, and start along the 'Diploma track.'
I'll have a look at the links you kindly posted.

All The Very Best.

Re: Education, GCSEs for Canada
 

We arrived in Alberta in August and my daughter had just finished her GCSEs and was awaiting her results. Her results were faxed to my husband's office on results day.
The High School here was great, they awarded my daughter with 5 points for each GCSE course taken, this total will go towards her final diploma in Grade 12. So really it was the equivalent of being at High School for Grade 10, although she is now in Grade 11. (Senior High is Grade 10 - 12)

I would recommend that your son starts Grade 11. That way he has two years of High School and plenty of time to plan for further/higher ed.

Re: Education, GCSEs for Canada
 

Hi

With regard to points, please can you tell me how many points you are meant to have at the end of Grade 10, and how many you need in order to obtain a High School Diploma at the end of Grade 12.

Thanks


Sarah

Re: Education, GCSEs for Canada
 

In which province?
For BC:
http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/graduation/glance.htm

O levels may or may not be given credits on a like-for-like basis, even though they are done a year earlier than the equivalent here.

Re: Education, GCSEs for Canada
 

'For BC:
http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/graduation/glance.htm'

Thanks to everyone for their replies, they've really helped me think things through as i was dreading the whole process, being a student who will just have obtained GCSE's when we move over to BC in August. I hate to sound ignorant dingbat but would you mind explaining what the table in the above link means?
Appreciated if you could. :)
Tom,

p.s. offwego you mentioned about 5 credits per gcse achieved. What were these grades and would the reward have been different if the grades were.

Re: Education, GCSEs for Canada
 

It is a table that summarises graduation requirements for the so called 1995 and 2004 Programs. Graduation Program 1995 is for students who did Grade 10 in the 2003/04 academic year or earlier than that. Graduation Program 2004 is for students who did Grade 10 during the 2004/05 academic year and for students who have followed them or will follow them. Your education timeline seems to suggest that you'll need to follow the guidelines for Graduation Program 2004.

Here is a PDF booklet called Grad Planner that explains things in more detail.

I see that British Columbia courses are numbered 10, 11 and 12. Courses are numbered differently in Alberta, where I live. The contents of the Grad Planner seem to suggest that 10 refers to a course at the Grade 10 level, 11 refers to a course at the Grade 11 level, and 12 refers to a course at the Grade 12 level.

Hope that helps.

Re: Education, GCSEs for Canada
 

Thanks a lot, gonna download the pdf now and take a look at it. All so daunting :scared:

Re: Education, GCSEs for Canada
 

Karma to you for figuring it out. :)

Re: Education, GCSEs for Canada
 

Just scan read it and printing as we speak. From the look of it there's a lot of what i need in there, this system is the core basis for most of Canada, right? I feel so much more at ease for reading it, every site i visited told me a different story. All that's left to do is find out the nitty gritty for whichever school it is i eventually decide on.

Thanks again for your help. :D

Re: Education, GCSEs for Canada
 

No, the link was for British Columbia only.

Part of that (or a lot of that) could be attributable to the fact that educational requirements differ from province to province. Well they don't differ a huge amount. A high school graduate from British Columbia can attend university in Ontario and vice versa. But there are small nuances. For example, when we were getting ready to return to Calgary (Alberta) from Australia, we discovered that, if the marks were high enough, the University of Calgary would accept a high school diploma that had been earned in Melbourne (in the State of Victoria). However, if a student was one year away from earning a high school diploma in the State of Victoria, Australia, he/she would have to earn Grade 10, 11 and 12 credits in Canadian history and fulfill a couple of other requirements in order to earn a high school diploma in Alberta. (The time frame during which we made these enquiries was 1999.)

The information that offwego provided to you was relevant to Alberta.

Do you know yet to which Canadian province you'll be relocating?

Re: Education, GCSEs for Canada
 

Well it's just been confirmed that instead of Alberta it should be British Columbia as that is where the job offer is. That means the info in the pdf is relevant right? Going over it in more detail now, when it says for the Portfolio that Work experience would be needed might my 2 weeks full time teaching work at a Primary School arranged by my school in england count? Sorry to keep pestering you about this, really is appreciated though :rolleyes:

Re: Education, GCSEs for Canada
 

Right.

Sorry, I don't know.