The Ministry of Education
develops and implements the curriculum in Ontario’s publicly
funded schools. Each subject area is governed by its own curriculum
policy, which is reviewed by the Ministry and practicing classroom
teachers once every seven years. The review cycle lasts for
three years: from focus groups and technical analysis in year
1, through course writing and revisions in year 2, to completion
through editing, teacher training and implementation in year
3.
For example, in 2008-2009, the following subject areas were
in various stages of their review cycles: the arts; health
and physical education; social sciences and humanities; science,
grades 9 to 12; and technological studies, grades 9 to 12.
In 2009-2010, the curriculum review cycle enters the final year and the remaining curriculum areas will begin their 3-year cycle: Social Studies, History and Geography, Canadian and World Studies; classical Studies and International Languages; Native Studies and Native Languages; and Interdisciplinary Studies. The Ministry has announced a moratorium on curriculum review until 2012 when the process will begin again.
To learn more about specific subject areas and the Ontario
Curriculum Policy documents for each of those areas, please
visit http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/index.html.
The policies about assessment, evaluation, grading and reporting in Ontario’s publicly funded school system are in the final stages of review with one new policy document, entitled Growing Success, scheduled for release in Winter 2010. The new document will contain all assessment, evaluation, grading and reporting guidelines for students from Kindergarten through Grade 12.
Each curriculum policy document has a section outlining the
overall and specific curriculum expectations for students
and provides achievement charts for performance standards.
New trends in the area of assessment include assessment of
learning, assessment for learning and assessment as learning
- all of which are important for student growth and learning.
Currently, achievement charts are used for each subject area.
These can be found at http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/policy/achievement.
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