Making An Informed Move: School Information Finder from the Ontario Ministry of Education

Buyers’ who have school-aged children, often put top quality schools on their ‘must have list’ for picking a new neighbourhood and understandably so!  If you’re looking for a great resource for finding more information out about local area schools, you should check out the Ontario Ministry of Education’s website.  They’ve put together a great tool called the School Information Finder that allows you to search for publicly funded schools throughout Ontario.  You can search by town/city, school board, postal code or by school name.  For example, here is the screen that comes up when you start a search for elementary schools:

Search for an elementary school:

Choose one search option below:

Search by Postal Code:

Enter a postal code, then click Go. If you don’t know the postal code, you can enter the street address and town/city instead.   � This search will display a map of the area with up to the 20 closest schools. If you want to look up a postal code, visit the Canada Post website.

Grade 3 Student Achievement – 2010-11:	School	Province
		English students	French students
Reading: Percentage of students achieving the provincialstandard	77%	62%	68%
Change in reading achievement over three years	+11 points	+1 points	+8 points
Writing: Percentage of students achieving the provincialstandard	92%	70%	81%
Change in writing achievement over three years	+31 points	+4 points	+7 points
Math: Percentage of students achieving the provincialstandard	88%	71%	72%
Change in math achievement over three years	+3 points	+3 points	+10 points

Grade 6 Student Achievement – 2010-11:	School	Province
		English students	French students
Reading: Percentage of students achieving the provincialstandard	85%	72%	80%
Change in reading achievement over three years	0 points	+6 points	+5 points
Writing: Percentage of students achieving the provincialstandard	82%	70%	80%
Change in writing achievement over three years	+5 points	+3 points	+0 points
Math: Percentage of students achieving the provincialstandard	72%	61%	81%
Change in math achievement over three years	+2 points	+0 points	+3 points

So if you are in the process of putting together your ‘must have list’ and are confused or concerned about what school your child/children will go to when you make your move, make sure to check out the website, it’s a great tool!