daisymoll

PS Mike, I think you sum it all up enormously well!

MikeUK

My wife ( an ex Canadian high school teacher) dug into the curriculum pretty much as you have done, got some workbooks from Canada as that methdodology was what they were familiar with, worked out which year they would land in in the UK ( up one for us)
Worked out the gaps in the curriculum and then also focused on where the gaps were with both boys
Then during a couple of weeks before they left Canada we moved to intensive Home schooling, to start bridging the gap, and then when we landed in the UK new books were bought with more of a UK focus and the home schooling continued until we got them a place in a school
We did keep up some support with help from there new teacher to polish off the Gaps
Now 1½ yrs in I’m happy to say they have more than caught up, in fact my wife would say the schooling alone was in hind sight justification for moving…

Mary louise

So, in your wife's opinion, schooling is better in the UK ? We've been here 8 months, with kids in grade 9 and 4, and, as far as I can see, the schooling here in Canada is more laid back but they achieve a lot more in the UK, and our kids, too, will have to catch up to their year groups when we go back in 3 years.

MikeUK

In my Wife’s opinion, the schooling in the parts of Canada she’s familiar with or has friends form teacher college in (its big country so don’t want to be too general);
There is too much union focus on seniority and traditional ways of working which tends to leave lots of bad teachers in the system with little or no scope for progressive teaching methods, combine this with an ethos that is reluctant to use “fail” grades leads to a very soft teaching approach, with a lot less focus on measurable academics
Also one other area of contention is the lack of consistent grading, each school monitors its grading scales there are no matriculation boards to drive consistence and the nearest thing to a set curriculum is driven by the province which is often so vague, it goes down to the local board or in some case right down the individual school to set the agenda this makes it very diffciualt to sate which is agood scholl and which needs improvement, (and the senior teachers like it this way)

Combine this with tight boundary restriction on movement between school and good schooling becomes a bit of a post code lottery, at best an honest opinion by your relator before you buy, or at worst local opinion once you’ve moved in

Overall like in many systems the good will survive and go on to do well and catch up in university, the middle will go on to create that Canadian middle class which IMHO (not my wife’s )is nice polite but when it comes to base expectations in the workforce noticeably below average when compared to their European counterparts, its in part why most Brits tend to well in the workforce, the competition is starting at a lower baseline...

However we both agree that those kids below average will be let down by the Canadian system, it doesn’t take much to look around Walmart and see that the bottom of the barrel in Canada is a whole lot lower down the ladder than that of their UK counterpart

Your average Red Neck is much dumber than your average Chav

rivingtonpike

I think this is an extremely good summation of the reality for many school district and how they are run. The union control. seniority over talent and a hard to measure curriculum performance are all factors which disadvantage the Canadian system (as mike says, these have to be gross generalisations and don't necessarily reflect everyone's experience). For us, being on the Island - and I'll admit in a predominantly white middle class area - the schools our kids go to certainly seem to have stimulated their learning experience. There is never a battle to get them into school in the morning. The extra curricular lunchtime and after school activities are wonderful. Every Division has at least one field trip a term. While some of the older more senior teachers certainly appear to be there for the paycheque first paycheckids second, I would venture that the majority of them are fairly hard working proponents of their trade.

How our kids would fair in the UK system? I don't know. It is almost impossible to make any sort of objective assessment of comparative performance when the two scenarios can't be played out simultaneously. For what it's worth though, the Canadian system hasn't appeared to have let them down yet. I hope this remains to be the case.

Mary louise

Our first experience when kids started school here in September last year - schools on strike - not for day, not for a week - for pretty much the whole of September - and strike had started back in June I believe. The kids love it of course - no uniform, hardly any homework, lots of field trips/school discos/statutory holidays/strikes every 4 years - but I would take them back to the UK tomorrow if I could and I feel bad for my daughter, in G9 - she will finish her schooling here and get a High School diploma (she's on course for an honours diploma) but it won't be worth 10 GCSEs and 3 A levels when we go back. We'll end up paying for her to go to college to make up GCSEs and A levels

Shard

And this doesn't happen in the UK? You don't see the 'bottom of the barrel' in Asda, because they are unemployable and often living on benefits. If anything the Canadian system provides more upside opportunity to lower/middle achievers as it does not force an academic specialisation prior to university.

MikeUK

Oh its here in the UK ... You'll see it quite clearly in place in Birmingham, part of Glasgow etc

My mother in law worked (retired last month) at one of those 'vocational' school is east London ON and they too produce the unemployable heading for benefits ....

Maybe City to City they're closer....

But the UK doesn't have those rural schools that quite happily produce illiterate farmers without any concern, or the failed schools on the reserves ...

Almost Canadian

My daughters attend rural schools. One wishes to become a lawyer, the other a vet. Their grades at this time suggest that they are on course to achieve their objectives.

While I accept that there are no "reserves" in the UK, there are plenty of "failing schools" as your post appears to accept.

MikeUK

And I don't dispute that many will leave the same schools to do well, more in part due to parental push

My point is that those left at the bottom in Canada are more likely to be left to fail, than those at the bottom in the UK

My experience of a Rural Ontario school interestingly in a zone of many +$1million dollar houses (Caledon)

Was that a single stream approach was taken,;
The top tended to be bored and under stimulated but would cope regardless
The middle who was its target audience they coped but weren’t really pushed too hard,
poor sub-standard teaching was left to the next year to be fixed by the next teacher rather than discipline or motivate the poor teacher… the union drove this solution ratherthan fix the issue in part due to the seniority difference between the two teachers in our school
The bottom of the class was left to flounder, not even failed just graded enough to get them into the next year for simplicity

I based this on good knowledge of 4 boys within 3yrs of each other over 3 yrs, two were mine and two we looked after before and after school
1 was above average and a good student, two were average and disliked school but one was pushed by the parent, and one was well below average
And some on local knowledge based on the gossip & hearsay (but very consistent) of the other villagers we knew and their children

The difference for me is in the UK there seems to be a very active program to deal with substandard teachers and failing schools, I saw nothing like this in Canada (Ontario), nor did I see or hear about more modern progressive methods such as ‘mantel of the expert’

Whilst I understand that this is a single school in one school board in one province, my wife who has a lot more knowledge and connections, and my mother in law who worked for another school board saw this as fairly normal and to them wasn't and isolated case but fairly representative

rivingtonpike

I'm really sorry you feel the Canadian system failed your kids. For us, with kids in Grades 2 and 6, we couldn't be happier with their school. They love going in each morning. The free flow sort of approach seems to stimulate them rather than allow them to just goof off. I admit, as professional parents ourselves, we are reasonably pushy, but they seem to thrive on this. I would like to think they would have done well in the UK system too. I think school is what you make of it, both as kids and parents.

Almost Canadian

I don't doubt that the "union seniority" issue presents problems. But there will be many on this board that would argue that the disservice to the students is more than made up for by the benefit to the teachers, from a societal point of view.

Your experience of the school you refer to matches, almost perfectly, my experience of school in England.

One wonders how Canada manages to do better than the UK in international tables?

In any event, our children have experienced very similar teaching and teaching methods in England, Calgary, and rural Alberta. One of the schools they attended until recently had a total number 90 or so students. This was K-8.

I don't doubt that the Alberta system isn't perfect. I don't doubt that UK system is perfect either.

I was reading recently that the much touted Finnish system isn't what it used to be either: Finns aren't what they used to be

The world is going to the dogs

rivingtonpike

I'm afraid I'm one who doesn't agree with this in any shape or form. Jobs should be won and kept on merit, not how powerful your union is or how long you've been in post. My kids' education should come before some union dictate. If a teacher is good at their job then great. But if they're shown to be poor, replace them with one who is good.

Almost Canadian

I'm with you there

MikeUK

This one I have often struggled with, I just haven't seen it when working across Canada
maybe I'm biased in R&D but the calibre I have here in the UK drawn form across Europe (and south America) is much superior to what I had in interviews in Canada

maybe all the Talent does go south ?

But it does reflect where major internationals are building their centre's of excellence ?