laceybank

Avoid allowing your child to be in a "split" class. ie) a grade 7/8 split will have 7th and 8th graders in one class. The wider the ability mix the more difficult it is to teach. I have been into many schools in Canada as a supply teacher and all the problem classes are split classes. It is very common here. Because the curriculum is different for each grade the teacher will be teaching one half of the class while the other half is working on something else without the focus of the teacher. In basic terms your child will be "taught" less......come on Canada this doesn't happen in other "decent" countries, stop counting the money and improve the education!

annie3-4

Hi there , just wondered if you could give me an idea of school fees in Ontario, my boy is eight (nine by the time we go )As we have two girls who will be 16 and 17 by the time we go and probably want to go to Uni I am wondering if private ed for little one would be affordable,
my kids currently attend Catholic schools in UK, although we are catholic, I have found that the catholic schools here have generally better standard of discipline and education, is this also true of Canada. I am happy for the kids to attend a non catholic school, just wondered how they compare. thanks .

dbd33

Catholic schools are state funded in Ontario, there are no fees. If you end up going to Mississauga, Holy Name of Mary on Mississauga Road has a good reputation. I don't know how a transferring student would get it in, it used to be "first come first registered" so I just had to sleep in the road, like a resident of Toronto, in order to secure a place. Generally the quality of schools in Ontario declines as follows, private, French Catholic, French other, English Catholic, English other though there are some exceptions; Toronto French School (private) has a huge drug problem while Lorne Park (state funded, in Mississauga) has a reputation as a good school for white children (only).

Souvenir

I'm surprised nobody has suggested the International Bac yet. I'd certainly consider going for that if I was in your position.

My stepson is in the Quebec system (privately) and I find the curriculum to be very narrow and parochial, as does he. When I was his age I was studying about ten subjects for O-level. His week revolves around Maths, French, English, Human Biology, "Other" Science, Geography (only of Quebec) and Art; all compulsory.

The system appears to be creating a generation of kids with only a rudimentary understanding of science and technology and no knowledge whatsoever of geography, history and culture outside Quebec.

Maybe it's being done on purpose, to keep the kids in Quebec and Quebec in the kids. A modern-day version of barefoot and pregnant. If it is, it's working. My kid, although a Quebecker by birth, has lived in the UK and in Ontario. Some of the yokels call him tete-carre (square head), an insulting name for Ontarians.

dbd33

Note that taking the Bac doesn't address the latter point. The more academically successful of my children (finished the Bac, SAT score 1460, offers from the big name schools) knows nothing of history, having packed it in at about 14, and has only the most rudimentary grasp of science and technology. She can, however, write well in a selection of modern and ancient languages.

Souvenir

That's impressive. The kids round here can only manage to write badly in jouale or MSN.

Didn't realise that about the Bac. I stand corrected.

hot wasabi peas

Some of my best book learnin' (yeehaw) was in a school where 6 grades were all in one room. There was always someone else who could help you out and there was always someone to help out. There was an education beyond what was in the curriculum because of the demographic mix.

There are educators who argue that classrooms that are more heterogeneous are more stimulating and beneficial to the students. I don't know if they're right or wrong but from my perspective, I have very fond memories of that school and my experience agrees with them.

laceybank

Your school sounds like a school from "little house on the prairie" where they had K-12 in the same class.....but I guess all they needed to know was how to drive a tractor....(actually I've never seen LHOTP and I'm guessing it was before mechanised farming but you get my drift I hope?) Generally speaking the closer the ability levels the more efficient the teaching and learning....of course may not be as much fun though!

Quinn of Québec

Hi there,

I thought I'd throw in a few of my observations.
Firstly let me say that I am a teacher here in the UK so obviously know a fair deal about schooling here.

Last month I spent a fact-finding/job hunting two weeks in Canada in which I visited a lot of schools in Québec (I will be teaching there from August of this year).

The first difference worth mentioning is that whereas in the UK, the curriculum is the same all over the UK and determined/governed at a national level in Canada it is determined by the provincial governments and can therefore vary greatly across Canada.

I did visit a variety of schools but as they were all in Québec I can only make comparisons of the UK with that province but it may be interesting to you anyhow.

I am a science teacher and I must say that since GCSEs replaced the old 'O-levels' the science curriculum in the UK has become increasingly diluted and 'dumbed-down' in recent years. In Canada however the curriculum for the three sciences is far more traditional and conceptually challenging (in fact it makes the UK science curriculum look a little embarassing!).

This apparent superiority of the Québec educational system has to be tempered by the fact that whereas in the UK all pupils have to take english, maths, science and a foreign language, in Québec the only subjects that are compulsory are english and french and history (of Québec). I found it quite shocking that maths and science weren't compulsory but of course serious students take them anyway.

Compare the Québec curriculum for science found at;
http://www.mels.gouv.qc.ca/GR-PUB/me...u-a.htm#second

to that of the Uk science curriculum found at;

http://www.aqa.org.uk/qual/pdf/AQA3468WSP.pdf

take it from me the Québec curriculum for science make the Uk's look rudimentary!

The thing I like about the Canadian system is that if you fail a year you can be forced to repeat it. This is a hell of an incentive to work hard for the students there. In the UK the concept of failure is brushed under the carpet until after the final exams so that the first taste of failure the pupils have is when they get their gcse results which is a little too late don't you think? This difference in the two systems in manifest in the difference in pupils' attitudes towards study; here in the UK teachers chase pupils around trying to get coursework out of them etc and the pupils act is if they are doing YOU a favour when they comply and try tp improve their grade - it's the 'tail wagging the dog' so to speak. In Canada if the students don't want to work - fine, they'll have to repeat a year and they know it consequently they generally seem to be more motivated to work hard and do well.

I was impressed with the manners, attitude and general behaviour of the Canadian students when I visited the schools.

On the subject of being impressed, I visited two state run schools in the Eastern Townships close to the US border, where EVERY student is given an apple G4 ibook laptop computer for the their studies. What impressed me . . . .? hardly any breakages despite the project being a few years old.

What does sadden me about Québec though, is that all the denominational schools have dissapeared as the state becomes increasingly secular - how sad!

Anyway, enough of my ramblings for now - more on this subject when I'm less tired.

Souvenir

Interesting stuff. I guess I was basing my comments on science on my own experience. I did my O-levels back in the 70s. In those days we were taught enough about science to make high-explosives, build a radio-controlled detonator and select the most appropriate part of a cat to stick the bomb in.

Kids these days...

Souvenir

No. Not sad. The church was used as an instrument of social control for too long and until not all that long ago. My mother in law was essentially kicked out of her local RC church for stopping after 3 kids.

Stripping the churches of much of their influence in matters other than the spiritual has done much to improve this society, and women's rights in particular. The change has been quite extreme in some cases. For example, women who get married do not assume their husband's name. It's not that they don't have to; it's that they can't, without changing it by deed poll.

Not that people bother getting married any more.

dbd33

Perhaps I've understated my children's grasp of science. Thinking back to the grade 8, about age 13 and about 8 years ago, science fair, we built a pickle glowing machine and a daughter submitted a project analyzing different types of pickle and their electrolyte content. (I recall the claim that dills gave off a "soft romantic light"). The project was well received but didn't get a prize suggesting that, in a school, of 400 pupils, there were three better science projects. Another daughter, at the same age, had to build and race a, push, go kart which entailed much hunting for low friction wheels; that's technology if not science. The kids were never good at, or interested, in math and gave it up at the first chance, nonetheless I recall them having to deal with differential calculus and simultaneous equations (apologies if one is a subset of the other). I'm not sure if someone avoiding maths can escape these in the UK.

dbd33

I quite agree and think it a scandal that the tax payer funds Catholic education, but not any other religious education, in Ontario. Even Newfoundland has merged the school systems now.

Biiiiink

Hang on, you forgot about Scotland! How could you go and do that

...that leads me on to one of your other points. I have no experience of the Canadian education system as a pupil or parent but having gone through faith schools in Scotland, I'm not sure why their disappearance in Quebec could be sad. All I encountered was religious bigotry and shocking sectarianism at a very young age.

Biiiiink

Grah

Here's and example of a science fair project in canada



Kimberly Richards
Choose Them and Lose Them PROJECT
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan CITY
Walter Murray Collegiate SCHOOL


Is Canadian wheat production threatened by genetic erosion? To answer
this question, I examined phenotypic traits and DNA profiles for 48
wheat cultivars developed over the past 160 years. Results showed that
genetic selection to improve agronomic performance has not led to genetic
erosion. Selective breeding to enhance yield has not increased the risk to the strain.

Other Awards

3rd APEC Youth Science Festival, Beijing
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Award
Canadian Commission For Unesco – Science for Peace and Development Award
Genome Canada Award
Gold Medal – Biotechnology
The University of Western Ontario Scholarship

For others have a look at http://www.ysf-fsj.ca/Home.aspx or search for Science Fair Canada in google.

Here's a document that lists some of the 2005 fairs

http://www.ysf-fsj.ca/files/PDF/YSMonth/YSMPosterE.pdf


The biggest different I have seen in the education is if the desire in the kids to learn more then schools help and encourage them. The school gets the honour of having the greatest amounts of University Grants, you can't do that if you only pushing the kids thru the curriculum hoops.

Remember most UK schools only have to care about you up to 16 years old, 'A' levels are normally done else where, so University get kids from 6th form Colleges not schools.

Big difference.