hi im trying to work out if my son will have to attend school when we get over there, he will be 17 and have completed his 4 years high school exams done and also stayed on for a year, so 5 years in total with all exams done, we are hopefully going to ottawa, i know the kids there stay in school till there 18 but going by what i have read about uk kids being slightly ahead of canadian kids school wise, will he have to do another year in school when we get there, thanks for any help you can give me

Not enough info. You're from Edinburgh so I guess the boy has Scottish Highers behind him? Does he want to enter tertiary education in Ontario? If so, a college or a university? There is a bunch of useful information in this link,
http://www.wes.org/ca/ (World Education Services, Inc.)

If you end up elsewhere than Ontario, rules may differ.

i thought it was quite simple really, will he have to go back to school for a year or not, i did not mention anything about highers or college or university

I think that the point is what exams has he passed rather than what age he is. He needs to have the equivalent of a High School Diploma if he wants to get into uni over here. Legally he doean't have to go to school, but if he doesn't have a high school diploma then job prospects may turn out to be poor

Precisely. And because you didn't, there is no simple answer to your simple question.

Are we to guess then that he left school in Scotland as soon as legally possible (perhaps 16, I don't know)? In that case it's also legal to leave an Ontario high school at that age (after grade 10), but he'll be virtually unemployable above minimum wage until he gets some further trade qualification, for example.

Judy's Law: When it comes to immigration and the fallout of immigration, it rarely is as simple as you first think it is.
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I've just thought of another thing.

You will almost certainly come to Canada on a temporary work permit (TWP) to start with.

While you're on a TWP, your children are not eligible for TWPs. Well, technically they are eligible for them, but for all practical purposes they are not. The reason is that an employer would never be able to demonstrate that there was no qualified Canadian resident available to do a job that a recent high school graduate could do.

Studying provides a teen with a way of meeting peers and a way of keeping meaningfully occupied.

More than one member of this forum has returned to the UK because his/her teen was unable to work and went bonkers.
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Okay, let me try and explain things again, he has been at high school in Scotland for the standard 4 years during which he sat 7 standard grade exams and achieved a 2 general gradings and 5 foundation. He is now staying on voluntarily for a fifth year to resit exams and hopefully achieve better grades, by the time we're looking to arrive in Canada he will have left school completely and will be 17 years of age.

Some of the posts I have read to the original post have concerned me especially the point about my son being unemployable above the minimum wage ! So what would a 17 year old boy do when he emigrates to Canada after finishing school in the UK ? Would you advise him to go back to school there or try and enroll in some kind of trade college and would this college involve me paying a fee for him to join ?

As I said in post #7, study or go bonkers. Both choices have been reported on the forum.

Since your son already is doing a voluntary fifth year to improve his results, I don't imagine there would be any point in his attending high school in Canada -- at least not from an academic point of view.

The only benefits would be that it would give him a venue for making friends with people of his own age group, becoming familiar with Canadian terminology, etc., and it wouldn't cost you anything. Or at least it would cost you hardly anything. There may be a locker rental fee and some other minor fees.

The other alternative would be for him to enroll in a technical college, community college or university.

Yes. Once you get beyond high school, the student has to pay (or his/her parents pay).

I know that universities charge non-local students (usually defined as those who have not lived in the relevant province during the previous year) way more than they charge local students. Universities charge foreign students as much as three times the tuition that they charge local students.

I don't know if there is a discrepancy at technical and community colleges and, if there is, how big the discrepancy is.

You usually can find these things out from the website of the educational institution in which you're interested.

If your son was going to study, he'd need a study permit. If I remember correctly, the permit costs $125.
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Hi Judy

Thank you for your post, it was most helpful

Would his grades from the UK entitle him entry to a given college ?

Does this mean I would be able to gain an open work permit for him when we come over ?

TIA

Usually, but not always. You would need to check the specific college's entry requirements.

Just as an example, when my older son returned from Australia to Calgary, his high school graduation marks from Australia were not good enough for university entrance. He had to do an upgrading course (primarily in math(s), if I remember correctly), before he could go on to university. On the other hand, my younger son's high school marks from Australia were good enough for acceptance by the University of Calgary.

I'm just providing those as examples. There are members of this forum whose older teens have gone on to do college or university in Canada and whose English or Scottish secondary school qualifications have been accepted by the relevant tertiary instituations in Canada.

Occasionally, one sees someone bumping up against an obstacle. For example, when Morwenna's son arrived in Calgary with A levels and wanted to study engineering at the University of Calgary, they didn't accept his A level in science. They wanted him to have separate chemistry and physics courses at the grade twelve level in Alberta. So he went to a technical college to do that before going on to university.

I would guess that, if your son was going to a technical or community college rather than university, his Scottish high school qualifications would be accepted.

Man, you're good. I'll have to remember that when I go to my BHDS (British Humour Deficiency Syndrome) class on Tuesday night. (In case you haven't stumbled on that fact, I am not British, and have undertaken the insurmountable challenge of learning how to understand British people.)

Just in case that was a real question, the answer is in post #7.
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Thanks again Judy

The difference here is that in the UK system we think of our kids leaving school at 16 and then going to 6th form college for 2 years to get A'levels (is that the same as highers in Scotland?).

A high school diploma in Canada would be like an English kid getting his/her A'levels and would gain him/her entry into university.

Would your child be at that level when he leaves the UK?

The OP seems to have AWOL, but you bring up an interesting point about Highers and A-level (which I think are viewed as comparable), but the OP's son ihas taken / is retaking what sounds to be the equivalent of the old O level, at age 16. I don't believe that is likely to be viewed as Grad 12 in Ontario so basically the boy hasn't got a High School Graduation.

If the OP is coming on TWP, the son can't work and almost certainly can't enter college. He most likely will have to go back to high school to graduate and it sounds like it might take more than one year to do that.

The OP (or his son!) should really try to get this all clarified before proceeding any further.

Highers are one year but then the Scottish Uni courses are 4 years so they end up the same age graduating...but how that translates in the transition from school to Uni I think is open to debate.

It's more usual for students to live at home here.