TomFrench

Hi all. I'm new to the forum. I live in the UK but have a job offer with my current company in Toronto (Mississauga). Before I accept, I am trying to research as much as possible and my biggest concern is schooling for the kids.

I have 3 kids aged 14, 10, and 6. My eldest would be starting her last 2 years of senior school this September and the 10 year old starts senior school in September.

Myself and my family would be posted for a minimum of 3 years but probably at least until my eldest is ready to go to University, so that would be 4 years if it's the same as the UK. I have been considering whether the International Baccalaureate would be a better qualification to allow for some flexibility in terms of where we move after the 4 years. We might stay longer but it's not set in stone. My priority is to get my eldest to university but I am struggling to understand the school system and whether the baccalaureate will give them anything more than the Canadian system if we moved back to the UK after 4 years or stayed in Canada. What if it does not work out and we come back after 2 years? Can she get in to UK college to study A-levels without GCSEs?

I need help understanding the school systems. I will probably go and visit my potential new boss in a few weeks so I would like to see some schools and try to understand from that, where we might live in relation to distance to school and where I would work in Mississauga.

Thanks

MillieF

Welcome to British Expats

You have chosen the perfect place to find responses to all of your queries. There are quite a lot of members with children the same age as yours in The GTA so you are in good hands.

The Blue Wiki tab, at the top of the page has invaluable information on aspects of life in Canada, and the 'search this thread' to the right of the page is a great feature.

Very best of luck!

Zoe Bell

For schools offering the IB in Toronto Google IBSO

Their website will list schools in your area that offer it.

I'll post more info when I'm back at my pc

dbd33

My children took the IB when we lived in Mississauga but they commuted downtown to do it. It worked out very well but, given the choice, I'd suggest commuting out to Mississauga and living near a suitable school.

Piff Poff

My daughter started the full IB program in HS (Alberta) by the end of HS she was down to two subjects as she hung out with the kids that didn't want to learn so she didn't put the effort in and it is effort and it doesn't matter how much you get on at them they won't study if they don't want too. It ended up being really stressful for the entire family. I wish we had kept her in the catchement school where she would have known more kids, done AP or stayed mainstream instead.

Snowy560

I'm actually really glad you posted your experience PiffPoff: it makes me feel very pleased we didn't pursue the IB route: we dragged our protesting daughter here in her GCSE year (yes, we are the parents from hell!). But after considering IB etc. we simply put her in a good, Canadian high school, she did really well and got a place at probably a "better" university than she might have done had she stayed in the UK. But if she had gone to university in the UK, her G12 grades would be have been more than sufficient for entry as far as I could work out.

I'm sorry you had these issues though PP and hope things are easier for you/your daughter now. People warn you that teenagers are a nightmare but you don't realise what that means till they become one (as I found out).

S

MillieF

I too found this really interesting PP. My son's school was trying to offer IB this year and he was going to be the first year intake, but the school just couldn't get it off the ground either financially or with the interest level.

My son is charming, witty and becoming one of the best cross country runners in NB...a delightful young man, but I can't get him to study. He knows everything better than everyone else anyway so he can't imagine why he would need to study

dbd33

It's certainly an effort. A problem was that there weren't enough hours in the school day to fit in the IB subjects and the regular curriculum so some classes got bumped to night school. Bumping them to night school meant bumping swimming to the morning and so a nightmarishly Gwynethian spreadsheet charting where the children had to be and so which parent's house was to be slept in the night before.

There's a lot of homework, much of it had to be done on trains and trams. Watching the struggle I felt as if I should be running a corner shop and shouting about anything less than a job in neurosurgery being a disgrace to the family.

Zoe Bell

My views are slightly skewed in that I work in a private school that only offers IB. And my comparison is limited to state schools in the UK.

The IB Diploma syllabus (the full IB program starts at JK/SK with the primary years program, moving through the Middle years program to the grade 11/12 Diploma program) seems a lot more academically rigorous that what I was used to teaching in the UK. It is a lot more self driven as well.

IB Schools Of Ontario

Piff Poff

Glad I spoke up! DD's school offered full IB as well as partial, Grade 9 was Honors, which she went through with flying colours then she went to the full IB, which started out great and the issue really was the friends. Her bestie in IB didn't have to work at anything to get full marks (she ended up not even graduating) The group of wierdo's (yep she was completely odd) she hung out with were in the lower/non academic classes so didn't study, hence she thought she didn't have to study She then got behind, got stressed and ended up on anti depressants and having counseling. Proud to say, she graduated and ended up with IB 5 in Japanese and 3 in Biology so not too shabby.

She no longer sees any of the kids she hung out with at HS apart from one about every 6 months. She has however struggled to find a career path. Once our citizenship comes through she intends to spend a year in Australia and then take life from there. I'm just glad she is a happy person now, IB quals really don't seem to be that important anymore, to us. I wish she hadn't had wanted to pursue them and had, had more fun in school.

TomFrench

WoW. I just checked in and see how many reply’s there are. Thank you so much. I was not expecting such quick feedback. The forum is great ;-)

So There are some very mixed views which I am going to try to summarise in order to make sure I understand correctly.

IB is a great standard of education… however! It is also very demanding and requires a good level of self-driven determination on the pupils part to get a good result without too much stress. I am I correct? If so I think my eldest would be fine; she loves school and getting good grades (but she hasn’t discovered boys yet so I might be speaking too soon LOL). I don’t see anyone saying it is really much better than a High School though.

My younger 2 are less academic and maybe a regular school would be better.

I am really only considering the IB because I don’t really know how long we will be in Canada and want to retain some flexibility for my eldest in her education, but on reflection we would need to stick it out for a minimum of 3 years anyway. Therefore at this point in time, I’m thinking just a standard High School will be ok. She can get in to University in Canada or the UK it seems with a Canadian High School diploma correct????

She has also got her heart set (at the moment) on being a Vet, and academically we are told she is more than capable. I see there is a Veterinary College in Guelph affiliated with the University of Toronto. If this works out really well and we want to stay then that is an option in 3/4 years following graduation from High School.


Does what I’m saying make sense. Thanks in advance for your feedback.

PS. My company if booking flights as we speak for myself and my wife to come out next Friday and stay till the following Wednesday; 4 days to look around and 1 day in the place where I would work to see a bit more detail about the job etc. So now I need to make an itinerary, maybe visit some schools and towns etc. I’ve heard Georgetown or Erin is nice and about 40-60 mins to Mississauga? Don’t want to live in the city. Any views? Is there a school results/rating system to help pick an area by school?

enak

Enjoy your school visits!

Three thoughts...

1.
If you visit state schools who do the IB, I would suggest that you make sure you know what options are possible within the curriculum (IB has Higher and standard level components).
They are obliged to do the Ontario diploma as well (unlike private schools), so often the timetable choices are more limited in order to make that work.
We have a child in state IB so I'm not biased against it, but it does come down to the available programme fitting your child.

2.
Call ahead - you stand more chance of looking around the school etc if you call to make an appointment. They'll be more likely to say yes to meeting you if you aren't too vague about where you'll be living (i.e. you're actually likely to attend).

3.
You asked about rankings for schools. The Fraser institute publish these (google "compare school rankings). They give a general idea, but I wouldn't treat them as gospel - there are schools who play to the numbers and schools who don't.

All the best!

dbd33

Yes.

I think the University of Guelph might take the view that they allow some urban oiks from the U of T to come and muck out occasionally. For large animal vets, Guelph, and a school in Alberta, are the prime choices. After that there's a place in Ohio but that requires having chosen one's parents well as the fees are considerable. I suppose I hear a biased view as I'm in Guelph now and ride large animals locally, one of the other riders is a vet student at Guelph.

There is no quality school rating system. There are ratings published by a right wing organization which lobbies for private schooling and which are compiled using a whimsical methodology. Generally, if the school offers the IB then you don't have to worry about it academically (though, of course, there may be demographic, extra curricula or logistical concerns).

As far as location goes the issues will be:

- where in Mississauga do you have to commute to? If it's the airport then Caledon/Orangeville would be viable as well as Erin/Georgetown, if it's Port Credit then not so much.

- how rural do you want to be? How much land do you want? Note that with very few exceptions properties seen on Escape to the Country would count as suburban here.

- Are you going to be sensible and rent for a year or plunge right in to buying? In either case, how much?

TomFrench

@dbd33, I'd be commuting to a place very near Joshua's valley park, right on the lake shore.

When I say rural, I mean somewhere with a bit of space. I don't want to have a small back garden that has a view of nothing but other houses or commercial/industrial buildings etc. I am in to road cycling as a hobby n the summer months, so somewhere I can very quickly get out of busy roads and cycle in the countryside on quiet roads.

With regards to rent vs buy, my business will pay to rent a house for the length of my contract (up to 5 years). I would imagine I would sign a rental agreement for at least a 1 year period. I am hoping to find out a week on Monday from my new employers what the rental range is per month.

I will rent out our home in the UK.

HGerchikov

I notice you mention University of Toronto, my son has applied for a program there, its very competitive program with many times more applicants than there are places. He went yesterday for a tour of the facilities and chat to the profs. One of the points that they made was that good high school grades on their own were not the best metric for deciding which kids were going to do well on the course. They were looking for kids with good time management skills so those who had done other things through school and still managed to get good grades. So a student with good grades, who had had a life through high school was more likely to get accepted than one with marginally better grades, but who had done nothing else other than study.

So, if the IB program means your daughter will have to study like crazy to get good marks, and not be able to do anything else, then it could work against her and she would be better off in a less demanding environment.