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Cedar RootsCommunity School

Learning & academics

High expectations, many ways to meet them

Cedar Roots teaches the full BC curriculum. What changes is how and where students learn — and how much say they have in the journey.

Built on the BC curriculum

Know, do, understand

British Columbia's curriculum is organized around big ideas, curricular competencies and content, with the core competencies running through every subject. It already invites the kind of learning Cedar Roots is built for: personalized, inquiry-driven and connected to place.

Our timetable, spaces and partnerships are designed to take full advantage of that flexibility — while making sure every student builds the knowledge and skills they need for graduation and for whatever comes next.

  • Core competency

    Communication

    Communicating · Collaborating

  • Core competency

    Thinking

    Creative thinking · Critical and reflective thinking

  • Core competency

    Personal & Social

    Personal awareness and responsibility · Positive personal and cultural identity · Social awareness and responsibility

Areas of learning

What students study

Select a subject to see how it is taught at Cedar Roots and examples of courses and experiences. Course offerings would depend on enrolment, staffing and district approval.

How learning works

Four approaches, working together

No single method fits every lesson. Teachers choose deliberately — and students come to understand why.
A fast-flowing stream, blurred white by a long exposure, running beneath a wooden trestle in a mossy forest
  1. 01

    Explicit instruction

    New content, skills and vocabulary are taught clearly and directly, with modelling, guided practice and frequent checks for understanding. Strong foundations make deeper inquiry possible.

  2. 02

    Inquiry

    Students ask questions, investigate, and build explanations. Inquiry is structured and scaffolded — open-ended only when students have the knowledge to make it productive.

  3. 03

    Experiential learning

    Students learn by doing: fieldwork, labs, building, performing and serving. Each experience is followed by reflection that connects it back to big ideas.

  4. 04

    Place-based learning

    Local places, issues and people give learning a real context. The same stretch of shoreline can anchor a biology lab, a math model and a piece of writing.

  5. An example: one stream, four ways

    A Grade 10 science class learns how dissolved oxygen is measured (explicit instruction), visits a nearby stream to collect samples (experiential and place-based), then investigates their own question about what affects the readings (inquiry).

Student learning pathways

Flexible pathways, the same high bar

Students shape their learning around their interests while meeting every BC graduation requirement. Pathways are examples, not tracks — students can change direction at any point.

Choose an interest to see how a student might move from Grade 9 to Grade 12.

For students drawn to ecology, marine science, conservation or health sciences.

  1. Grade 9

    Foundations
    • Science 9 with weekly field studies
    • Guided inquiry: a local habitat question
    • Shoreline clean-up and monitoring

  2. Grade 10

    Exploration
    • Science 10 and Foundations & Pre-calculus 10
    • Water-quality investigation project
    • Career-Life Education: meet scientists and land stewards

  3. Grade 11

    Focus
    • Life Sciences 11 or Environmental Science 11
    • Chemistry 11
    • Mentoring Grade 9 field groups

  4. Grade 12

    Capstone
    • Environmental Science 12 or Anatomy and Physiology 12
    • Capstone: a community conservation project
    • Planning for post-secondary or work

Assessment

Assessment that helps students grow

Assessment at Cedar Roots is mostly about feedback: helping students understand where they are, where they're going and how to get there.

  • Formative feedback

    Frequent, specific feedback during learning so students know where they are and what to do next — before anything is graded.

  • Student reflection & goal-setting

    Students self-assess regularly, including on the core competencies, and set goals with their advisory teacher each term.

  • Learning portfolios

    A digital portfolio follows each student from Grade 9 to 12, collecting evidence of growth across subjects and experiences.

  • Demonstrations of learning

    Students show what they know in varied ways — presentations, exhibitions, performances, lab reports and tests — with shared criteria.

  • Curricular competencies

    Assessment looks at both content knowledge and the ‘doing’ of each subject: questioning, reasoning, communicating and applying.

Graduation stays non-negotiable

Flexible does not mean optional. Every Cedar Roots student would work toward the BC Certificate of Graduation (Dogwood Diploma), completing the required courses, Indigenous-focused coursework, Career-Life Education and Career-Life Connections, and the provincial graduation assessments in literacy and numeracy.

See how the timetable supports this