Schooling in the United Kingdom versus Schooling in Canada

It’s strange how fast and unexpectedly your future can change. You think you’re going to continue your life the same, boring, old way and then it takes a wild turn! That’s exactly what happened to me. I was quite happy in a small town near London, England and at the age of 12, I had everything I thought I needed to be satisfied with my life.

Who would’ve thought that, after living in the UK for six and a half years, I would move to Canada! My parents convinced me it was for the better, but I wasn’t sure if I was willing to leave my comfortable life for a place I’d never even seen before.

However, after 11 months of living in Toronto, I think my parents made a great choice. Furthermore, I realized that there are many differences between schooling in the UK and Canada. Many people ask about these differences, so I thought it would be great to share them.

Considering the two countries are both very far away from each other, it isn’t much of a surprise that the education system is very different. In Canada, most elementary schools are from grades one to six, middle schools are from grades six to eight, and high school is from grades nine to 12 (there are some exceptions to this; however, in the UK middle school isn’t a thing and high school starts as early as grade seven! The term grade isn’t commonly used in the UK and instead, they use the word year. The most surprising fact is that while school in Canada ends in grade 12, British school ends in year 13! 

Moving on from all those complicated things to something all students can relate to on a personal level: exams.

In Canada, all our exams are pretty spaced out; however, the UK has “exam weeks.” Personally, I prefer exams in Canada as having up to 15-20 exams in one to two weeks is extremely stressful.

I also feel like having all exams packed in one to two weeks reduces the chances of a student scoring high marks as they can’t concentrate on one subject and are forced to cram so much information into their minds. Some students may prefer exam weeks as throughout the whole year you don’t get graded on projects you do, and your exam scores determine your final marks.

Another major difference is the amount of homework. No one likes homework, that’s the same all around the world! When I first came to Canada, I was a little shocked that we only had one-two days to do homework. Why? Well because in the UK we received a fair share of homework, but we were always given at least 1 week to complete it.

This might seem easier; however, every week we would get up to 15 hours’ worth of homework, which wasn’t great. Imagine having to spend your entire weekend doing homework – not a pleasant feeling for sure.

However, if you didn’t do your homework or forgot it on the day it was due, it was a 30-minute detention afterschool! The consequences were a lot hasher than those in Canada, which is probably the reason I managed to hand in all my homework on time during my first year here.

On my first day of school in Canada, I wasn’t sure how the schedule worked but I remember not being very fond of it. In my school in Canada, we have three periods then lunch then three periods which was something I didn’t like at first. This was probably as I was used to having two periods, break, two periods, lunch and then two periods. Of course, now I am used to it but before three periods in a row were torture for me as I could never concentrate for so long without a break in between. The school days in Canada seemed longer to me and it would result in being remarkably tired at the end of the day. 

After all the hard work we do over the year, everyone looks forward to holidays! At first, I thought it was unfair that Canadians didn’t get a two week break at the end of each term; however, I realized this was because Canadians get a longer summer so really, the amount of time off in both countries are pretty much the same. 

Of course, there are many more differences between the two countries, but I think schooling is one of the biggest differences. I have been asked several times whether I prefer British schools or Canadian schools. To that I say that they are both great and beneficial in their own ways and for me it’s hard to choose one due to that reason. So far, I like Canada, but I do really miss my old life in the UK. One of the things I miss most is my British accent and it’s slightly surprising that I lost it within three months of living in Canada. But I like to believe everything happens for a reason and I am looking forward to a great future here.