Hi

We will hopefully be relocating to this area soon. Please we would really love some feedback on good places to live , places to avoid . I also need a recommendation on a good primary school. In fact any bits of useful information that might make our transition easier

Welcome to BE

There isnt the same obsession here with "good schools", all the schools are basically going to do a decent job.

You might find these links helpful

This one has about Whitby schools
http://www.dennisparadis.com/Durham_...e_1842326.html

Access to reports on each school (you will need the name of the school first)

http://www.fraserinstitute.org/repor...ov=ON&lv=E&l=A

These two are government websites with regards to education.

Find the school board / school to see reports.

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/elementary.html

https://eqaoweb.eqao.com/pbs/Listing.aspx



For a link for researching school performance all over Canada: http://www.fraserinstitute.org/repor...olperformance/

There should be a pop up disclaimer whenever the Fraser Institute is mentioned. It could contain things like "not an equivalent to the school ranking authorities in the UK", "political lobby group", "tests only selected schools so as to skew the rankings", "inadequate data available to it to allow proper ranking". That sort of thing, just in case someone takes it to be an objective evaluator of scholastic performance.

I stand corrected.

I suggest the OP looks at the direct government links to ascertain each school's performance.

There is no equivalent of OFSTED reports here, unfortunately.

I'm not excited about the issue, I'd just look for a school that offers the bac (www.ibo.org) but the Fraser Institute is a bit of a dodgy source; their stuff may be useful but it's not unbiased.

On that basis, how much should I read into the fact that the two schools nearest to me, one has had a 10/10 or 9/10 for the 5 years listed, whereas the other is around 7/10 consistently....

Matter of opinion. I think schools in the UK are way too concerned with teaching to the test in order to look good in the OFSTED reports, which add considerably to the teachers administrative burden, rather than letting teachers have more of a free reign to be creative and enthusiastic and to get the best out of the kids any way they can.

I suppose there are arguments either way, and really it comes down to "Do you trust teachers to do their job as well as they can, or do you think they are slackers who need someone watching over their shoulder all the time"

Ofsted reports have been watered down so much in recent years that they are meaningless. In fact I suspect they have been used as a way of classifying okay and poor schools together to try and convince parents they are the same.

Fraser Institute Reports are okay for what they are and can help to identify a group of schools to focus on. The province will also publish results.

I would look at schools that offer either IB or AP. Personally I prefer the look of the AP setup but they are both well regarded and you can check out equivalency on the UCAS website.

I think its a bit of a myth that Canadians regard all schools as okay but it does get repeated on this forum a lot.