Advantages Maple Bear
- Quality bilingual education
At Maple Bear students become:
CURIOUS: Passionate about knowledge and learning.
CONFIDENT: Deeply aware of their talents and potential.
INDEPENDENT: Prepared to lead their own lives, and decide their own paths and destiny.
ANALYTICAL: Able to think freely & shape their own beliefs.
FLEXIBLE: Adaptable in a world where change is the only constant.
CREATIVE: Always motivated and enthusiastic about asking “what if?”
PREPARED: In possession of the knowledge and tools necessary for an outstanding performance at college, at work and in life, in their home country or abroad.
GLOBAL: Bilingual and culturally literate for a global future.
Canada’s education system consistently ranks among the best in the world.
In 2018, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) ranked Canada #1 in the English-speaking world in science, math and reading. As in 2012, 2015, and again in 2018, Canada maintained strong performance and outperformed other English-speaking countries in all three evaluations.
According to the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), Canada consistently out ranks the United States and the United Kingdom, often by significant margins.
In fact, Canada ranks ahead of the systems in the US and the UK because the OECD measures an entire country’s system, not just hot spots of excellence which are not accessible to all due to geography or cost. In the vast Canadian public system, every child has access to quality schools.
Canada excels not only in studies in the English language, but is also a world leader in bilingual education.
Bilingual education is the use of two different languages in the classroom instruction of academic content. At Maple Bear, students study all academic subjects in either their native language or English, depending on the subject and grade level.
Students don’t just memorize vocabulary in a Maple Bear classroom. This is a key difference between the programs offered at Maple Bear and the ESL training offered at other schools claiming to offer a bilingual education.
Furthermore, at Maple Bear, students begin learning English in kindergarten using a student-focussed English immersion learning system based on Canadian educational pedagogy and best practices.
There have been concerns that teaching children two languages at once only confuses them. Fortunately, there has been much research—much of it conducted by Canadians—which shows that far from handicapping children, bilingual education can offer benefits from infancy to old age.
So what are the benefits of bilingual education for young learners?
For a start, it’s very good for English-language development, a goal of many of our parents who chose Maple Bear for their children. Young learners have also been shown to have:
Numerous studies have confirmed that being bilingual actually makes a person smarter as it has a profound effect on the brain, improving cognitive skills and sharpening memory.
Besides the obvious wide gap in the price of tuition at a Maple Bear school compared to an international one, Maple Bear conforms to local education regulations, offering fully articulated local curricula in addition to the Canadian program.
This opens up many more educational options for Maple Bear students: they are prepared and capable of moving easily between the Canadian system offered by Maple Bear and their own country’s system and can do so at any time during the K-12 years. They are also prepared for entry into a university at home as well as abroad if they so choose and are not tied to just one system.
All instruction in the Maple Bear Elementary School follows educational principles which have made Canadian practice so successful:
Outcomes are defined: Learning is targeted to achieve very specific learning outcomes. It is clear what the children need to learn.
Canadian performance standards are applied: Canadian performance standards determine the learning outcomes. Maple Bear students are expected to achieve performance levels similar to Canadians.
Curriculum development for English-language subjects is done in Canada by Canadian experts.
Canadian style teaching strategies are implemented: Canadian teaching strategies encourage student independence, strong literacy skills, higher level thinking and problem solving.
A sophisticated set of learning resources are used: Learning resources include books, manipulative materials, visual materials, electronic media, and computer technology.
Assessment of student learning is based on Canadian standards. In all cases, Canadian programming exceeds the requirements of local elementary education authorities in each country.
Every child deserves the best possible start in life and the support that enables them to fulfill their potential. Children develop quickly in the early years and a child’s experiences between birth and age five have a major impact on their future opportunities.
Maple Bear sets high standards to ensure children’s readiness for elementary school. Maple Bear gives children the broad range of knowledge and skills that provides the right foundation for good progress through school and life.
English Language Arts: by the end of Senior Kindergarten children will communicate effectively in English by listening and speaking, will have a good understanding of alphabetical symbols, will be able to read basic text in English, will be able to use phonic strategies to approach new words, will be capable of using writing strategies appropriate for beginners, and finally, will be able to use and respond to media.
Personal and Social Development: children will learn to share, to respect others, to listen, and to understand that people have different talents and functions in our society.
Science and Technology: children will demonstrate curiosity about the natural world, demonstrate knowledge of characteristics of common materials, identify cycles in nature using techniques of observation, and work with others in using the computer in all aspects of their studies.
Creative Activity: children will understand colour, shape and use of media to express ideas. They will be able to describe responses to music, art, drama and dance.
Physical skills and well-being: children will develop physical skills (such as balance and flexibility), an awareness of health and safety rules, an understanding of sharing, taking turns, cooperation and socially acceptable behaviour.
Mathematics: children will become problem solvers. They will learn about patterns in the environment, number concepts, comparisons, sets, basic formal operations (e.g. adding and subtracting), 2-D and 3-D objects, simple graphs, basic measurements.
Development of language skills and language acquisition: children enter the Maple Bear school with a basic level of native language proficiency. When learning their native language, children go through several stages in the following order: listening, understanding, speaking, reading and writing. Any stage of language learning begins when skills development is still ongoing in the previous stages. When Maple Bear students learn English as a second language, they go through the same steps in the same sequence as when learning their native language. Studies show that learning two languages at an early age promotes children’s linguistic and cognitive development.
The method of language learning on the principle of immersion in a foreign language environment in Maple Bear schools is used for in-depth study of English. This means that children learn to listen, speak, read and write in English in a language environment where learning materials are presented in English. Lessons from the first day are conducted in English.
Literacy, which involves listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, is one of the most important goals of Maple Bear.
Maple Bear has developed an excellent, hands on, rigorous and relevant elementary curriculum in each subject area based on the highly successful Canadian approach to learning and instruction. Maple Bear encourages the development of the child’s basic skill in literacy, numeracy, science, technology, analysis, problem solving, information processing and computing, Critical and creative thinking skills are promoted and encouraged so that children can be successful in today’s world. The Elementary Program is designed to educate the whole child – physically, intellectually, emotionally, and socially.
The Maple Bear Elementary and Middle Years Programs require a minimum of 50% instruction in English. The remaining portion of the program is conducted in the home language. Subjects taught in English include English Language Arts, Mathematics and Science. Instruction in the home language, History, Geography, Physical Education, the Arts, and other subjects is conducted in the students’ first language.
English Language Arts – At all grades, the focus is on acquiring language and literacy skills through listening, speaking, reading and writing. Students learn to read and produce a wide range of texts, including media, transactional (letters, e-mails, etc.), and tertiary texts. The level of sophistication grows with the advancing grade levels. All classrooms must be literacy-rich environments.
Mathematics – The themes of number sense and numeration, measurement, geometry and spatial sense, patterning and algebra, data management and probability are developed in increasing complexity at each grade level. The program emphasizes problem solving, understanding concepts, application of procedures and communication about mathematics.
Science – The science program emphasizes enquiry and the use of the scientific method in science classes. At each grade level increasingly complex topics are studied from the fields of biology, physics, chemistry and environmental science. The emphasis is on experimentation and application rather than memorization.