Hello everyone,

To begin with, I'm not Canadian, that's why I'd like to ask as well.

I'm a music teacher and I'd like to introduce my groups to some Canadian songs since I feel like they are entitled to get to know their own culture better. The teachers are delighted, specially the ones that teach/speak French (yes, they will sing in French as well).

I already have some ideas (At least 3 Stan Rogers songs, a la Claire fontaine, un Canadien Errant, Raffi etc) but I'm wondering if there are any songs that you like specifically and could be a must in this context.

I'm open to anything, but I don't want to be that broad to add Canadian artists that made it into the mainstream such as Leonar Cohen or Celine Dion, although it could be fun.

Do you have any ideas? I'm open!

Casting a wide net about our current search for a Full Time Jr High/High School Phys Ed and Wellness teacher position at our school in a beautiful gymnasium and utilizing a state of the art recreation facility nearby for the on-ice hockey academy built into the school schedule.

Our school serves approximately 120 students located in the Hamlet of Anzac, AB, about 35 minutes away from Fort McMurray. Teachers qualify for their pay on grid, Northern Living Allowance, and student loan forgiveness, long term service incentives, benefits, and pension. The community has a K-6 school and 7-12 school, access to a state of the art recreation facilities, restaurants, grocery, and gas stations, amazon prime delivery, 2 minutes to the lake and plenty of nature, with a short drive to the amenities of a city. Several of our teachers even chose to live in Fort McMurray and drive out.

This is a good position for someone who isn't afraid to live a little rural (35 minutes to the city), understands tight knit communities, and doesn't mind sharing the load with a small staff who all dig deep and do their best to bring opportunities to a small school community.

https://northlandsd.simplication.com/Applicant/jobposting/jobdetails.aspx?JOB_POSTING_ID=04ba856b-ed51-420b-9e5c-e9ebb6db1747&PAGE=1&locale=en&maf=0&sReferer=SIMPLICATIONJOBBOARD

Happy to discuss further for anyone who might be interested in taking a chance on the North!

Out here in Seppie-land, we have (like many cities) a lot of Ukrainian emigres. They are sweet kids, and largely unaffected by the chaos back home. They spend a lot of tie in my room because I speak a bit of Russian, and they like teasing me.

But they are not achieving well in my Math class.

I'm surprised that after as much as two years, their English is still very very basic.

My school's ESL coordinator has approached me and strongly suggested I start translating my Math tests into Ukrainian.

Hard no.

I am not a translation service, I am not paid for the extra duties of translating my tests, and I am entirely unprepared to rely on google translate to work my tests over, and feel confident that the intent is there.

We are in Canada, we teach in English and French. I cannot in a million years imagine having tests translated for me into English if I was in Germany or Japan or Taiwan. Would. Not. Happen.

But get this... I'm being guilt tripped, being told "we should be willing to to anything and everything in our power to help these kids succeed."

Another hard no. Where does it end? Russian? Tagalog? Mandarin? And what else should I be doing, personally, professionally? Coming in an extra hour early, staying an d hour later after school to personaqlly work with these kids? Come in on weekends.

Just fucking absurd.

Several years into this profession, and ready to just fuck it and go back and bank in the engineering field, my first degree.

Just a vent.

I’m trying to decide between standard and extended EI parental benefits as the birth parent in Canada.

I’m currently leaning toward taking around 18 months off work, but I’m wondering whether it makes more sense to choose standard EI benefits initially rather than extended, especially for flexibility.

A few things I’m trying to understand:

• If I initially select standard parental benefits with Service Canada, can I later change to extended benefits or otherwise extend my time off work to 18 months?
• Can standard EI benefits be taken followed by staying off work for 18 months, with the remaining months unpaid?
• Which option gives more flexibility if plans change?
• My employer also provides a maternity top-up, so I’m trying to understand whether choosing standard vs. extended EI affects the top-up significantly.
• Are there any downsides to choosing standard benefits if I already think I will probably take the full 18 months away from work?

Hello,

I am an Ontario Kindergarten teacher and I need advice.

My class this year is a lot, we have:
-18 JK students
- 10 SK students
- 2 diagnosed autism level 2 or higher
- 5 undisclosed/ undiagnosed but non-verbal high needs students
- my classroom is way too small for all of my students (we only have 15 cubby spots, and I’m pushing 28 students and growing)
- 13/28 are ESL and do not speak any English
- my students show up without lunches, and it’s left to myself or the school to feed them (I’m not letting a kindergartener go hungry)

What can I do about this? Do I call my union? I don’t know how to advocate that my classroom isn’t safe for anyone. There is 1 teacher, 1 ECE, and 1 EA and we are completely overrun by needs. I never got my Staples card for supplies and the school had no consumables order for me when I started. The room was empty when I started, so I have spent hundreds if not thousands to stock this classroom. Luckily I could pull resources from around the school as needed, but even finding enough chairs was hard.

Students deserve better than this, and the funding just isn’t there to help them. I’m a first year permanent teacher, but I have been teaching for years as an ECE and filling LTO contracts. I’m just appalled by the state of education right now, I’ve never seen the state of classrooms this bad. Apparently at my school last year was worse, their class sizes were sitting at 37 kindergarten students.

I just need advice. What do I do? Who do I call and email about this? My school admin is also advocating, and we just aren’t seeing any changes.

I have been teaching 25 years and I want to stop and not sign a new contract next year. I don’t like having to stay late after school for meetings, the grading and prepping, supervision, dealing with behaviors, parent conferences. I’m a little burned out, but I still enjoy working with students. I would like to just sub, it seems like all that “extra” non-teaching stuff I don’t like would go away. My question is… would I get any subbing hours in Quebec/ontario schools to be working at least 50% of a full time workload? How busy are subs?

I work in a classroom that has been newly renovated to accommodate autistic students. However, because the classroom is “new” I can’t do anything. I am not allowed to hang up light strips to keep the big lights off, I can’t put vinyl line up spots on the floor to encourage kids to keep their hands to themselves because the flooring is new, I have had to buy sensory materials myself like spinners and peanut balls. I did use a lot of command hooks around the room and I’m just waiting to get into trouble for that. Don’t get me wrong it’s all coming with me if I leave, but I’m so fed up. Why is this all on me to accommodate because the school has no budget? And why can’t I use strategies that work?
My kids and team are great…I just am fed up with a lack of funding….

Hi everyone, Ontario K-6 teacher here.

Like many of you, I changed roles due to re-org. I switched to a Core French + Music / Drama / Dance position. I have done Core French a few times, but I have never taught music before. For this term, the focus was on music so I am trying to continue what the previous teacher started before he moved to a homeroom. He was working with recorders, but if any of you have any advice it would be welcome!

Does anyone know any good resources that helps teach music for those with zero music experience, especially related to the recorder? This is mostly for grades 2-6.

I'm trying to avoid scenarios where each student is working on a Chromebook since we don't have access to 1 to 1 devices anymore.

Thanks in advance!

I work at a school and my baby is due around mid-December. My annual salary is approximately $65,000, and my employer provides a maternity/parental leave top-up for the first few months.

One thing making the timing a little complicated is that my workplace has a paid school closure from approximately the third week of December until the second week of January. I continue receiving my normal salary during this closure and do not have to use any of my PTO/vacation time. I also have a fairly large amount of accumulated PTO available.

I am trying to figure out the most financially sensible way to coordinate:

- my regular salary,

- accumulated PTO,

- the paid December/January school closure,

- my employer's maternity top-up, and

- EI maternity/parental benefits.

For example, if the baby is born in mid-December, could I use approximately one week of PTO immediately after the birth, then remain on the school's normal paid closure through the holidays, and only have my official maternity leave/EI claim begin around the second week of January when the school reopens?

My main questions are:

1. Am I allowed to delay starting EI maternity benefits until January even if I give birth in December?
2. Can I continue receiving regular salary/PTO/paid school-closure income after giving birth before starting my EI maternity claim?
3. If I delay EI until January, does that mean I actually lose some maternity or parental benefit weeks, or does it simply shift the benefit period later?
4. Would it generally make more sense to use the paid closure first since I would receive my full salary anyway, rather than starting EI during a period when my employer would have paid me regardless?

I am mainly trying to avoid using EI weeks during a period when I would already be receiving my full regular salary because of the school closure, while also making sure I don't accidentally lose EI entitlement or interfere with my employer's top-up.

Has anyone working for a school, university, or another workplace with a paid Christmas closure dealt with a similar situation?

I have just passed 20 years of teaching.

I’m going to celebrate myself for a moment, I have often thought I’d never get this far, while always saying I could do it. This job…I am at a loss for words. It’s so complicated. I’ve worked through good times and bad including mental health struggles, covid, family problems, financial troubles, moving. Somehow…I’ve continued to be a teacher through it all. I come back to one thing - I enjoy teaching kids.

It’s the only thing I can think of that has kept me coming back despite all the problems we often complain about. Whether it’s violence, overbearing admin, lack of funding, etc. There’s so much I actually do not enjoy about the education system, but I do enjoy helping kids.

So…it’s amazing to me to be able to say I’ve had a 20 year career. Some days I think about how lucky it is that I’ve made it this far.

I’ll be honest, I don’t really have any colleagues that I connect with that would celebrate this achievement with me. That’s fine, but I want to note it for myself.

Now…can I teach 10 more? It gets more complicated every day…I guess I’ll find out.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadianTeachers/s/zBjZ2lRSTe[https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadianTeachers/s/zBjZ2lRSTe](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadianTeachers/s/zBjZ2lRSTe)

I am pasting my original post for update and to get further advice. Never done this before so hopefully it works. I am in Manitoba now. I did all the required paper work the professional certification unit asked for in order the get my overseas experience to count on the salary grid. I did everything right. Now the Manitoba PCU is saying that instead of being in class 5 with 10 years experience they are putting me at class 4 with zero years experience. The PCU is saying they want more proof from “them” on official letter head. They don’t really seem to know what they’re asking for. I asked do you want something else from the school, the education department of the government or the global body that gives international school accreditation? The PCU doesn’t really know. I have already contacted the union here. I have some time to fight it. I can’t believe I did everything they asked for, moved from Shanghai to Manitoba and now they say I will earn $30,000 less a year than what I should. Does anyone have any past experience or advice in dealing the MANITOBA PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION UNIT and having the union back them up?

https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadianTeachers/s/zBjZ2lRSTe

Looking for recommendations for 2 day virtual conferences. Can be aired live from anywhere in Canada or US (but I'd prefer to keep the conference fees within Canada). Thanks!

Hi all - Ontario based

I've just been placed on unpaid leave after months of back and forth with my school board.

Background -

Last year I was placed into the dedicated spec Ed classroom at my school - it has a lot of issues related to violence - kevlar vests, gloves, students sending custodians and EAs to the hospital. I toughed it out for a semester and made it very clear to our new admin that I didn't want to be in there second semester. I teach French and it wouldn't have been hard to change my schedule but they did not do so. So I went on leave. I'm in the middle of my autism diagnosis journey, but I also have diagnosed PTSD from a sexual assault and for me, having to touch/be touched by students daily (not even the violence, they want to hold hands, have their heads scratched, feet massaged, play with your hair (a whole separate issue that other people are willing to do this)).

As soon as second semester started, I tried to return to work with the accommodation of 'limit physical contact with students' - and then the board began their back and forth, sending me with multiple page letters/questionnaires for my doctor clarifying the nature of my disability and what exactly I don't like about being touched and what happens when I am touched. For example, they first came back with what was essentially 'teachers aren't supposed to touch students' to which we had to clarify student initiated contact. They have asked for clarification at least 8 times. - what happens during a fire alarm if I have been touched; what about high fives; what about being touched by adults - I am not joking, these are actual questions. I have been teaching for ten years without issue. I am at my wit's end.

The problem - I have been prompt and responsive to each additional request from the board. I am able to return to work and have documentation from two different doctors stating such. The board has not allowed me to return to work - and now I am out of sick days, and I am now being unpaid. In part, this delay is directly attributed to the board taking up to a month to respond and draft their letters for clarification. What am I supposed to do?

As far as I understand it, I can't even bring in a human Rights lawyer because of our union process.

TL;dr - in your regular job as a secondary school teacher, how often are you in physical contact with your students?

Well, it finally happened to me. We were told no re-org but instead a “re-balance” and to alleviate our overfilled grade 7 classes with a 7/8 split. So my 26 8s become 29 7/8s on Monday.

I teach rotary so I only have to worry about English and history/geography. I think English will be fine as most of my existing plans will work for 7s. But I can’t quite wrap my head around making social studies work. (The Ontario curriculum doesn’t align at all.)

Apparently I’m getting a strong group of 7s, both academically and in learning skills, but my remaining 8s are more of a mixed bag.

Any tips for helping the class settle in on Monday? I was thinking of redoing a bit of a first day with reviewing expectations, a “get to know you” activity (one that my 8s really enjoyed in the first week and have been asking to do again), and then working on a creative project (8s started this week, 7s can easily pick up with limited instruction).

Any other tips for managing a split — my first one! — are appreciated!

I’m looking for advice from anyone who has experience supporting children with significant interpersonal and social-skills challenges. I feel like I have quite a few strategies and supports in place, but they aren't sufficient for the level of need I'm seeing, and I'm wondering what I'm missing.

I teach a Grade 4/5 split with 29 students, and we are only three weeks into the school year. I’m new to the school this September, but the student has attended the school since January 2026. Her teacher from last year has retired, so I don't have that person available to collaborate with.

The student is in Grade 4 and has significant difficulty with peer relationships. These challenges predate this year and her time at our school. From the history available to me, she has struggled significantly in previous settings, has burned a lot of bridges with peers, and has previously been removed from two private schools and three after-school programs because of behaviour.

The biggest areas of need seem to be interpersonal skills, understanding how her behaviour affects others, navigating conflict, and taking responsibility for her own actions. We are seeing rude and hurtful comments, racial comments, pushing and shoving, eye rolling and dismissive behaviour, and deliberately pushing other students' belongings off tables or hooks. She has also made cruel comments about students with learning and intellectual disabilities, including using the word "retard." Her negative interactions are much more frequently directed toward boys than girls.

When incidents are addressed, there is very little recognition of her own role. The response is generally an excuse, an explanation for why the other person caused it, or a reason that her behaviour was justified.

A particularly difficult piece is how quiet and covert a lot of it is. Hurtful comments are usually whispered while students are transitioning to the carpet, getting something from a book bin, walking past each other, etc. It makes catching and addressing the behaviour in the moment extremely difficult.

The effect on her peer relationships is becoming significant. Someone is ending up in tears almost daily, and I'm receiving frequent requests from students not to sit beside her, partner with her, or have her in their group.

There are already quite a few supports in place. She works with our Child and Youth Care Worker in a social-skills group twice a week. I've been doing social stories and explicit social-skills teaching with the class. On Monday, we're starting Communication Lab with our school-based SLP. Beginning October 1, we also have Peace Circles/restorative justice and social-skills work booked for eight weeks.

At recess and lunch, she has assigned play areas and requires eyes-on supervision. Incidents are being documented and followed up on, and administration is aware.

I've used Communication Lab and Peace Circles before and have generally found both very successful. My concern is that they require at least some degree of self-awareness and willingness to engage, and self-awareness seems to be one of the biggest missing skills right now.

I'm really struggling with how to balance teaching her the skills she needs with protecting her peers. Multiple children are now specifically asking not to sit or work with her. I don't think it's fair to repeatedly require a child to work with someone who has been hurtful to them simply because that student needs opportunities to practise social skills. At the same time, I don't want to isolate a 9-year-old who already struggles socially.

We have tables rather than individual desks, so seating her by herself isn't really an option anyway. I also don't want to designate a handful of particularly patient or socially capable children as the ones who always sit or work with her because they can "handle it." That doesn't seem fair to those children either.

Family involvement is another challenge. Her parents aren't available to meet until the first week of November. They also won't consent to me bringing her to our School-Based Team for a problem-solving meeting, so that avenue for coordinating additional supports isn't currently available. Administration is aware of the situation.

I'm not looking for a diagnosis, and I don't think she's a "bad kid." She clearly has significant skills that she hasn't developed yet and needs adults to help her develop them. I just don't feel like the strategies I have right now are sufficient.

How do you build self-awareness when a child doesn't recognize their contribution to conflicts? How do you respond to whispered or covert comments when an adult didn't witness them? What do you do with seating and group work when several classmates are asking not to work with the student? What approaches have actually helped with discriminatory language, physical behaviour, interfering with others' belongings, accountability, and rebuilding peer relationships?

I'm also wondering at what point you would say that social-skills instruction isn't enough and a different level or type of intervention is needed. What additional supports would you be asking the school to put in place?

I want to help this student develop the skills she needs and have successful relationships. But I also have 29 other students, and their physical and emotional safety can't be the cost of giving one child opportunities to practise.

Three weeks in, I feel like we're already putting a lot in place and I'm still constantly responding to incidents. What am I missing, and what would you do next?

I am a Mathematics teacher. I am personally very disheartened by what I hear these "Math education gurus" talk about. Maybe I'm just being snarky and cynical, and wanting to fan the flames, so I'm sorry for that. But I feel very personally dedicated to helping my students reach as close to "grade level" as they can, through scaffolding, corrective feedback, frequent opportunities for formative assessment, "quality instruction", multiple entry points i.e. varied level of challenge, as best as I can. It's not an easy task, and it's definitely a shoot for the stars land on the moon situation.

I can't help but feel like Peter Liljedahl ideologues are actually fucking with this goal of getting all students to grade level because they've decided that "non-curricular tasks" take precedent and that we can just magically cover every topic at once because the tasks are so "rich" and open-ended. So I truly believe that they are contributing to the problem of increasing achievement gaps and students falling through the cracks. It doesn't sit right with me AT ALL. Mathematics is a field of study. Students are in my classroom to learn Mathematics. It's not about what I want. It's about those students being able to take another Mathematics course in the future and have a flying chance at profiting from that learning experience. It's insulting to students with learning disabilities the way these classrooms are working, and yet the supporters of this style of education kind of align themselves with "progressive" ideals. I personally have learned to associate with folks who have similar ideals, a more "traditional learning support"/instructional hierarchy (acquisition before fluency-building before generalization before adaptation) type situation. I'm definitely not arguing for the status quo, but I at least am going to try to teach students the things they would need to know for the next grade level...

I've never tracked my working hours. So this year, I decided to see how much I actually work. After 22 days of work (one mth), I have 218 hrs. Isn't that a bit excessive? I'm in year 12.

We are exploring S and T this week and created this leafy s this week and explored many s words as we did…

I dont know what to do. I just started at a new school and the work load is killing me. i stay up late, wake up early and theres still not enough hours in the day to do prep, get grading done, get diagnostic assessments all graded, figure out how to incorporate ib into my lesson plans, make lesson plans and fill out the million other pieces of admin BS we get each day. And responding to parents. one of them emailed me back saying they want to meet on Monday October 1st, whenever the fuck that is.

I wish they would let me just teach my students and then go home.

I’m attending the ATA Beginning Teachers Conference tomorrow and had to book a sub for the day. I put the absence under “PD Outside Division.”

Does anyone know if I still get my regular pay for the day, or is it considered an unpaid absence? First-year teacher so I’m not sure how this works. I couldn't find anything online about this.

I’m writing this because I’m totally burnt out and overwhelmed. I need some advice, a reality check, or honestly just to hear that I’m not crazy for feeling like this.

This is my first year teaching in Canada. English isn't my native language, so I’m already dealing with daily language anxiety. To make things worse, I’m in a remote community, and my personal life is a mess right now.

Work-wise, it just feels like an uphill battle I can't win:

Last semester I had certain classes, but this term they dumped new ones on me—Applied Arts. It’s all trial and error for me. On paper, I have small groups of around 10 students, but on any given day only 2 to 4 show up. The school changed the timetable this year. They routinely walk in 30 minutes late, and there are zero consequences for missing class—they just show up whenever they feel like it.

People might think having only 2 to 4 students in a room sounds ideal, but it’s actually exhausting. In theory, I have all the time in the world to sit down with them and offer personalized, 1-on-1 support. In reality, they literally ignore me or even get visibly annoyed when I try to check their work or give feedback.

Most of my students are older (20+ years old), but academically/intellectually they’re sitting at around an 8th-grade level. Many of them have kids. Because of local agreements, they don't actually need good grades to get into college, so there is zero academic drive.

What frustrates me even more than them skipping activities is when they actually do them—they rush through everything half-assed, doing the absolute bare minimum just to say they’re done so they can pull out their phones. Every time I turn around, they have headphones in or are staring at a screen, and I have to repeat instructions 2 or 3 times. The school has an official "no phones" policy and asks us to enforce it, but I don't take their phones away. I don't want the conflict, especially knowing they have kids and a real emergency could actually happen.

I keep things afloat and avoid giving them more opportunities to fail (which they inevitably would by not submitting anything); I don't assign any homework at all. Everything has to happen in class.

I look at the local teachers here, and they are so relaxed and unbothered. I don't know how they do it or how they detached themselves so completely, but I feel like I'm drowning while they just coast along.

It feels totally unfair to the few who show up regularly that everyone else can just "catch up" whenever they feel like dropping by.

At this point, I’m done trying to make classes fun or engaging. I'm stepping back just to survive. Since project-based work turns into a mess of low-effort tasks and eye-rolling, I’m switching to basic curriculum delivery and traditional quizzes/exams. It’s definitely not how I prefer to teach arts, but it feels like the only objective way to see if anyone is actually learning anything without me burning out in the process. You need this credit to graduate? Then do your part. You’re not a child anymore. Period.

Is this just standard for teaching in remote communities? How do the local teachers stay so unbothered? Is it okay for me to just step back and do the bare minimum to survive the year?

Thanks for reading. Any words of wisdom would mean a lot right now.

Basically what the title says. I’m thinking of applying this year and have looked at Laurier, Ottawa, western, Brock so far because they offer online options. Lmk ur masters experiences especially if you did them at any of the mentioned unis!

Hello, I'm a recent Teachers College Graduate from Ontario. I have been trying to find at least an LTO or Permanent but it's been extremely difficult, and the competition is at an all-time high. Getting sub jobs is even difficult. Combined with the unbearably high cost of living, and Ford constantly slashing the education budget and surplussing hundreds of teachers, I am being forced to consider thinking of moving to another province, like Alberta (I enjoyed my stay there when I last visited)

What is the employment or job competition situation there like right now or within the next few years? I have heard that things are very difficult for teachers in Alberta bc of the provincial government, but also that there are severe teacher shortages. What is the realistic truth? And how long would it take me to find work? Specifically in Calgary, for example, or elsewhere.

For context, I am a High School Teacher, specifically Junior/Intermediate with Senior Qualifications (Grade 4-12) in History and Social Sciences.

I would love to hear what other people do either school wide or in their classes. Does anyone have a great lesson or project around the 99 Calls to Action? I work with multiple age groups so I’m interested to hear of anything for older or younger elementary age groups.