Yorkiechef

We have an appointment with Calgary board of education on Tuesday, this is the final piece of the immigration jigsaw....

We phoned them and informed them that Laura is 16, just finished GCSE's and is awaiting results which are due 25 August. Her dob is 22 October 99 and they have indicated that see will go into grade 12, now there is two aspects I have issues with;

Her last year at school wil be a 9 month transit through without much opportunity to make lasting friendships, and

She has to get her high school diploma in 9 months.....surely she will have skipped a year, will this be possible.

Grateful for your thoughts before Tuesday morning..

Allie73

I'm not sure about Alberta, but in Ontario, kids don't skip grades, or get held back ever. Kids go into grade by birth year. No concessions are made. It's not a great system for kids who are advanced or delayed.

Geordie Lass

Just wanted to echo what Allie 73 said.

Our son went into grade 1 (he'd already completed 2.5 years of full time school) and we asked about him skipping a grade as he was so advanced and they basically said no. They want to keep children with the same age group. They were pretty adamant.

Being honest he was way above most of the kids socially too and knew how to behave at school.

It caught up eventually but academically he was bored stupid for best part of 2 years here.

Is it possible to get your HSD here with only 9 months? I'm not clear whether you mean you want her to skip or not?

HGerchikov

It's because her birthday is October and the school intake here is by calendar year rather than September to August. So in the UK she would be going into the equivalent of Gr 11 but here it's Grade 12. If it was my child I would be requesting that she goes into Gr 11. My son skipped a grade when we moved, he is also a 99 birth year and has just graduated. I know other families where their older kids have gone into the grade below their birth year to give them time to get used to the system and help them get the best marks possible. No harm in asking.

Yorkiechef

Thank you for replying. I agree, I would prefer that she goes into grade 11 to get established and perhaps get better marks, else I feel the requirement to get established, orientated and then achieve in such a short period of time is asking a lot of her. I understand that the better grades she achieves at high school will give her the best opportunities when applying for UNI.

HGerchikov

The approach we took was by school. We asked the principal of the school if our son could be advanced. Some said no because it was board policy that all students should be in their proper year, but we found one that said yes because he agreed with us that it was in the best interests of the individual child. I am not sure how the parents of the kids who went in a year below their birth year tackled it, I think by school too.

Allie73

This was exactly the same experience we had with our May-born son. He was in Year 2 in England, but was put into Grade 1 when we got to Canada. He was well ahead of his peers and spent 2 years bored at school. We wanted him to skip a grade, but were told they absolutely do not do that. He's now just finished Grade 3 and is a bit more challenged than he was in Grade 1 and 2.

We had the opposite problem with our December-born twins. They were in Reception in the UK, but were put into their second year of school in Ontario. One has coped fine with this. The other has struggled and 2 years later is finally starting to catch up.

bert07

Ok I am about to bombard you with lots of info! I worked in education in the uk and researched this in detail as we moved as it is the age group I specialize in teaching.

Alberta diploma has standardised units/credits so these can be completed at any school (including across Catholic and adult Ed). We are in St Albert and Sa, Edmonton and Strathcona all run summer schools where the kids bank up some credits in advance of each year group. Ask about this in Calgary as she may be able to do a few of these immediately to start her off and make some friends.

Laura's GCSEs will provide some transferable credits. In order to do this, she will need to possibly apply to iqas ( https://work.alberta.ca/documents/uk-detailed-credential-templates.pdf ) to have they quals compared - this will take a few months to process so get it moving as soon as the results sheets are in her hand.

The first year at uni here is more like 2yr a'levels uk, the 4 yr degree is equivalent to the uk 3yr bachelor (similar to the Scottish system ) so theoretically she shouldn't have a problem academically so long as units can be credited to reduce the workload.

My son (only 8) is also a December birthday and has struggled being the youngest in the year when he was eldest previously and St. Albert do allow moving up and down grades, she may find it more beneficial being in gr 11 but realistically if they will accredit the gcses then she will be bored academically.

There is a few schools by us which are for kids who need to finish their diploma after gr 12 and are part time flexi so that could also be an option in 12 months.

Assuming she is thinking about uni, that would be in 12 months time and you may have funding issues for loans etc so make sure you are aware of how long for residency etc.


Also, check for any international schools in the area (don't think there is but you never know) or ask about the international baccalaureate as this will allow for parity with the U.K system and allow her to access Uk unis as well. Also consider distance learning international a levels but she would have to learn these herself.


Eta -
Just found this link
http://britishexpats.com/forum/canada-56/what-gcses-worth-canadian-education-851665/

So she might not need to do iqas. School might allocated credit based on what she has done directly - I would def take her gcse subjects (and exam board info), last school report and formal predicted grades from the school with you as they would help ensure they give the best picture.

UHOP

I do think that college is so much better in the UK than spending another 2 years in high school. Being able to specify what I wanted at 16 was so much better. Is there no option of a UK style Btech that someone could take while living in Canada. Online or via private means. I know school can be a way to make friends but there are other options. Clubs and things
In terms of going to Uni one has to consider whether studying in the UK or other places in Europe is better 3 years vs 4 years and courses are much cheaper. I know of many British expat children going back to the show Uk for that very reason. They also spend the summers in Canada. There are even countries where Universitiy Education is free.

scilly

Well, you have to balance what you want out of education with what is on offer, and what might be best for your future.

As someone who has been connected with universities and education in the UK and in Canada (with a little bit of knowledge re the US, Australia and NZ), I don't actually believe that the UK education is any better or any worse than anywhere else, or vice versa.

The virtue of the Canadian experience is that options can be kept open for longer than is possible in the UK, but basically English-educated and Canadian-educated are at the same level by the time they walk across that stage and get their Bachelor's degree.

You might want to consider whether you do want to keep your options open for as long as possible rather than specialising in the Arts or Sciences.

My own daughter was an example of someone who at first intended to enter the Arts Faculty, but after a gap year had decided that she could better achieve her goal by entering Science ............ the fact that she had a Canadian education, allowed her to have grades in all the necessary subjects for acceptance into either Faculty.

If you do not want to actually attend a high school, then you have to register with the Department of Education or your local school board for Home Education ............ but there are pros and cons.

In BC, everyone who graduates from high school has taken a certain curriculum, and reached a certain standard. Universities base their acceptances on course grades from the Grade 12 (Grade 13 in some provinces).

The University of BC, for example, uses Grade 12 (or senior year) course grades to calculate a student's admission average, although they will sometimes use Grade 11 (or junior year) course grades as substitutes in order to give a decision in a timely manner.

So you would have to work out how you are going to achieve grades necessary for admittance to the university/ies of your choice.

You need to check very carefully the requirements for graduating, and for acceptance to university.

It is not something to undertake lightly

Pizzawheel

Not exactly true. My two are both one year advanced- ie a grade higher than their age would give. They've been in private school and the kids mum basically persuaded them, but when you're paying...

Once they've completed a year of Ontario education at the higher grade they are locked in.

Doesn't apply to your case but for others a year in private to "stabilise" the grade then back to public might be a good investment.

dbd33

One of my daughters was in the upper year of the double cohort (a year of schooling was abolishing in Ontario, her year was the last to take it so those in the next year graduated younger and less well educated). This caused a few problems at university, principally that the younger graduates were less practised drinkers (they would have been underage too but that's not much of a concern in a college town). Putting a child in the "wrong" year of school will cause this social disjunction.

SchnookoLoly

Heh. I was in the younger half of the double cohort year. The "less well educated" part did play into things a little bit in university in the areas where the OAC students received the education in high school but the Grade 12 students (incl me) did not - for me, this hit me with trigonometry. My first-year calculus course was REALLY tough. The university hadn't adjusted their course to account for the Grade 12 students who didn't learn a lot of the material, and it just went too fast. I really struggled with that unit, as did a load of classmates. The following year, though, the professors adjusted the course since no one would have known the basics in trig, and they all did much better. By the time we finished first year, though, we were pretty much all on the same page.

And yes, we were definitely less practiced drinkers, hehe. Again, you caught up quickly, though. Being underage wasn't much of an issue. We just had more dorm parties and house parties etc in first year, and then went out the following year once we had turned 19. That said, though, there were a load of us in that same boat - I can see how it would stink for someone to be the one odd person out in a friend group because they're born a year later. A friend of mine who moved to Canada when she was 8 skipped a grade, started Grade 4 instead of Grade 3, though she was also identified as gifted. She did have a bit of that in her first year of university, but she also then found she was simply too young to be in university. She dropped out after her first year, took a year off, and then started up in a new university in a new program after that.

HGerchikov

I am a little worried as I find myself agreeing with you more and more! The social disjunction point is a good one. As I mentioned in a post above, our youngest son was advanced a grade when we moved here. It has never been a serious problem but there have been a couple of things. He never played organised sports with his school friends, his team mates were always from the year below, so he could never take part in the 'what happened in the game at the weekend' discussions which bothered him when he was younger. He was a late developer so that awkward age when the 13 year old boy is 5 ft nothing and the 13 year old girls look to be about 25 was even worse for him because he was in a class with girls already older. Not an issue once he grew. His birthday is in January, so he has friends only 2 weeks older than him that are legitimately in his year. If his birthday had been later in the year then I suspect there may have been more problems, I also suspect we may have had more trouble getting the school to agree.

dbd33

Oh dear. Donald Trump is an erudite man holding well thought out policy positions and is a danger to no one. His barber is a talented artist.

Back with the double cohort, I wonder if anyone has studied the long term impact. I would think the students in the older year had a competitive advantage when they arrived at university; that may have persisted or it might be that they were bored, like a bright student in a class of slow kids, and dropped out/got into trouble. If we knew what happened to such a large sample we might be better able to predict what happens to the individual age displaced student.