nikki dreaming

Hi everybody!

It appears that a lot of you that have now made the move to NS or about to have youngish children.

I have a 5yr old and a 14 mth old.

With regards to my oldest I would be grateful to hear your feedback on the schools generally in NS in comparison to the UK. Understand that perhaps not appropriate to name names but I am just after general feedback, re what is similar/different, class sizes generally, length of days, afterschool club availability, quality of facilities, available technology etc

Many Thanks

carolinedraper

Our son is in French Immersion and is 5 years old. All his lessons are taught in French by one teacher. Class sizes are 28.

We find personally that the source of most issues is the school bus.....

There are a mixture of kids on it from diff family types and you have no control of what your child learns on the trip to and from school. He has also been beaten up twice on the bus.

Bullying in our local schools is there but they pretend otherwise. Probably no more than what I seem to remember happening in the UK.

We are moving to PEC and are paying for him to go to Prince Albert College as we feel smaller class sizes, stable family socio eco etc will be more stable for him.

kazbob

Hi Caroline,

That doesn't sound good. Can I ask where in NS you are?

I hope your move to PEC proves more stable and productive for you and your family.

Thanks,

Karen

Poppy2

I have a 5 year old and a 10 year old in school here and I cant speak highly enough of the standard of education and the level of support they are getting.

If you live within 2.4 km of school, so not eligable for the bus as it is deemd to be within walking distance. Though you can sometimes get courtesy bus seats for those in the walking distance.

There are 26 in the Primary class my 5 year old is in and the day is 8.30 (8.45) unti 2.15. In that day they get a 15 minute recess and an hour for lunch. The difference here is that staying at school for lunch is historically not been an automatic right of every school child. The bus kids get to stay for lunch for free, but the other kids can either go home for lunch or you pay $20 per week for them to be part of the Excel programme which essentially means they get to eat lunch with a supervised group in a room and then they have around 20 minutes play, again supervised.

I have found the level of education so far to be excellent. We lived in New Zealand for 4 years, though my 10 year old had had 18 months of school in the UK - and this knocks spots off either place. At Primary level there is lots of art/craft stuff, but also a lot of reading, writing and science. They do a lot of crafts for the coming festivals/holidays and my 5 year old came home every day for a fortnight with the most wonderful Chinese New Year things - dragon hand puppet, paper lantern etc. They also do music and gym several times a week. There is lots of emphasis on friendship and virtues. Older children are used as Peer mentors and helpers all the time, for reading buddies and also for their diplomatic skills at recess smoothing out disputes amongst the younger children.

The day is full on, there is no doubt about it, but my son could write his name the first day he came home. By week 2 he could recognise and name nearly all the alphabet and by week 3 he was telling me lots of basic sums (2+2=4,3+3=6 etc) and he was totally right. He comes home and crashes. But each day he says he has had lots of fun and comes home generally covered in chalk dust or paint.

My 10 year old isnt very academic by comparison to his peers, but for the first time ever he comes home and says his day was GREAT. He has never enjoyed school like this. He has done Powerpoint presentations, science projects and a marketing project right now that involves the kids in groups making their own video of an advert they have made to sell the *egg protector* science project of last week. The homework is full on, but it is so much more constructive and consolidates what is happening in the classroom, much more than he has ever had to do. It was totally overwhelming at first, but he has risen to the challenge and is doing fantastically. Overall, there is far more discipline in the classroom for both ages and there is no option but to do the homework and present it well

Personally, I didnt feel it was appropriate for my children to do French Immersion, especially the 5 year old, as we arent a french speaking family on any level. I think starting school is stressful enough without the added distraction of it all being taught in a second language, and one that I dont even have a grip of. You can do Immersion later on, though from grade 4 onwards they do 30 minutes french a day, which imho is more than enough. I do agree that being bilingual is a definate asset for our kids when they seek jobs, but I dont think that we should be trying to do all their schooling in a 2nd language. I would rather do more classes outside of school (if the daily lesson wasnt enough) and learn French together. But that is just my opinion.

Holidays are few and far between - I beleive one week in October, 2 weeks for Christmas, then one week for March break and then nothing until the 10 long weeks of the summer. This is why, I have decided, the schools look like prisons on the outside and dont really look too appealing from the outside - they are mostly used in the bleaker months and there isnt much outside play time in the day. It was quite off putting initially.

Now as for choice of school - you dont really get any, there is a strict catchment area policy that you would need to seriously have good grounds to challenge from what I have heard. Unless you pay for your children's education of course. So it is a real consideration when you look for houses, you wont have a choice of 3 schools like maybe in the UK (we had 8 actually), even if in Halifax city area, you will just have one school assigned according to postcode. I recommend when you get a chance to actually go and meet the Principle and look around inside, dont make a choice based on the exterior!

Well that is a lot to read through - as you can tell I am thrilled and I think you will be too. Its been great for us, and the kids are doing things like skiing trips and plays, family skates at the lakes/rinks etc. It is wonderful. There is even an end of term trip to spend a night at the Maritime museum for the 10 year old, he cant wait.

j42

Thankyou for that it was really good to readwe are going to be hopefully looking for a school in NS from sept

nikki dreaming

Hi Poppy2

Thanks very much for your informative post, I understand what the french immersion system is now, I agree whilst it is very important for the children to learn this I would like my son to be settled and happy and to go from there.

We are planning a recce trip in May so will try and organise a couple of visits to schools to get an idea of what they are like, although I know they can vary one to another!

Thanks again

Nikki

nikki dreaming

Hi Carolinedraper

Sorry to hear of the troubles your son has experienced good luck with the new move and hope its a fresh start for you all.

Poppy2

I totally forgot to say how sorry I was about your son's experience on the bus, it makes me feel ill thinking about my children being bullied, let alone beaten up. I hope you have a lot more success in the new school and he will feel more at home, poor him.

Paradisefound

My 6 year old child is in a class of 18 pupils with two assistant teachers. Compared to nearly 40 children with 1 teacher and 1 assistant in the UK. She is nearly getting individual attention. Her teacher being a grade 1/primary teacher is excellent and community wide they sing her praises. Many past students going on to do so well in there adult lives.

School lunches are made by a local restaurant so she gets such well balanced and luxurious school meals. Often better than she gets at home and all for $2.50 a meal. She is a picky child but is eating far more with the choice she is being given everyday.

Sorry to hear of your sons experience Carolinedrapper. I have not heard of anything like it happening in our community. All the bus drivers on each route knowing the children so well and the parents, keep an eye out for that type of thing. One would get to know of any trouble makers straight away and drivers,parents,teachers etc would put a stop to it. The drivers stop the bus and lay the law down if they even start getting too noisy. I hope your son has a better time at your new location.

Poppy2

Where are you thinking of moving to or has that not been decided as yet? I forgot to mention that in my children's school, that there is 2 classes per grade, one english and one french immersion, so they are in the same school together. And when they start french in the english class at grade 4, that is around 8 or 9, so still earlier than we did in the UK system and it is 30 minutes each day.

I think you will be really well prepared if you can get the time to meet with some Principals, and see in the classrooms to see what they do.

Good luck with the reccie visit!

nikki dreaming

We haven't decided yet re location it will be influenced by work and if we are lucky enough to get a job offer will make some decisions from there, although we have made a number of contacts in the Northern Region.

We are still very open minded and hope we will get much more of an idea once we have visited.

As far as the recce trip, we are planning this for May and hope to cover as much of the area as we can, so we can get a feel for the Province as we have never been there.

carolinedraper

Hi I should add that our son really enjoys the French Immersion and is coping well.

The child who beat him up used to be his friend and is the same age!!! Yes the driver did stop it. But school policy is is something happens on the bus it is up to the drivers to deal with it and the parents as it is not on school ground it is not part of their juristiction....

I agree that on the whole the standard of schooling is far better. We live in a very very rural fishing community 700 people in the village.

We know where we are going is far better and the right move, however do not feel that we are running away from here, it just that our situation has changed dramatically and so ON does fit our future far better.

Thanks for all the words of support though.

christmasoompa

Sorry to hijack this thread a bit but I have a question for Poppy2 about French Immersion Schooling. I was just reading your response and was intrigued as you said that you decided against if for your 5 year old partly because 'I think starting school is stressful enough without the added distraction of it all being taught in a second language'. I was under the impression that French Immersion starts off with very little French being taught and at that age they are mainly spoken to in English, and then it increases over the next couple of years, is that not the case?

We are very keen for our daughter to go to a FI school when we get out there (although I do speak French so that makes it different) and just wondered if you could clarify for me as I don't know if I've misunderstood? I thought she wouldn't be being spoken to completely in French for at least a couple of years.

I did French every day at school from age 7 but tbh it was a bit of a waste of time and nobody came out of that with any fluency at all, I think you need much more time spent on a language to get any good at it which is another reason why I would like to put our children in French Immersion if we can.

So if you could let me know if I've got it wrong and they are only ever spoken to in French at age 5 then that would be great as we might well have a re-think!!

Thanks in advance for your help.

carolinedraper

In my son's school all subjects from age 5 are in French - the younger they start the quicker they pick a second language up.

The french they learn is equiv to first year senior school. He can count to over 100, pronounce the alphabet, write basic sentences, describe pictures in basic 4 to 5 word sentences, over 90% of teacher instruction is in french e.g sit down now please, wash hands before lunch etc etc. Home work is at this age is mainly reading 10 page books in french, learning words (cheat sheets for parents).

He has learnt more in 1 year then most 11 year olds do in senior school.

If his new school was FI we would love it, but its not so we will continue at home with a tutor.

There is some English but really thats left for the parent teacher evenings...

lynpy

We moved to France when my two children were 7 & & 9 years old. They were taught only in French (obviously!) and only had a handful of private lessons. I fretted for the first 6 months as they both struggled, they didn't have a clue what was going on in their class. But by the end of the school year they were both able to converse pretty well and after 18 months everything just fell into place for them both.

After 2 years my son, now 12 and at high school, is in the top half of his class and my daughter is also doing pretty well, though she generally uses school as a social occasion!

From experience I would highly recommend that you give your child the opportunity to learn French from an early age. My 7 year old has advanced in the language far quicker than my son ( she speaks without any accent) and I do believe from what I've read that when they get to about 9 or 10 it does get harder.

Probably why at my age it goes in one ear and out the other

I have also learnt to never under estimate the ability of your child as they really are a lot tougher than we think!