The BC Curriculum
What our students learn, how they learn it, and how it differs from the Chinese national curriculum.
Every CSEEC school teaches the British Columbia curriculum in English: the same curriculum that public and independent schools across BC follow. Our schools are certified by BC and inspected by the BC Ministry of Education every year.
BC's curriculum is built around understanding and skills rather than memorization. Students are expected to ask questions, investigate, explain their thinking and apply what they learn.
Know, Do, Understand
In every subject and grade, BC's learning standards have three parts that are taught together.
- Content (Know): the topics and knowledge students learn at each grade.
- Curricular Competencies (Do): the skills of the subject, such as investigating and experimenting in science, reasoning and modelling in mathematics, or evaluating sources in social studies.
- Big Ideas (Understand): the broad, lasting understandings students should carry with them after the course.
The Core Competencies
Alongside subject learning, BC schools develop three Core Competencies that students reflect on and assess themselves throughout the year.
- Communication: sharing ideas clearly and working together.
- Thinking: creative thinking and critical, reflective thinking.
- Personal and Social: a positive personal and cultural identity, personal awareness and responsibility, and social awareness and responsibility.
How students learn
- Classes are taught in English by BC-certified teachers.
- Inquiry and project-based learning: students research questions, run experiments and build things, not only listen to lectures.
- Discussion, presentations and written work are a regular part of every course.
- Most of our students are English Language Learners, and English is developed in every subject, not only in English class.
Marks are earned all year
In Grades 10 to 12, a student's final mark in each course is built from work throughout the course: assignments, projects, lab work, presentations, quizzes and tests. Courses are reported as a percentage and a letter grade, and each course passed earns credits toward graduation.
Students also write three provincial graduation assessments in literacy and numeracy. They are required for graduation, but they are not a single exam that decides a student's future.
Compared with the Chinese national curriculum
- The Chinese high school curriculum builds toward the gaokao, one high-stakes exam. In BC, results come from steady work across each course.
- Chinese classes put more weight on mastering a large body of content. BC classes give equal weight to skills: investigating, explaining, writing and presenting.
- In BC, students choose many of their Grade 11 and 12 courses, so they can follow their strengths and the programs they plan to study at university.
- CSEEC students study for both a Chinese and a BC diploma, so they gain from both systems.
Virtual Classroom
Our interactive teaching platform. Sign in with your school Microsoft 365 account to explore science, math and economics through simulations you can adjust and explore.
- 78 interactive models for BC and AP courses: physics, chemistry, biology, earth science, mathematics, statistics and economics
- A stock market classroom where teachers run a class-wide trading simulation
- Teachers and students sign in with their @cseec.ca account
The full BC curriculum for every subject and grade is published by the BC Ministry of Education.
BC curriculum website