r/CanadianTeachers

I work a full time job as an established teacher but as a single parent I am interested in adding a secondary gig to increase my income.

It would have to be:

- online
- teaching related
- after hours
- not something like TPT

Unsure it matters but I have my Masters as well.

Hi there!

I’m an education student at the uofa. I notice that all of their workshops for teachers are specifically for staff at the school, not education students.

Therefore, I was wondering if anyone knows of any organizations that offer frequent virtual workshops/seminars for teachers that also allow for education students to attend?

Thank you!!

I had an interview with EPSB last week, and the hr person that interviewed me said that someone will be contacting me this week to fill out the supply form. However, no one has been in touch with me. I did send a email yesterday, and they said that someone will be in touch with me soon. Does anyone know what this means?

Some context: I immigrated to Canada in my twenties, completed a Bachelor of Arts in English, and have just been accepted into a Bachelor of Education program. I have several years of experience working with children in Canada, and my goal is to become an Early Years teacher.

My biggest concern is that English is not my first language, although I've scored 8.5 on the IELTS (equivalent to a C2 level). I've studied English literature, written short stories and poetry at my university, and speak English at home. I received a medal for having the highest GPA in my English major. I'm not trying to brag, just to point out that non-native English speakers can be just as capable as, and sometimes outperform, their native-speaking colleagues. I also have a noticeable Latin American accent.

Why am I saying all of this? I'm worried that being an immigrant could hurt my career prospects. I've seen some comments on this sub from people who believe that if you're not a native English speaker, you shouldn't teach English because there are plenty of native English speakers in Canada. To me, this borders on racial discrimination, but that's probably a discussion for another time.

I guess I'm not sure what my question is. I'm just wondering whether being a native English speaker matters that much when it comes to teaching in Canadian schools. Is having an accent likely to make my life more difficult? I'd really appreciate hearing about your experiences and opinions!

Hi everyone! I am an internationally educated teacher. I moved to Canada because my husband is Canadian. I’m currently on maternity/parental leave and I’m planning to take some college courses in Ontario to address gaps in my education so I can eventually become a Registered ECE.

The situation is a little complicated because I was given only one opportunity to complete the courses needed to address my education gaps, and I have to complete them within one year. CECE also told me that they cannot delay/postpone my application simply because I am caring for my baby.

I’m having a baby, so obviously I’m trying to figure out how to balance the courses with caring for a newborn and receiving EI parental benefits.

I spoke with Service Canada, and they told me that taking courses could potentially affect my parental benefits, depending on the circumstances. They said I would need to report the courses once I’m receiving parental benefits.

My question is: Is there a specific number of study hours per week that is considered “too many” and could cause EI parental benefits to be reduced or stopped?

For example, if the courses are online/asynchronous and I’m studying around 5–10 hours per week while continuing to personally care for my baby, would that generally be considered okay? (I already asked Service Canada but they told me they have to individually assess every case did not give me exact answer)

I’m not trying to avoid reporting anything—I absolutely plan to report the courses but if I end up losing parental benefits because of the couses maybe it is better to decline the offer and start the process all over again after a year. But it took me nearly 2 years to gather all my previous college certificates/ translations/ related documents to submit to CECE from Europe and Asian schools. It would be bit hard to go through all this process again.

Has anyone in Canada/Ontario taken college courses while receiving EI parental benefits? What happened with your benefits?

Hi all,

I (24F) will be starting Teachers college in the next few weeks. I’m attending York University’s Junior Intermediate B.ed cohort with English as my teachable.

Overall, im excited for this journey but I must admit I’m super nervous lol! I would really appreciate some tips on how I can best prepare myself and maybe some suggestions on the things I may need.. (Aside from a laptop, pens, notebooks etc. what are some things that may be useful?)

Hey everyone, hope that the end of summer is going well!

I have recently been allowed to take jobs as a vice principal in a large metropolitain school board. It's a bank of candidates so I have the choice to stay a teacher or take a VP contract. This is now my 8th year teaching and I have a lot of experience moving to different grades/subjects, schools and even provinces.

Recently, a former VP contacted me and told me to apply to this position near by, with a student population that I am very familiar with. Yet, I have been suddenly struck with lots of fear and imposter syndrome, which i haven't felt since beginning teaching 8 years ago.

Has anyone else made the switch to admin relatively young? How did you make it through feeling not good enough?

Thanks!

Ford government preparing education ads taking aim at teacher unions as contract talks grind to a halt: leaked script

I don’t think any of us are surprised. I hope the public sees through the Ford government’s giant veil of BS. Given how unpopular Ford and PCs are right now now, and the number items that the public don’t trust them on, I’m optimistic this ploy will backfire.

Hello teachers!

This is my first year teaching a split level class - I am teaching a grade 5/6 split class and I am in BC. I have taught both these grades separately and have only taught intermediate grades in my 6 years of teaching (in our small town this includes grades 4, 5, 6, and 7). I did one split class in my final practicum in school years ago which was early elementary grades - I remember some of the general methods of teaching a split but it will be very different with higher grades.

I have been focusing a lot on how to teach math, teaching a core lesson to the whole class for topics that are in both curriculums and then going into the more difficult tasks for the higher grade.

I am looking for advice on teaching a split class in general, as well as teaching Language Arts, and other subjects in the most effective way.

Any advice or tips would be very helpful! I was put into this grade level very last minute. School starts in a week and I had been planning on teaching a straight grade 6 class only so I am not nearly as prepared as I would like to be.

Thanks in advance!

I'm aware different boards will do this process differently, depending on the collective agreement and any board policies. I'm looking for examples.

Context: I'm an experienced teacher in Alberta (starting year 8). Out of fear of the separatism referendum(b), I'm looking at jobs in other parts of the country and will likely need most of the year to get certification paperwork and moving plans ready should Albertans disappoint me. So I'm not currently in BC, but it is where I'd like to end up.

I understand that I will be at the bottom of any seniority list, and so I am wondering if there's a point in applying to specific job postings or if I should expect to only hear back from TTOC postings (which makes the move a lot riskier). But does having any teaching experience matter for hiring in some districts (as in, seniority is the tiebreaker rather than the main factor)? If so, those would be the districts I would be most interested in.

I have friends who work for some of BC's health authorities and seniority for them is "wait your turn" as experience doesn't hold a lot of weight with their employers, which scares me as I don't want to TOC for years.

I applied for loan forgiveness in February and they denied me due to the dates. Tried again with same dates as coworkers (January 1st, 2025 to December 31, 2025). My coworkers were approved in April, I was not.

Fast forward to several more attempts and phone calls. And they are now saying I don’t qualify because I don’t work the summer months (like every other teacher). And I would need to reapply and say my dates are September to June. This means I’d get the money later every year than everyone else.

Also to add: I do curriculum work in July every year and I’m a principal so I work half of August.

Anyone else had these issues??

How many hours or days does a TTOC need to work to make it on the next pay grade? Does half days count? (Already have the extra schooling on top )

Teacher parents, how do you make it work with only two personal days?

This is my first year with a teaching contract and it's hitting me that there's probably no way I can get to several pretty significant events for my kids. I'll probably have to choose 2 out of my oldest son's grade 6 farewell, any of my daughter's dance competitions where she isn't a weekend day, and Christmas Concert for all my kids (their school offers 2 performances but both are during the day), plus sometimes my oldest has hockey tournaments that start on Fridays. After years staying home, it's kind of killing me to realize there isn't a way to be there. I knew I wouldn't get to everything anymore but I really don't even know how to make it work.

Wondering if I may need to switch to subbing permanently (or at least until they're out of elementary) because I don't know that the trade off is worth it to me. How do other teacher parents find it?

It's Tuesday, so welcome to our weekly post for prospective teachers and teachers coming to Canada!

• Are you a prospective student teacher interested in or currently applying to teacher's colleges across Canada and would like more information on their BEd admission requirements/GPA/personal experiences/etc?
• Have you already googled specific schools and looked through their requirements for GPA and courses needed and would like clarification or more personalized experiences about the overall application process or what the school itself was like?
• Need to ask some questions about teachables and what the best route would be to get a BEd in your undergrad program?
• Confused about the difference between a BEd and a MEd and not sure what you need to become a teacher in Canada?
• Going the French route for your BEd and confused about what schools or courses are the best approach to taking this path?
• Coming from another career and have any questions on what you need to do to become a teacher in Canada?
• Are you a certified teacher from outside of Canada (ex. the US) and are interested in teaching here? (Please note that we are not an immigration subreddit and encourage you to actually research and look into whether or not you are able to immigrate to Canada first.)

This is your post!

Please use this post to ask questions about schools and teacher education programs, or to discuss/share any information pertaining to teacher's college/BEd/becoming a teacher. Make sure to include your location and what schools you're interested in if you have some in mind in your comment. Any posts made outside of this thread will be deleted with a reminder to use this one instead.

This is an automatic post that will post every Tuesday! Feel free to look through our past posts (previously megaposts) or searching via the "teacher's college sticky" tag.

I want to become a teacher and plan on applying to get a masters degree in a few months.

The only thing holding me back is dealing with the incel/red pill/manosphere culture that seems to be infecting young men these days even though they’re way too young to be that bitter.

I just want to know, how do you deal with it?

Has it gotten worse over the course of your career?

Is the internet blowing it up into a bigger problem than it actually is?

Hey teachers,

Im a new graduate looking to get an OT job at PDSB or TDSB for P/J. Prior to this I've only ever done freelance jobs that never required an interview. This will be my first interview ever which I'm frankly not proud of and I'm insanely nervous as I forget everything I've learned and also forget how to form a coherent sentence when under pressure. How did you prepare yourself for interviews? Are there any specific questions you remember from your interview and are there any buzz words that I should include in my answers? How long did it take for you to hear back after your interview?

At what age do Canadian teachers retire or plan to retire?

Hi everyone! I moved to BC from the States about 6 years ago and finally got a teaching certificate. I was a teacher in the US for 5 years before moving here.

I am having a bit of trouble understanding the seniority system, as we didn’t have it in the state I taught in. We could essentially choose any grade we wanted right out of undergrad and interview for it with a high chance of getting it.

So I am starting out now as a TTOC and not knowing when I can expect my own classroom. On top of that, I am hearing that the district moves teachers around whether they want it or not, so even if you are 10 years in, you may still not be teaching a grade you want.

Did anyone else struggle to adapt to this system? Maybe it isn’t as bad as I think? It just feels like it limits our autonomy to teach what we want to. Any information on this would be great! Thank you :)

Hey everyone. I'm on the ProD committee for our school this year, and one of the items that came up as something teachers wanted to explore during ProD was teacher mental health. We did a survey to ask what people wanted covered, so I've got a list of topics but I could use some suggestions on ideas that would make this a well-run, beneficial day for teachers.

The biggest concern our survey demonstrated is burnout. Teachers are just exhausted. This comes as no surprise to us, and unfortunately we are at the mercy of the employer on work conditions, class size, admin support, etc. This isn't a problem a single ProD day can fix.

When we asked teachers what they needed the most help with re: mental health, they said:

• Boundary/balance-setting strategies for time, communication, and workload
• Time- and energy-saving tools for day-to-day teaching tasks
• Reducing burnout before it builds

We also asked our teachers what would help them the most day-to-day, and here are some themes that emerged:

• Socializing and getting to know staff to build supportive community (maybe based around food or a destressing activity?)
• Collaboration
• Creating general emergency lesson kits for when teachers are sick and can't put sub notes together
• Creating a kit for new or early-career teachers, specifically with how to juggle a million things when older teachers don't volunteer as much
• Strategies to streamline assessment

SO, questions for you guys:

• What type of speaker, if any, would be *actually* helpful to hear from?
• What do you envision as helpful activities we could run around this theme?

Thanks everyone! Enjoy the last few weeks of freedom :)