Re: French Immersion - comments please
 

No, basically it says that you are going to a Catholic school even though you are not of Catholic faith.

I really don't have any strong feelings about it. My kids are going to a Catholic school, simply because it's in my opinion the best school in town. We tried the public French immersion first, but it was absurdly mediocre. We lasted a month and gave up, never looked back. I do get a weird question about God every now and then (Easter and Christmas usually, they seem to step up the religion a bit those times of year), but other than that I just see how much my kid is growing and how well she is doing academically.

I do wonder how Catholics got the public funding deal, but it doesn't keep me up at night.

Re: French Immersion - comments please
 

How they got it is less interesting than how they still have it.

Re: French Immersion - comments please
 

Are you, or the children's Mother, Catholic?

Re: French Immersion - comments please
 

That's a shame as I was rather hoping to set up a Jedi Knight Academy and hoping to get public funding.

Re: French Immersion - comments please
 

Interesting point, as up-thread the FI system (in BC) has been described as de facto grammar school. What did you find mediocre at the one your kids tried?

Re: French Immersion - comments please
 

Let's just say that colouring books all day (we were REQUIRED to provide a new colouring book EACH MONTH for our child) is not my idea of education for a 5 year old. She already knew how to write and read, and now she wasn't allowed to bring "reading" books- only colouring was considered an acceptable activity. The day we pulled her out of the school was when she asked her (French Immersion) teacher how to say "tree" in French and was told to sit down and colour. She never had any homework, and every afternoon when we asked what she had learned we were told "nothing". Sadly, this was true. The only French word she learned in all of September was Bonjour. We moved her at the end of September, and by Christmas she was able to have simple conversations in French with our Francophone friends.

I since then have met a few teachers from the public school, some of them took a year of French before teaching there. That's the extent of their French. At the Catholic school, most of the teachers are from Francophone families, and speaking English is not allowed at all in the classroom. Kids have homework every day, even in kindergarten. Everything is just better structured and worked out.

Obviously, this is not going to be the case everywhere, but in our city the Catholic school seems to provide a better education than the public one. And we are glad that there is a choice, even if it comes with some added religion.

Full disclosure: one of us is Catholic. In name mostly, but it's all the same to the system. The other one is quite anti-Catholic, and that's why we tried the public school first. But at the end of the day, we agreed that is doesn't matter as much who runs the school, if it's well run. We never found religion to be pushed a lot. As I said, there is quite a few kids that are not Catholic, and it doesn't seem to bother them.

Re: French Immersion - comments please
 

Not true. Some of my relatives here attend a catholic school and they're from a Protestant background.

In Northern Ireland "Controlled schools", operated and funded by the state, are Protestant. "Catholic Maintained schools" are operated by the Catholic church and receive some government funding. There are the usual scattering of private schools and also some "Integrated" schools which are usually neither. It should be noted Northern Ireland is generally regarded to have the finest education system in the British Isles in terms of results.

Re: French Immersion - comments please
 

Another point to Catholic schools. My son is at a Catholic school but only because our local one was full and the Catholic one has a good reputation and a good Frazer report (and yes I know the Frazer reports get a bad rep in themselves but we don't have anything else to go in as newcomers). I was asked at Enrollment whether we were Catholic and as I was brought up Catholic I said yes (no longer practise at all).

They asked for a baptismal certificate which I couldn't give as it was in England and had to get my parents to apply for another one. (Which they did and sent over).

I haven't been asked to send it in so really if you have the balls you could lie to get your kid into a Catholic school if that is what you really want. (Well you could in my school).

The beauty of a Catholic school (which in hindsight has worked out well for us) is that we can live anywhere in the city quadrant we are in) and he can still go - catchment is much wider. :)

Re: French Immersion - comments please
 

Isn't that covered by "some odd exceptions". It's a disciminatory and immoral system, yes or no?

Re: French Immersion - comments please
 

Baptist friends of mine send their kids to the catholic school, on the grounds that some god is better than no god.

Our experience of the catholic school was that there wasnt as much churchyness as we expected.

Re: French Immersion - comments please
 

No Protestants on the rack? No massacres of Muslims?

Re: French Immersion - comments please
 

Not in Belleville in our experience.;) Not much in the way of prayers or catechism or prep for 1st Communion either.


You do have some strange ideas about the nature of religion in Canada... TBH you seem less tolerant of other views than most of the religionists...

Re: French Immersion - comments please
 

I don't think religion is any different in Canada than elsewhere. Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine stand out as religious communities. Utah and Saudi Arabia too but they're relatively peaceful.

It's irrelevant though, how foolish and dangerous I think religion is, there's no case for the government to support one band of loonies against the others.

Re: French Immersion - comments please
 

+1. Religion is divisive. The state has no business in facilitating it, unless of course it is a religious state (which would avoid divisiveness by banning any other religion).

Re: French Immersion - comments please
 

Bounce for Moving to Toronto April.