Hi, I wonder if anyone could help?
I'm needing to take my kids' school records with me when we move over on a work permit, but the problem is we dont have a school yet for them, we dont actually know where in Saskatoon we will be staying.

The school initially said it wouldn't be a problem me taking them with me but now my daughters high school says they cant just give me them, they have to be sent to the school she will be attending.

I dont know what to do she has had a few problems and I need it documented.

Has anyone else had problems like this obtaining records to take? if so how did you get around it?

Thanks Carrie-ann

Could they just send them to the school board instead...that covers a much wider geographic area than a specific school.

Or just sort it out once you are settled, dont know how much is involved if you can call and they can post them or fax them or email them then? I dont suppose the UK school is going anywhere soon?

Makes sense, I never thought of that. The thing is its the summer hols when we arrive, so how will we be able to find a school? Thanks though gives me something else to think about.

Through the school board.?

Yaeh, but you want to at least meet some of the teachers and find out things, my daughter has some learning problems so i'd need to look into how that was going to be handled.
It just seems to be one problem after another, or am I just making a mountain out of a mole hill?

Yep, the education system will take care of you.

Thanks, they'll probably take care of her better than here.

Get the records released to you. I am sure you are entitled to it under the data protection act
Good luck

Gryphea

Really, now that gives me some ammo when I phone them on Monday.
Thanks

This is something I've been looking at myself recently as we're hoping to make it over to Canada later this year on a WP also.

There's some good info you can arm yourself with on the site below if, as seems the case, you need some back up when you go back to the school next week.

It's actually a site about home educating kids but it covers your rights to access records.

good luck

http://www.home-education.org.uk/school-records.htm

If you were moving to Calgary, the area in which you took up residence would determine the school your daughter attended.

You and your daughter would have interviews with school board officials. The school board officials would test your daughter and recommend the grade in which she should be placed.

At that session (the session in which your daughter was interviewed and tested), the school board officials would read any material that you had brought from your daughter's UK school (curricula for core subjects, workbooks that provided examples of what she had been doing, etc.). That background material would be helpful to school board officials, but they could still judge her grade level if they had to rely solely on the interview and tests.

If your daughter's needs were so great that they could not be met by her geographically designated school, the school board would place her in a special school. However, that would be rare, as there are parallel programs for special needs kids in many, many regular schools (and, to the extent possible, the school system likes to integrate special needs kids into regular classrooms).

Keep in mind that staff at the school board's head office and at the reception centre that processes newly arrived children work through the summer. So, if you were moving to Calgary, these procedures still could be carried out while the schools themselves were closed for the summer vacation.

Then, right when school started (or during the preceding week, when teachers returned to school to prepare), you could request an interview with your daughter's classroom teacher to discuss her needs, how the teacher intended to handle them, etc.

That is how it would be handled in Calgary. As you probably realise from reading the forum for a while, schooling differs a bit from one province to the next and from one municipality to the next. However, there are some broad similarities, and I expect that the drill in Saskatoon will be roughly similar to what I've described for Calgary.

I don't know the nature of your daughter's problems. However, if my ADHD son's experience is anything to go by, you will need to be vigilent to ensure that the school is addressing your daughter's needs properly.

Finding the happy medium is tough. I think it's very counterproductive to go into the school with guns blazing from the outset, treating the staff as if you expect them to short change your daughter from the start, and demanding that they do this or that to meet her needs.

At the same time, if you are not assertive enough, months and even years can go by in which your daughter's needs are not adequately met and she just quietly slips through the cracks in the system. Here in Calgary at least, the school system theoretically does have educational psychologists and other specialists who test special needs children, recommend individualised programs for them, etc. However, when you look at the great need for those kinds of specialists, you realise that there are very few of them and the ones that do exist carry large caseloads.

The day could come when it would be very helpful to your daughter's cause if you were willing and able to pay for a private educational psychologist to test her and recommend a course of action, if you were willing and able to pay for private tutoring, or whatever.

I wish you all the best with this project. I've been there, done that and have the T-shirt. I go down on my bended knees and thank God that my son is in his mid-twenties and happily employed in a field that he loves. But, by golly, there were times when I didn't know if he would live through his teens, much less reach the fulfilled, productive stage he's in now.

Thats great, Thanks

Hi Carrie-Ann

This situation was me a month ago for Hannah as she was staying with her dad.

Spoke to her form tutor who said as soon as I had registered her into a school to let the old school know and then they would send these out there. Also if you dont let your High School in the UK know which school it is in Canada believe it or not the Educational Authority in the UK will chase you and family listed on any emergency contacts on her file as Truant

So I did exactly what the school told me to do - did an email the evening of registering her complete with the school address, head of year name and the dates when I would be contactable back in the uk.

They refused to send them to Canada and posted them through the Royal Mail half a mile away to my moms for me to bring back to Canada in August.

Moral of the story Carrie-Ann is to go to the school and demand them and take them with you. Also check what is inside as Hannah's high school have lost 3 years worth of reports - which my copy is luckily packed away in storage ready to go - and her Year 2 and Year 6 SAT results have gone astray too

Gaynor
x

I think if its written down then you are entitled to any information they hold on her- or at least that would be the case for adults and their own records. Not sure how data protection affects minors but I'm fairly sure as a parent you could still obtain the record for a child. You need to request the record in writing, asking under the data protection act and you may be liable to pay a fee, as they are allowed to claim administrative costs

Gryphea

I don't remember getting my daughters school records - don't even think it crossed my mind So maybe her new school here just applied from her old school there? The only thing I can remember doing is giving her new school her work from the previous years work in the UK, they did say it was useful to have.