Two standards, four core subjects, and a choice you make once a year. About 6 minutes.
The single most common misconception about Alberta home education is that you must teach the same curriculum schools teach. You don't. Alberta's own parent quick-reference asks it directly — "Must I follow the provincial programs of study?" — and answers "No."
What the Regulation gives you is a choice between two standards, or a blend of both:
The Alberta Programs of Study. The same curriculum used in schools: grade by grade, subject by subject, outcome by outcome. Structured, and the familiar option.
The SOLO schedule. The Schedule to the Home Education Regulation, which Alberta's Handbook renders as the Schedule of Learning Outcomes and shortens to SOLO. Twenty broad outcomes, none of them tied to a grade or an age.
Both. Alberta's guidance confirms you may mix outcomes from the Programs of Study with outcomes from SOLO. Most experienced families end up here.
It is one page, and worth reading before you choose it, because it holds two surprises.
It does prescribe subjects. Section 1:
"A basic education must provide students with a solid core program including language arts, mathematics, science and social studies."
Not a suggestion, and not a shorter list than parents expect. Whichever standard you pick, those four are the core.
Then it stops prescribing. Section 2 sets out twenty outcomes, lettered (a) to (t) — read for information, use mathematics to solve problems in business, science and daily life, understand the physical world and the diversity of life, know the history and geography of Canada, respect its cultural and religious diversity, research an issue and evaluate the credibility of sources, manage time and resources, work independently and in a team, and "have the desire and realize the need for lifelong learning."
Not one of them mentions a grade, an age or a year. The whole schedule is aimed at "life after high school."
So SOLO fixes the destination and the four core subjects. What it leaves open is the route — the order, the pace, the materials, and how you know your child got there.
Parents choose SOLO expecting freedom and fewer forms. The freedom is real. The forms go the other way.
If your supervised program does not follow the Programs of Study, the Regulation requires you to certify that the activities you have selected will let your child achieve the applicable outcomes, and to give your authority a written description of the program covering:
Your authority has to accept that program, including your selection of activities, and each authority sets its own submission timeline. If you change the program significantly mid-year, you must tell them.
Follow the Programs of Study and none of that description is required. That is the trade, and it is the opposite of what the brochures imply.
Not a grade-level syllabus, unless you chose one. The Regulation defines an evaluation as a judgment based on the activities you selected for the year, and Alberta states it plainly: your authority must ensure each student meets the parents' educational outcomes.
This is why "is my child behind?" is a different question for a home-educating family. You set the outcomes; the evaluation asks whether your child is progressing against them. How the evaluations work →
Since SOLO names four core subjects, it is worth being exact about which of them we serve.
We are a science platform. One of the four. Every Knowledge outcome in Alberta's Grades 1–6 science curriculum is mapped to a lesson, as is every Grade 1–6 Skills & Procedures outcome, so a coverage record assembles itself as your child works. Two honest limits: Alberta's Understanding strand is fully mapped at Grade 6 and only partly below it, so in the younger grades your record won't speak to it; and in Grades 7–9 Alberta's Skill Outcomes — planning, performing, analyzing, communicating — are yours to evidence, not ours. A dated photograph of the investigation is that evidence.
Language arts, mathematics and social studies are yours to source. We don't teach them and we won't pretend the record covers them. Your authority is the best first stop for what other families in your program use.
That leaves most of this page describing work we don't do — which is the honest shape of a four-subject obligation and a one-subject product.
✅ Your next step → Your first month
Sources: Home Education Regulation AR 89/2019 (consolidated to AR 160/2025) — s1(c) for what an evaluation is judged against, s3(4) for the Programs of Study being permissive, s3(5)–(7) for the certification, program description and change-notification a non-Programs-of-Study program requires, and the Schedule for SOLO's section 1 core subjects and its twenty lettered outcomes, quoted from the King's Printer HTML edition at kings-printer.alberta.ca/documents/Regs/2019_089.html because the PDF at the same path is published without its Schedule; Home Education Handbook (April 2025) for the "Must I follow the provincial programs of study? — No" answer, for the Schedule of Learning Outcomes name and the SOLO acronym, and for combining outcomes from both standards; Home education — Alberta.ca for "the parents' educational outcomes". Coverage claims about Eduverse are scoped per strand and grade band against our own curriculum data, and name the three subjects we do not teach. Checked 29 July 2026. Nothing here is legal advice.
Next: Your first month
The funding rate and the September deadline both move annually, and a page you read in July is worth re-reading in September. Leave an email and we will tell you what changed — that is all we use it for.