fledermaus

I worked last night and x-rayed a few kids, as you do. X-raying Canadian kids is generally much nicer and easier than British kids. They don't make a whole song and dance about it. They don't seem particularly scared but more interested in the whole thing. To me they seem more confident and independent. I explain what's going to happen and what they need to do and usually they do it if they can. If they aren't too keen then the parent will say something to the effect of "I don't like it either, it isn't pleasant but it has to be done". The kids who aren't in terrible pain usually smile, chat away, and ask questions. If it's a babe in arms the parents are usually pretty good at holding the child in the right position etc.

Of course you get the occasional case of teenage angst or toddler tantrum but they are rarer and the parents deal with it more often than not.

So, before all the British parents post indignant replies- I'm sure that your child would not have been one of the screaming, fighting, "I can't do it" kids back in Britain and yes of course there were some decent ones but I'm curious about when and how and if one of those kids would become a pleasant Canadian kid?

Zoe Bell

I'm currently working in an IB school ( not as a teacher) and have to say I'm very impressed with the academic rigour of the science portion

looking at the physics teachers in particular , they are teaching concepts to the grade 7s that the UK exam boards no longer touch on even in A Level

Alan2005

Such as?

Mistress Miggins

THATS THE POINT I MADE AGES AGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Being in a good environment just further allows good parents to do even better. If you were crap in England, you aint going to swallow Dr Spoks good parenting guide, internalise supernanny and suddenly start farting rainbows. (Although maybe the above aren't good examples but you know where I'm going with this!)

Invested parent = blossoming child. simple.

El Richo, I love you.

Mrs M x

lins and Stef McLachlan

What a lovely expression......
Invested parent = blossoming child.
lol
Stef

Zoe Bell

Just of the top of my head
forces as vectors , working out resultants ( this is covered very basically in AS physics but the grade 12s were working in situations even when the forces were not perpendicular )

in biology , the grade 8s look at cell organelles in a lotmore detail than is taught at KS3 , even looking at things like the role of the Golgi apparatus in protein synthesis

I'm sure I'll think of more but the physics seems a lot more mathematically rigorous with basic calculus concepts being introduced a lot earlier

I recall an AS mechanics paper in my last year of teaching in the UK which consisted of a drawing of a box withan arrow pointing to the left labelled 5 newtons and an arrow to the right labelled 2 newtons
the question was to work out the resultant force and was worth 2 marks

Oink

They have IB schools in the UK.

Zoe Bell

Yes they do , many of the independent schools now teach it as a more rigorous alternative to the dumbing down of A levels

I'd be interested in making a comparison between IB schools in the UK and Canada because the IB is "tweeked" in each country to meet national ( or provincial) standards

A colleague with whom I used to work actively looked out for IB schools as an alternative to leaving teaching completely. I know he's still around because , bizarely our school had to mail him some moderation samples

I've had to mail our samples to the UK, Isreal, Portugal , Japan and Azerbaijan. The latter has still to arrive I think it's going by donkey post !

el_richo

Aaw shucks


.