School system in British Columbia
 

Hello,

I am thinking of moving to British Columbia, maybe Surrey.

In England Ofsted reports are used to grade school in terms of their performance ratings so you can find a good school to send your children to.

How are schools rated in British Columbia? I’m hoping to find good schools for my children who are primary age but will be approach secondary school in the next year or so.

Re: School system in British Columbia
 

Might be worth looking at the Fraser Institute although I’m not sure how useful their info and rating system are. The usual advice is that schools tend to reflect the area within which they are located, far more so than in the UK.

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/school-performance

Re: School system in British Columbia
 

Thank you for the information

Re: School system in British Columbia
 

Three things for your consideration:

1. The Fraser Institute is a libertarian-conservative Canadian public policy think tank. Their agenda is to undermine the government-funded public school system, schools that serve the vast majority of BC students (including most students in Surrey), schools that don’t discriminate or exclude students based on their ability, affluence, or religion. I never given the Fraser Institute rankings much serious consideration. Take them with a big grain of salt.

2. Ranking schools is a very British (and classist) approach to thinking about schooling. Canadian parents in BC don’t fuss about school rankings in the same way British immigrant parents do, partially because unbiased school rankings simply don’t exist in BC as they do in the UK, the UK class system doesn’t exist in BC, so which school you send your children to in BC doesn’t hold the same weight as it does in the UK.

3. The quality of education in BC schools are fairly equal. They all follow a standardized provincial curriculum. In BC, which courses your child takes in high school (specifically in grades 10, 11, and 12) and how well they perform in those courses determines whether they will get into their chosen program in university, so what high school they went to is mostly irrelevant. You’ll learn that BC families in Surrey almost all send their children to the local school in their “catchment area” of their neighbourhood. Where you live determines where your child will go to school. You don’t choose a school otherwise. The only exception is if your local school doesn’t offer a specific academic program (i.e. French Immersion) you can apply for your child to transfer to another school that offers it. But it’s not the local culture to send your child across town to a different school because of its perceived ranking.

Re: School system in British Columbia
 

Thank you so much for the information

Re: School system in British Columbia
 

I agree with everything posted here.

Re: School system in British Columbia
 

Thank you for letting me know

Re: School system in British Columbia
 

Then, as always, I'm obliged to say I disagree with the gist of these posts, I accept that the Fraser Institute is a political lobby group and not to be trusted However, Canada has a large immigrant population, we are as competitive over schools as we would have been in the old countries. One can see this in house prices and advertisements, often houses are advertised as being in desirable school districts. My daughter in Vancouver rejected some houses when shopping last year because they weren't in the ideal catchment area. We can see it in the high fees commanded by private schools and tutoring businesses. Of course, in the absence of rankings, the reputation of schools may not reflect the actual quality of the schools but reputation is all there is to go on.

I personally think any IB school will do but nit all schools are IB schools. We had to be creative with our "home address" to make the children eligible for one. Other common school related frauds (in Toronto) are pretending to be Catholic so as to qualify for positive discrimination and pretending to speak French so as to make the children eligible for French language schools. It may be that cradle Canadians don't worry about schooling but very many people do and it's a competitive market; I, myself, queued all night to register a child for the better school of that moment.

The third point in the post above fails to take intro account the SAT exams. Many schools offer cramming classes geared to the SATs. This is a clear differentiator in the select of a high school as good SAT scores open the door to a wider range of universities.

Finally, which high school children attend is a factor in their social capital amongst Canadians even long after attending the school. Of course, university is more important but, if one wishes to see one's children rise in Canadian society, then sending the children to appropriate schools sets them rubbing shoulders with the future elite in Canada. That's an irreplaceable advantage should they wish to be big fishes in a small pond.

Re: School system in British Columbia
 

Thank you for the information. What are LB schools?

Re: School system in British Columbia
 

Do you mean IB? If so, International Baccalauréate.

HTH.

Re: School system in British Columbia
 

Thank you so much. I did mean IB