Graduation Program
Grade 9 students do not earn “credits” for their courses, but must successfully complete the following courses: English 9, Social Studies 9, Science 9, Math 9, and PE 9 as well as the Career Education 9 curriculum in order to move on to Grade 10 courses and begin earning “credits”.
Grade 10, 11 and 12 students do earn credits in the graduation program.
To graduate with a Graduation Certificate, students must complete the following requirements and earn at least 80 credits at the grade 10, 11 and 12 level:
Dogwood Diploma - at a glance:
The B.C. Certificate of Graduation or "Dogwood Diploma" is awarded to students who successfully complete the provincial graduation requirements.
Students require a minimum of 80 credits to graduate.
Of these 80 credits:
At least 16 credits must be at the Grade 12 level, including a required Language Arts 12
At least 28 credits must be elective course credits
52 credits are required from the following:
Career-Life Education (4 credits), and Career-Life Connections (4 credits)
Physical and Health Education 10 (4 credits)
Science 10 (4 credits), and a Science 11 or 12 (4 credits)
Social Studies 10 (4 credits), and a Social Studies 11 or 12 (4 credits)
A Math 10 (4 credits), and a Math 11 or 12 (4 credits)
A Language Arts 10, 11 and a required 12 (12 credits total)
An Arts Education 10, 11, or 12 and/or an Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies 10, 11, or 12 (4 credits total)
In addition, students must also complete three new graduation assessments:
The Grade 10 Graduation Numeracy Assessment
The Grade 10 Graduation Literacy Assessment
The Grade 12 Graduation Literacy Assessment
** Starting in the 2023-24 school year, students will need to take an indigenous focused course to meet grad requirements. This requirement can be met at GISS by taking either BC First Peoples 12 or English First People's 11 or 12.
** This information is from the Ministry website: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/education-training/k-12/support/graduation