Do private schools have to follow the Ontario curriculum?
No. A private elementary school in Ontario chooses its own curriculum, and the province neither inspects it nor requires it to teach the provincial one. That surprises most parents, and it is worth understanding before you choose any private school, this one included.
The Ministry of Education says so on its own website: schools it does not inspect do not need to follow the official Ontario curriculum.
What the Ministry actually does
Every private school in Ontario files a Notice of Intention to Operate each year, by 1 September. A new school pays a one-time fee. The notice records who owns the school, who runs it, where it is and what hours it teaches. That is the whole of it.
In the Ministry's own words it provides no funding, regulation, licensing, accreditation or oversight of operations for private schools, and it does not endorse them. Any school describing itself as Ministry-accredited or Ministry-approved is describing something that does not exist.
Who does get inspected
Private secondary schools that want to grant credits toward the Ontario Secondary School Diploma. Those are inspected roughly every two years, for that purpose specifically.
Elementary schools are not inspected at all. Neither are the premises, the health and safety practices or the staffing at any private school, elementary or secondary. Nor is a private school required to hire teachers certified by the Ontario College of Teachers, outside those credit-granting secondary courses.
What the Ontario curriculum contains
Worth knowing even if a school does not follow it, because it is the thing every other school in the province is teaching, and it is the benchmark you will compare against. For English-language boards there are eight elementary subject areas, each with its own published document.
| Subject | Current version |
|---|---|
| Language | 2023 |
| Mathematics | 2020 |
| Science and Technology | 2022 |
| Social Studies, History and Geography | 2023 |
| Health and Physical Education | 2019 |
| The Arts | 2009 |
| French as a Second Language | 2013 |
| Native Languages | 2001 |
The part parents ask about
Human Development and Sexual Health sits inside Health and Physical Education, and what it covers at each grade is more specific and more limited than the public argument suggests. This is what the 2019 document sets out for the elementary years.
Two things are worth separating. Gender identity as a topic is a Grade 8 expectation, not an elementary one. And land acknowledgements are not a curriculum expectation at all: they are board and school practice, which is a different thing from what the province mandates.
| Grade | What the curriculum sets out |
|---|---|
| Grade 1 | Naming body parts including genitalia with correct terminology; the five senses; hygiene and how disease spreads |
| Grade 2 | Stages of human development from infant to older adult; how bodies work; oral health |
| Grade 3 | Healthy relationships; responding to bullying; communicating consent; visible and invisible differences between people |
| Grade 4 | Physical changes at puberty and their emotional and social effects; personal hygiene at puberty |
| Grade 5 | Parts of the reproductive system; menstruation and spermatogenesis; self-concept including sexual orientation |
| Grade 6 | Effects of viewing sexually explicit media; stereotypes and assumptions about gender roles and sexual orientation |
| Grade 8 | Gender identity |
How we choose
We teach reading, writing and mathematics to a high standard, and in the other subjects we take the parts of the provincial documents that are worth keeping and leave the rest. Where a strand is good it is used; where it is thin or padded the hours go somewhere that earns them.
That is what buys the room for money and business, engineering, first aid, the outdoors, and health, nutrition and fitness to be subjects in their own right.
How to judge a private school
The question worth asking is not whether a school is approved. Nothing approves it. The question is what it will show you.
Here every unit is published to families before it is taught, and the full curriculum stays open all year to anyone with a child in the school. Under Ontario's rules trust is genuinely all a parent would otherwise have, so we would rather hand you the material.
Questions about Straight answer
Is a private school in Ontario accredited?
No. Ontario has no accreditation process for private schools. Some belong to voluntary membership associations, which is a different thing and worth asking about specifically.
Do private school teachers have to be certified?
Not at elementary level. Ontario College of Teachers certification is required for teachers of credit-granting secondary courses, not for private elementary teaching. Ask any school you are considering who teaches your child and what their background is.
Is gender identity taught in Ontario elementary schools?
Not as a curriculum expectation. The 2019 Health and Physical Education document places gender identity in Grade 8. Sexual orientation appears in Grade 5 and again in Grade 6. What an individual board or classroom does beyond the document is a separate question, and worth asking your own school.
Are land acknowledgements part of the Ontario curriculum?
No. They are board and school practice rather than a curriculum expectation. A school choosing not to open the day with one is making a decision about its own practice, not departing from the provincial curriculum.
So how do I judge a private school?
On what it will let you see. Ask for the curriculum in writing, ask whether you can read it before it is taught, and ask what happens when you disagree with something in it. The answers separate schools quickly.