School Ratings
 

Is there a school rating system that applies to regular schools rather than the privately funded schools that is similar to our Ofsted system?

Re: School Ratings
 

No. Thank God.

Re: School Ratings
 

http://www.fraserinstitute.org/repor.../overview.aspx

I look at this.
You can also find census info online and that can give you the demographics of areas.

HTH

Re: School Ratings
 

As Novo said no. Please ignore this crap. It is not similar to OFSTED at all.

Re: School Ratings
 

Curious, what would you be looking for in the demographical information?

Re: School Ratings
 

misplacedheidi has given you a link to the Fraser Institute website. It is the only attempt at ranking schools in Canada. However, be aware that the Fraser Institute is not a disinterested body like Ofsted but a right wing think tank with an agenda to promote private over public services.

The BC government (who have been a fairly right wing lot for the last 10 years) recommend that you do not choose a school on the basis of the FI rankings and, from my limited experience of the school system here, I agree.

That said, I suppose you wouldn't be human if you didn't have a peek.

Around here the schools pretty much reflect the communities in which they are located. If you find somewhere that you would like to live the chances are that the local schools will suit your offspring just fine.

Re: School Ratings
 

I agree with JonBoy and lmartin99 but I would say it is a useful resource to use with caution. It's handy for getting a sense of schools performing well (on a limited level), but as JonBoy says they seem anxious to report parental co-income too - usually the F1 schools have the highest reported parental income (surprise, surprise).

We used it to get a sense of areas wkith decent schools, then spent time visiting them and talking to principals etc to form our own view.

Re: School Ratings
 

There's been a lot of threads about this already. I agree with Jonboy though.

Another organization tries to rank schools, the cd howe institute. They take socio-economic factors into account. Interestingly their results are v. v. different to the FI's - for instance according to their rankings, two of the best schools in Vancouver are public schools in East Van.

http://ideas.repec.org/p/cdh/ebrief/100.html

I don't know many people who care about the FI rankings. The other thing is, in Vancouver, more and more parents are pulling their children out of the testing due to the FI rankings therefore making the results even less reliable than they allegedly were. I don't really think you can tell much from them, to be honest. Find a neighbourhood you like and the kids will be fine.

Re: School Ratings
 

No... nothing similar to Ofsted.

But where are you talking about?

In Canada education is provincial -handled differently from province to province. Seriously, may as well be completely different countries the way education is handled from one province to the next.

Where do you intend to move to?

Re: School Ratings
 

Well I wasn't aware of that :D Learn something new every day. Only trying to help!

My kids are in public school - a good local one and are doing well. The school is well ranked in the FI lists though we didn't know about the lists before we arrived here. Interestingly the FI lists have correctly listed the 2 best public schools in town IMHO.

And yes, always , look around schools first before making decisions.

EQAO http://www.eqao.com/results/?Lang=E
These are like SATS for schools - taken at Grade 3 an grade 6.
Not sure where to find schools' results but they are also a good indicator.

Re: School Ratings
 

The problem being that sometimes you need a bit of help - and whilst neither social demographics or offstead reports are great, they could be seen as a bit of a barometer of performance, perhaps.

Where I live now there are five schools - four of which are either a bit iffy, or totally ghastly. We are at 'the' good school, but it took me a long while to find out..... When you arrive in a new country with few contacts and little info to help you make a considered choice it can be a bit hard. You cannot afford to screw up with school - with the littlies you can have a few false starts and a bit of leeway, but once they start to get bigger you can't make too many mistakes.

I have written to the Dept. of Education for New Brunswick, and they have been most helpful. They have come up with responses to all the queries I have. I am intending to take sprog this autumn, when the schools are open, to get a good look and a feel of them, prior to summer of 2012 when we - hopefully - live there. I don't want to just 'hope' for the best, that way lies the possibility of disaster, and I want our life in Canada to start on the right foot.

Re: School Ratings
 

I think you're wrong in assuming that Ofsted doesn't have just as much idealogical bias as the FI but, otherwise, agreed, the FI reports are a useful resource so long as you understand the surrounding issues. Having been through it, choosing a school in Toronto seems very similar to the experience with the UK except that, if you live in a school's defined catchment, you're guaranteed a place at least. The usual rule that nice areas tend to have good schools all seem to apply with some caveats.

Re: School Ratings
 

From what I've seen over the new labour years Ofsted became a political tool to demonstrate how uniformly "good" the schools and teachers were rather than an objective and meaningful reasource for parents.

Clearly FI has another political agenda so assessments need to be treated with caution. However, I'd rather see an objective and critical attempt at assessment exist to provide an alternative view rather than rely purely on the often well meaning but ultimately unbalanced guidance from self interested groups such as school boards and unions.

Re: School Ratings
 

I second this advice. The FI rankings are load of bollocks and are effectively a political statement. The main determinate of a child's educational 'success' is parental involvement/educational level and a child's peer group. So, if you can barely string a coherent sentence together yourself and you move into a trailer park in the middle of nowhere, your kids will be buggered.

Re: School Ratings
 

Does this mean playing Mozart and reading Shakespeare to them in the womb?