New Grade 9 curriculum will land sooner than expected

A new 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 Wednesday news release, 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 new high school curriculum.

All subjects will be ready by December 2022, as initially planned, he said.