Tom Masters

Hi

Do you mean that he has been put in a Year 2 class already because of his ability or that he is given some Year 2 work in his Reception class? There are always great differences in ability in most classes. Whether there would be any other students of the same ability as your son would depend on the actual class. Younger children can vary in their abilities tremendously when they start school depending on the experiences/teaching they have before school.

In your son's case, I would contact the school or schools that you are hoping to put him in and discuss his individual situation with the principal. As he will already be one of the youngest in the class, they may be reluctant to put him up a grade. My advice would be to bring all the information/report cards that you have and include a letter from his current teacher explaining what level of ability he is currently working at.

Congratulations on the PR. We came over in 2004 when my son went into Grade 1. Having already been in Reception in the UK definitely helped to prepare the way and he settled in very well. I am pleased with the level of education he is receiving. He is also one of the youngest in the class (December 31st baby) and adjusted very quickly. Good luck with your move to Canada! Chris

Judy in Calgary

Hello wallace.

If you read the threads around here about education (and about many other topics too), you'll quickly see how province-specific the information is. In the case of education, it differs even from city to city within the same province. So you attract more useful and relevant answers if you say where you'll be settling.

I had a quick look at your other posts, and see that you're thinking of Okotoks and Cochrane. Both of those towns belong to school districts that are separate from Calgary's. In each school jurisdiction there are two government-funded school systems. One is called public and the other is called Catholic.

Calgary's two school boards are Calgary Board of Education and Calgary Catholic School District.

Okotoks' public schools fall within Foothills School Division, and its Catholic schools fall within Christ the Redeemer Catholic School Division.

Cochrane's public schools belong to the Rocky View School Division.

Cochrane's Catholic schools, interestingly enough, belong to the Calgary Catholic School District (as do the Catholic schools in the other outlying towns of Airdrie and Chestermere).

My gut feeling is that your son's case is not all that usual. It sounds as if, even in the UK, he's ahead of his peers in reading. The gap between him and his peers is likely to be larger here in Alberta, because kids start school a year later than they do in the UK.

My feeling is that you are going to need to pick your son's school very, very carefully. I mean most parents want to do that for their children, but I feel it's all the more important in your son's case.

Calgary's public and Catholic school systems both have GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) programs that give students extra intellectual stimulation but allow them to remain with their peers in terms of chronological age. In the public school system, a bright student's extra needs for the most part are addressed in his/her neighbourhood school up to the end of grade 3.

There are two GATE programs that start when a student enters grade 4 (i.e., when the student is roughly 9 years old). If, after his/her academic ability has been assessed, it is decided that a student is a candidate for the GATE program, he/she will be bused to a GATE program, even if it is outside of his/her neighbourhood.

There is one school for gifted and talented kids that starts right from kindergarten. (Kindergarten is the year before grade one, and children usually go through it when they are 5 years old.) That school is Westmount Charter School.

You need to be very assertive with school authorities to ensure that your son's needs are met. I'm not suggesting for one minute that you be rude. In fact that would be counter-productive. But you need to hold the school authorities' feet to the fire, so to speak, to ensure that your son receives the academic enrichment that I'm guessing he needs.

You need to stay in close touch with his classroom teacher. I hope you'll be able to work everything out with his teacher. However, if that does not seem to be satisfactory, then you need to address the matter with other people -- the principal, the school psychologist, etc., etc.

If your son attends a Calgary public school, the School Board will test him to determine which grade would be the best fit for him when he first arrives from outside the country. When he's placed in a given grade, the placement is not set in stone. His classroom teacher will observe him for a month or two to see if that grade is indeed the most appropriate one for him. If the school determines that another grade would be more appropriate, your son will be moved.

You will help your son's new teacher enormously if you bring with you a copy of the curricula that your son has been studying in English and mathematics (which Canadians abbreviate to math, without an S on the end). (Your child's current teacher should be able to provide you with that information.) It also will help your son's new teacher if you bring with you a couple of work books that illustrate the kind of work he's been doing and the standard to which he's been doing it. I strongly recommend that you bring these documents in the suitcase or carry-on luggage that accompanies you to Canada and not in your shipment of goods to follow.

I'm less familiar with the Calgary Catholic School District's facilities for bright students, and I'm less familiar still with the facilities that outlying school districts provide for bright kids. Perhaps other posters here will be able to shed some light on what those other school boards provide.

Regardless of what I've told you, and regardless of what other posters will tell you after me, this is an issue that I believe warrants thorough research.

By the way, when I told you earlier about special programs that might provide your son with an extra academic challenge while keeping him with his age mates, I did not want to sound as if I was dead set against a kid studying with kids who were slightly different in age.

Through a variety of circumstances my own sons, who are nearly three years apart in age, ended up graduating from high school only a year apart. I feel that no harm came of it. However, the younger of the two, who was bumped up, had an extroverted personality, and he was able to fit in with kids who were older than he was. If the same thing had happened to my older son, who had an introverted and less flexible personality, I believe the results would not have been nearly as happy. I'm a strong believer in tailoring decisions to the individual child, his/her personality, and other pertinent factors.

I also want to qualify what I said by stating that I believe the development of the whole person is important. In fact that's one of the things that I liked about the Calgary school system when my sons were in it. So I don't want to create the impression that I'm obsessed with academic performance. That said, it's no fun when a bright child is in a situation in which he's bored from an intellectual point of view. In fact it can cause a lot of misery.

If our family was moving, schooling would loom large in our choice of residential area. Even more especially if we had a child whose needs were somewhat different from average, schooling would be more important to us than commuting, proximity to the mountains, or most other factors. In fact when we went on expat assignments while our children were of school age, that was our main driver when we chose a house.

I hope that information helps, and I wish you all the best in finding the best fit for your son.

Edited to add this. After I'd posted my message, I saw the one that Tom Masters (Chris) had posted before mine. Chris is a teacher, and I am not, so I defer to his judgement. I take Chris's point that children's abilities vary enormously when they first enter school. But, since Chris is in Ontario, and my post also has included quite a bit of information that is specific to Calgary and surrounding towns, I'll leave it as it is.

wallace

Thank you for your replies.

I will look up Westmount Charter School. I don't think finding the right school is going to be an easy task judging by how difficult it was here in the UK. I spoke to some schools before Christmas and will be contacting them again to arrange visits and hopefully some will offer to assess him.

Fingers crossed we get it right!!

Judy in Calgary

You said you were hoping to arrive in Calgary in the summer. I don't know exactly what you mean by that, but the schools themselves are closed in July and August.

If you'll be dealing with the Calgary Board of Education, the office that assesses newly arrived students is open year-round. Its contact details are:

Riverside Reception Centre
711 - 2 Avenue NE
Calgary, Alberta
T2E 7W8

Tel. (403) 777-7373

A couple of minutes ago I accidentally found a web site that lists Designated Calgary Schools by Community. It has links to public, Catholic and private schools, French immersion schools that belong to all school systems, pre-schools (nursery schools for 3- to 4-year olds), and summer camps. I thought I'd mention it in case it was useful.

wallace

Thanks Judy, just spoke to Westmount, sounds like a good possibility. I am trying to sort out schools during our landing visit next month as next time we come over they will be shut as it is the summer vacation.

dingbat

I was in the same situation when I came with my kids - my daughter was barely six, had been in school since she was three on a private school scholarship in the UK, could read fluently, speak some French and was gifted at Art and Maths. Age wise she should have been in Grade 1 when we got here. My daughter was passed from pillar to post over the first three weeks and was eventually dumped in a dreaded split 2/3 grade class, doing Grade 3 work with little or no support. Most of it she managed, as it was not challenging or particularly well structured. The school district eventually refused to provide her any enrichment before Grade 4 and just told me to home school her, as she was too bright and too far ahead of her peers to "fit in". A horror story to be sure - BC based - but just the start of the trials and tribulations with the education in three school districts I have experienced with my kids. My lot are all really bright (must be the pre-pregnancy ) and all of them perform way above grade averages. They basically get ignored, as all the teaching is targeted to the middle average in the class. No wmy daughter is in Grade 11, they fall over themselves to have her in AP classes because she is a good student. Go figure. You will have your work cut out for you and you may find your child refuses to work at his usual level because he does not want to be singled out as unusually clever. It's not cool to be a brainiac until later on for some reason Best of luck.

wallace

Thanks it looks like we are going to be busy researching schools next month!!