Moving to Canada With School-Age Children: The Pre-Arrival Education Checklist

Does your child need a study permit?

This is the item with a deadline on it, so it goes first. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) publishes a table for primary and secondary school level, and the answer turns on your status rather than your child's age.

Three rules sit underneath that table, and they are the ones that catch families out. A child studying for six months or less does not need a permit, though IRCC says they may still apply for one, and a child studying without a permit must hold valid visitor status. A child studying for six months or more "must apply for a study permit before they enter Canada". A school year is longer than six months, so for most families arriving to stay, this is a before-you-fly task.

There is a helpful exception on the paperwork. A study permit application for a minor usually needs a letter of acceptance from the school. Where the child is coming with parents who are themselves applying for a study or work permit, IRCC states that a letter of acceptance is not required for the child's application. That matters, because you often cannot get a letter of acceptance from a public school board until you have a local address.

The exception is narrow. IRCC states that a letter of acceptance is required where the child is in Canada with a family member whose work or study permit was approved before that family member entered Canada.

One of those rows catches families who assume that being in Canada already settles it: a child here with a parent on visitor status still needs a permit. So does a child arriving without a parent, who is the same child the custodianship section below is about.

IRCC notes that school authorities may also use this table to help work out when school fees apply, so the row your family falls into can affect cost as well as paperwork.

IRCC also lists what a permit buys beyond the right to attend: the child may be able to remain in school once they are no longer a minor, get a secondary school co-op work permit, and access social services in some provinces or territories.

One date to put in the diary now, and one structural note if you are heading for Quebec. IRCC issues a primary-school study permit for one year, renewable, and a secondary-school permit for the full intended period of study up to four years. Apply for the new permit at least 90 days before the current one expires. IRCC's wording on that secondary band also flags the one place the grade band differs: for permit purposes it counts secondary school as Grades 9 to 12 in every province and territory except Quebec, where it counts Grades 9 to 11. This checklist does not cover Quebec, so check with the Quebec ministry and your local school board before you move there.

This is a summary of IRCC's own table, read on 21 September 2026. It is not immigration advice, and immigration cases turn on details a web page cannot see. Confirm your own case on the IRCC page linked in the sources below.

If a child under 17 travels without you, you need a custodian

Canada draws its line at 17, and the age of majority is not what triggers it. IRCC's rule is that minor children under 17 must either come with a parent or legal guardian, or have a custodian in Canada. A custodian is a responsible adult who is a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident, and who will take care of and support the child.

A child arriving without a parent also needs a study permit in their own right, per the table above, so the custodianship form and the permit application travel together.

For a child of 17 or older a custodian is optional, but an officer can still ask for one case by case.

The form is where families lose weeks. The Custodianship Declaration has two pages that look nearly identical and are signed in two different countries:

• Page one is signed by the custodian and notarised in Canada.
• Page two is signed by the parents or legal guardians and notarised in the home country.

Do page two before you leave. Getting a parent's signature notarised in a country you have already left is a much harder job than it sounds.

The age of majority itself varies, and it is worth knowing which number applies to you, because it governs other things your family will meet later.

What decides your child's grade, and what does not

This is the question parents ask first and the one the open web answers worst. Toronto's school board answers it directly, and the answer is narrower than most families expect.

The Toronto District School Board's grade placement policy states that "the Ontario Ministry of Education directs enrolment using Age Appropriate Grade Placement. This means that a student's grade placement is determined by their year of birth."

Then it rules out everything else, in one sentence: "Grade placement is not determined by a student's academic achievement, English language level, grade level in a previous school system, or the month in which they were born."

Read that twice, because it cuts both ways.

Your child will not be held back a year because their English is still developing. That is the fear most newcomer parents arrive with, and in Toronto it is unfounded. Language support is handled separately, through assessment and in-class support, not by moving a child down a grade.

Your child will also not be moved up because they are ahead. A twelve-year-old who has already covered the Grade 9 mathematics curriculum in another system still enters the grade their birth year gives them. The TDSB allows a secondary student to take individual courses at a different grade level, which is decided with a guidance counsellor, but the assigned grade does not move.

The month of birth does not matter either. Children born in January and children born in December of the same year land in the same grade.

For context on the structure they are entering, IRCC describes primary education as generally covering ages 5 to 12 and Grades 1 to 6, and secondary education as generally ages 12 to 18 and Grades 7 to 12, a wider band than the Grades 9 to 12 it uses for secondary study permits. Provinces and boards split primary and secondary school differently, so read those bands as IRCC's national description rather than your board's. TDSB's own assessment centres, described below, take students who will be attending high school.

One caution. The quotation above is from the Toronto District School Board's grade placement policy, describing a Ministry of Education direction, so it is solid for Ontario and it is how most Canadian boards work. It is not a sentence every board in the country has published. TDSB publishes it in its international-students section, alongside the fee schedule for students in that programme; the placement rule applies either way, but the pages around it are written for fee-paying students. If you are moving to a specific city, ask that board the same question in writing before you arrive.

What school costs

In Ontario, the answer for most families is nothing.

Settlement.org, run by the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, states it plainly: "The Canadian school system is publicly funded, and there is no tuition cost for children aged 5 to 18 to attend elementary or high school." It goes further on status: "All children under the age of 18 are entitled to go to free school in Ontario regardless of their family's immigration status."

The list of families that covers is long, and it is worth reading if you assumed you were outside it. It includes children of permanent residents, children of work permit holders, children of study permit holders, exchange students, children of parents in the military, children of refugee claimants, children of parents with diplomatic status, and children from families with no status who plan to stay in Ontario.

There is one exception, and it matters most to the families this page is written for. Settlement.org states that a child who is visiting Canada, or who holds a study permit as a minor, might be required to pay. A child arriving with a parent on a work or study permit is required by IRCC to hold a study permit, so ask the board in writing whether fees apply to your child before you assume they do not.

Beyond tuition, transport and textbooks are generally covered. Parents buy the ordinary school supplies, and a high-school student who takes public transit may pay their own fare. Families weighing the independent sector against the free one will find the trade-offs set out in our comparison of private and public school in Ontario.

Ontario sets those rules. Other provinces fund newcomer students on their own terms. Ask the board directly, and say which permit your family holds when you ask, because the answer depends on it.

The documents to gather before you fly

IRCC lists four things a school or board will want when you enrol a child:

• A birth certificate
• Proof of residency
• Proof of guardianship or custody
• A record of immunisations, to show the child's vaccines are up to date

Three of those four are easier to obtain in the country you are leaving than in the country you are arriving in. Gather them now and keep a scanned copy somewhere you can reach from a phone. Boards commonly ask for a translation where the original is not in English or French. IRCC does not list that requirement, so ask the board what form of translation it accepts before you pay for one.

Two more worth carrying, though IRCC does not list them. Bring your child's most recent school reports, and bring a syllabus or curriculum outline for the year they have just finished. Neither changes the grade they are placed in. Both help the teacher who is trying to work out, in week one, what your child already knows.

IRCC adds a practical note about timing that has nothing to do with paperwork: "If there is more than one school to choose from in your region, enrol well before the school year begins to make sure you get a spot in the school you prefer."

What happens in the first weeks after you register

Registration comes first, and it is local. The Toronto District School Board's instruction to newcomer families is simply to visit your local school and register your child. The Calgary Board of Education routes it differently: it requires students who are not Canadian citizens to register through its Welcome Centre, even if they have already attended school elsewhere in Canada. The test is the child's own citizenship, so it catches a permanent-resident child as readily as a child of a parent on a work or study permit. Interpreters are free.

That difference is the point. Two boards, two different front doors. Find the right door for your city before you spend a morning at the wrong one.

After registration, an assessment follows. IRCC describes what it is for: the first time a child is enrolled in a Canadian school, the school or board will assess their education level, what level they should be placed at, and whether they need free support such as English or French language classes.

The detail varies by board and by age.

In Toronto, students heading for high school may be referred to one of two TDSB Secondary Assessment Centres, which assess English language and mathematics. The board says those observations are shared with students, parents and the home school "to help guide decisions about course selections". The referral covers students new to Canada, students new to Ontario from another province or territory, students returning to Ontario after six months or more, and students who were previously homeschooled.

In Calgary, all students new to the board in Grades 1 to 12 who are not Canadian citizens and who speak a language other than English at home complete an English Language Proficiency Assessment, and the result shapes the support the school provides. CBE adds that a child who is a Canadian citizen, and any child in kindergarten, is assessed by staff at the school instead.

Note what the assessment does and does not decide. It does not decide the grade. It decides the support, and in high school it shapes the courses. In Ontario those course choices carry a long way, because senior course codes govern which university and college programmes a student can apply to years later.

The first report card will arrive before you have a feel for the system. Ontario reports achievement on a four-level scale, shown as letter grades in Grades 1 to 6 and as percentages from Grade 7 on, which is worth understanding in advance.

One more thing to ask about at registration. IRCC notes that there are settlement workers in many schools who help students adjust and get help when they need it. They are free, they are used to exactly your situation, and most families never find out they exist.

When school is compulsory, and when it is not

Ontario's Education Act sets the ages, and the wording is specific. A person who turns six on or before the first school day in September must attend school every school day from that September until they turn 18. A child who turns six after that day starts the following September.

In practice, school attendance in Ontario is mandatory between 6 and 17, and a student stays until 18 or until they graduate.

Kindergarten sits outside that. A child can be enrolled in kindergarten from September of the calendar year in which they turn four, but it is not compulsory at that age. Plenty of newcomer families arrive assuming they have missed a mandatory year. For a four-year-old or a five-year-old in Ontario, they have not.

Where the placement rule leaves a real gap

Age-appropriate placement is the right policy and it creates one predictable problem, which nobody hands you a plan for.

A child placed by birth year lands in a grade the Canadian curriculum has been building towards for years. If their previous system sequenced a subject differently, the gap is not ability and it is not language. It is content, in specific places, and it is invisible on a report card until a test finds it.

Mathematics is where this shows up most, because mathematics is cumulative and every system orders the topics differently. A student can be genuinely strong and still be missing one strand their new grade assumes they met two years ago.

Here is something you can do at the kitchen table in the first month, with no tutor and no cost. Get the curriculum outline for your child's new grade from the provincial ministry's website. We have a topic-by-topic summary of Grade 8 mathematics in Ontario, a guide to Alberta's diploma exams, and, for British Columbia, an explainer on the four-point proficiency scale its report cards use from Kindergarten to Grade 9 before letter grades and percentages start in Grade 10. Sit down with your child and read the topic list together, one line at a time. Ask them to sort each line into three piles: "I have done this", "I have seen this", "I have never seen this". The third pile is short, it is specific, and it is the whole of the problem. Take that list to the first parent-teacher meeting rather than a general worry about settling in.

Two other things are worth knowing early, because they are the ones that decide outcomes rather than comfort. Ontario students have to meet a literacy requirement to graduate, normally by passing the provincial literacy test, which is worth understanding in the first year rather than the fourth. And senior mathematics course selection in Ontario decides which post-secondary programmes stay open, which is a planning question as much as a teaching one.

If you do look for help with either, the question worth asking is whether the person knows what that grade assumes, and whether they can chart the courses your child needs to reach the programme they are aiming at. In Canada, the people trained to do both are teachers certified by a provincial body, such as the Ontario College of Teachers, whose certificate you can check yourself, free, in five provinces. The difference that certification makes is set out in our piece on certified teachers and tutors.