Education minister tweaks timeline for writing curriculum

Adjusting Grade 9 deadline intended to help students transition to high school

EDMONTON A new school curriculum for Grade 9 will be written and introduced to classrooms earlier than initially planned, the Alberta government announced Wednesday.

In its unprecedented six-year, $64-million effort to rewrite curriculum for all subjects in both English and French, the Ministry of Education had at first said it would write new expectations for Grade 9 and 10 students at the same time.

With drafts of the new K-4 curriculum released last month, eight working groups had recently begun piecing together a plan for Grade 5 to 8 students.

In a news release Wednesday, Education Minister David Eggen said the government tweaked the timeline in response to feedback.

“Accelerating these timelines means we will have our Grade 9 curriculum nailed down earlier, which provides benefits in the classroom sooner to help students prepare for the transition to high school,” he said in the statement.

Although grade configurations vary across the province, the ministry said at least 840 schools offer Grade 7-9 junior-high programs and 22 schools offer Grade 5-8.

Under the previous schedule, Grade 7 and 8 students and teachers would have been using the new curriculum while their Grade 9 colleagues and classmates at the same school would be using the old curriculum.

Education Ministry spokesman Gregory Jack said this divide within schools would have created professional-development and reporting challenges.

Curriculum working groups in eight subject areas will work this month on the grades 5 to 9 curriculum, he said. He didn’t yet know how the change would affect the timeline for writing the new high school curriculum. All subjects will be ready by December 2022, as initially planned, he said.

Accelerating these timelines means we will have our Grade 9 curriculum nailed down earlier.

In a written statement Wednesday, Alberta Teachers’ Association president Greg Jeffery said the timeline change makes sense.

“Many junior-high teachers teach one or two subjects across the three grade levels and work together to develop strategies and choose resources,” Jeffery said. “Not having new curriculum for all junior-high grades at the same time would put a lot of Grade 9 teachers and students at a disadvantage come time for implementation.”

This is the first time Alberta has written all subjects and grades of the school curriculum simultaneously in English and French. The K-4 drafts are posted online at new. learnalberta.ca.