A few St. Albert elementary schools will be piloting some new subject curriculums next year.
Alberta's Education Minister Adriana LaGrange announced on May 17 that the new K-6 science, French immersion language arts and literature, and French first language and literature curriculums have been updated in response to public feedback, and are now ready to be piloted in schools.
The director of curriculum services with St. Albert Public Schools, Catherine Coyne, says approximately 20 teachers within the division have volunteered to pilot the science and French immersion language arts curriculums so far.
"We don’t have to have our information in to Alberta Education until mid-June so that information is still evolving in terms of teachers declaring whether or not they want to be a part of the pilot,” Coyne said.
"Certainly we don’t have all grade levels covered at this point.”
Conseil scolaire Centre-Nord, the north-central Alberta Francophone school board that includes École La Mission Francophone School in St. Albert, confirmed in an email to The Gazette that the division will be piloting the French first language and literature curriculum next year.
Jonathan Konrad, the acting deputy superintendent of education services with Sturgeon Public Schools, said the division is looking to pilot the French immersion curriculum at École Morinville Public School, which is K-4. Konrad said he was appreciative of the "additional connection" to French immersion resources that Alberta Education is providing schools to pilot the curriculum.
As of June 4, Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools hadn't decided if the division will pilot the new subject curriculums next year.
Teachers who volunteer to pilot the curriculums will provide the government feedback after the school year, and the feedback will inform the final curriculum changes before being implemented throughout the province.
Coyne said the exact process for teachers to provide feedback has yet to be determined by Alberta Education.
"It’s my understanding though that there will be several opportunities for teachers to provide feedback," Coyne said.
"It sounds like it could be in meeting format; so they have a Zoom meeting and have conversations and focus groups [will] provide feedback [and] I suspect there will be a survey as well where teachers can provide that very specific feedback.”
"A professional responsibility"
Coyne said there are many reasons why some teachers with St. Albert Public Schools volunteered to pilot the curriculums.
"Many feel that it’s a professional responsibility to be part of curriculum development, and that includes trying it out in their classroom and providing that feedback," she said.
"For some it might be that they’re really interested in seeing a curriculum under development and wanting to test it out in their classroom and see how it goes.”
However, Coyne said switching to a new curriculum is no easy process.
“Any change is significant work for teachers because you need to look at what you’re already doing and assess it in relation to the new curriculum."
"It’s about finding the resources that you need to teach the new curriculum [and] about what skills might need to be filled-in that the students may not have from the current curriculum into that pilot curriculum," she said.
"Then you need to create, potentially, different lessons and different experiences for the students and for science that might look like different labs and activities."
Public feedback reports
On May 31, LaGrange announced the release of 13 feedback reports the government commissioned after the draft K-6 curriculum was released in March of 2021.
One report that summarized more than 34,000 survey responses found that 70 per cent of all responses provided negative, or critical, feedback on the draft curriculum. Some 16 per cent of all responses provided positive feedback, and 14 per cent provided neutral feedback, according to the report.
The report states that 1,549 survey responses provided feedback specifically on the draft science curriculum. Of the responses that included feedback on the science curriculum as a whole, 292 respondents said the curriculum had room for improvement, while 100 respondents gave positive feedback to the curriculum, according to the report.
Feedback specifically in response to the french immersion language arts curriculum shared a common perspective that "reading and writing expectations for kindergarten students may be excessive and not developmentally appropriate, and are not in line with the expectations in English," the report states.
Common feedback on the French first language and literature curriculum was, according to the report, that the curriculum needed to include Francophone perspectives, texts, and content, as the respondents noted that the draft curriculum was a translated version of the English language and literature curriculum.
Curriculum updated after receiving feedback
According to LaGrange's May 17 news release, the science curriculum was updated with "revisions and additions... to integrate scientific methods and hands-on activities, emphasize connections to nature and address digital literacy and ethics."
The French immersion language arts and literature curriculum was updated to "strengthen francophone perspectives and culture, provide logical learning progressions, develop effective and meaningful communication, and support critical thinking and language skills," the release states.
Lastly, the release said that updates to the French first language and literature curriculum will "support the development of francophone identity through inclusion of francophone perspectives and cultures."
