What about school?

Hey guys, Margaret here.

Here are some much requested answers to the questions I have received about how I am still doing school in another country.

So to start I must clarify that I have had a very abnormal high school experience. Most people will go to one high school for all four years. Nope, not me, I have changed schools more times than years I've been to high school.

What my years have looked like so far

Grade 8: left my middle school to become homeschooled. I chose to do this because I was a very competitive ski racer who missed too many days of school to keep up... So I left, homeschooled myself  and enjoyed my time.

Highschool:
Grade 9: After being homeschooled for majority of grade 8 I knew that I wanted to go to a "real" high school. This of course caused stress finding one that would let me pursue skiing. Then I found one, Vaughan Road Academy. This school had a program called INTERACT which let highly competitive people do what they love while still working towards a high school diploma. This school worked well for me all of grade 9. I started at 9am and finished at noon everyday. However, there was one downside; the commute. On most days I would leave an hour and a half to get there by transit. All that to say, I was overall happy with how Interact worked out.

Grade 10: I wanted to get more into skiing, so I changed schools. I went to the National Ski Academy. I trained harder than I ever had before, training internationally and locally. This school was a boarding school that I lived at, I had two roommates and about 10 other house mates. Majority of the people attending this school lived in Collingwood and stayed at home with their families only coming to the school when we had classes or training. Although my skiing improved, this school was not the right fit for me. I worked with a school in Toronto to get me in for second semester. Eventually I left the National Ski Academy to attend Monarch Park Collegiate Institute, a school near my home in Toronto. I officially started second semester at Monarch in January, as my ski season was still in session. This meant many missed classes and had to work extra hard to keep myself afloat. On average from January to the beginning of April I was attending 1-3 days a week of school at Monarch. I cannot stress enough that this took a lot of work and a lot of cooperation from both me and the very accepting staff at Monarch. Once I settled into a more regular schedule at home and moved out of Collingwood I was able to attend school more regularly. I made friends quickly thanks to the amazing people who welcomed me and I also was helped by teachers and the guidance department to make my school life more manageable.

Grade 11: The first month of grade 11 I was back at Vaughan Road Academy. However Vaughan is closing this year which made the resources available for interact limited. I knew that the set up they had going would not be the right fit for me (please note that the interact program is moving schools because Vaughan Road Academy is closing). So I worked with the staff at Monarch to get me in to first semester. After a month of more work and compromises, I was back at Monarch. Average life of a teenager was back in swing, and then... things got interesting. 

My parents told me that we were staring this trip and leaving at the beginning of April. That meant no second semester for me. I was happy of course about trip but not so enthused that it meant doing my own schooling again. This meant trying to find an affordable way to still reach my goal of graduating on time. As second semester finished I had a couple months to work hard and figure out how I was going to make school work. Thankfully, I did and I have described them below. 

Here's how I am currently doing school 

 local cafe's with wifi are my new classroom 

No easy task this is. It requires dedication and self motivation to complete an online course at your own pace. There will always be the voice saying that you can do it tomorrow running through your head. To be successful, you need to shut off that voice and get working. 

The second week of our trip I was doing an exam. Yep, that's right, an exam. I was doing a course with Blyth Online  that I had to finish up. I do recommend Blyth Online as a good option for getting an extra credit or doing schooling abroad. You are assigned a teacher who thoroughly marks your work and will help answer any questions you have. Unfortunately, this comes at a price, $500 per course. So I set out to find a more reasonably priced option. And that is how I came across the Independent Learning centre  (ILC). 

ILC is for Ontario high school students. And the best part... $40 per course! With prices that low I couldn't help myself but sign up for four courses (a full course load and the most you're allowed to take at one time). I personally do think that Blyth is a better set up for courses and more equipped for students who will be away from Canada for a long time but ILC works fairly well at a fraction of the price. One thing to note about ILC is some of the courses are on paper. I have two courses right now, entirely given to me in workbooks. I find that this makes the submission process overall messier and more complicated than it has to be. Right now however, I am less familiar with ILC courses and how they work. Getting used to a new program is of course challenging at best. So right now I am working with two fully online ILC course and two paper ones. 

What my day to day looks like

On average I would say I spend about three solid hours working on school work a day. Recently it has been closer to 7 hours with studying for my exam and a culminating project. But each day is not clearly laid out for me, I make my own plan and it is my responsibility to execute it. The great thing about this is if you miss a day, you're not behind. You can work schoolwork into your schedule instead of working your schedule around schoolwork. This is helpful when living on a boat. 

Questions 

If anyone has any questions about sports and school or homeschooling or just the online resources available, I have built a fairly good base for recommendations and am happy to help. If you'd like to understand more about how I am making this work, feel free to ask. 

-Margaret