General Information
Welcome to the Virtual Learning Centre! We have been offering Ontario Secondary School students a wide range of flexible, and well-designed accredited Ontario high school courses since 1997. These courses enable Ontario home schooling families the flexibility of earning credits while studying from home or abroad.
If a student is under 18 and does not reside in the Trillium Lakelands District School Board area they will require a home schooled letter from their school board. Each year our school will require an updated one.
If you are new to home schooling, please review the Ontario Ministry of Education’s requirements here.
Registration for the upcoming school year opens up in mid/late March. An announcement will be posted on the main website with additional information.
At the Virtual Learning Centre we are here to offer support to your homeschooled student’s educational plans. Our Student Services/Guidance department has developed resources available on our website to assist you with course selection and pathway planning. You can find these resources under Student Services. The department is also available to assist students when applying to post-secondary institutions.
Students are admitted to the VLC when they are 14 years old or turning 14 before December 31st in the school year they hope to attend. For the 2024-2025 school year, students must be born in 2010 or earlier.
Depending on the grade you are registering in and your educational plans, there are different options for students. Please review our equivalency policy under our Frequently Asked Questions to see what options are available.
Grade 9 students entering our program in the 2024-25 school year will need to take the following courses if they intend to earn their grade 12 diploma (OSSD):
- English (ENL1W)
- Math (MTH1W)
- Science (SNC1W)
- Geography (CGC1W)
- French (FSF1D if they have 600 hours of instruction from elementary school, or FSF1O if they have completed little to no French instruction). You can review our French policy under the FAQs.
- Students are also required to take a Technological Education and Arts credit but these can be taken in grade 10 as well.
- Optional/elective courses: students are eligible to take open level grade 9 or 10 courses such as Learning Strategies (GLS1O), Building the Entrepreneurial Mindset (BEM1O), Launching and Leading a Business (BEP2O), Exploring Family Studies (HIF2O).
Please review the Student Services >Planning Tools > Grade 9 Course Selection Recommendations for more information.
Grade 9 students should not register for grade 10 compulsory courses such as: grade English, Canadian History, Civics/Careers, Science and Math as these are required courses for grade 10 students to stay on track to meet prerequisites and to graduate.
Students entering our program after grade 9 who plan to earn their OSSD will need to continue to work towards the OSSD requirements.
If a home schooled student is entering our program after grade 9 and does not have the course prerequisite(s) they can still register for the grade appropriate course(s) if they have covered comparable material while being educated at home. Within the online application process you will be asked to provide a synopsis for the material you have covered at home. Please provide us with as much detail as you can. For more information about the synopsis please the next section.
Once you have submitted the application and the supporting documents (you will be emailed for these) our guidance counsellor will review the application and if further documentation is required to support your application you will be notified via email.
For further information about placement and equivalency please read the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section on our site.
***When selecting courses during the registration process read the course descriptions and prerequisites carefully. Some courses do give preference to students in the applicable grade level to ensure they can stay on track towards earning their OSSD and entry into a post-secondary program.
A home school synopsis may be required when:
- A student is entering our program and took courses that are not accredited in Ontario;
- A student in our program wants to take a course that they have not completed the official prerequisite for.
Students can provide us with one or more of the following pieces of information:
- name of the textbook (McGraw Hill, Nelson, Pearson) or curriculum packages used;
- curriculum program used ex. Saxon, Abeka, Tree of Life, Apologia, Bob Jones;
- a brief description of how the student was evaluated and by whom and the final mark (if awarded).
For students who are new to our program they can type this information into a text box during the application process.
Current students can upload a pdf with the information to their student profile.
If any report cards or transcripts were received then these can be uploaded to the student profile. New students will have access to the student notes once they register and can upload the documents as a pdf file then.
Some students take courses with the Virtual Learning Centre to earn credits towards their Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD). We offer all the required courses for the OSSD. You can visit the Ministry of Education’s site for the graduation requirements. Our Student Services section has additional information about the required 40 hours of community involvement and the OSSLT (literacy test) that is written in the Spring of their grade 10 year.
Some students take selected courses to complement their home school studies in order to gain the necessary courses required for a post-secondary program. If a student does not have the required prerequisite for a course they may submit a synopsis of what they have done in their home schooled studies and complete a prerequisite waiver form. This will be emailed to students once they have registered for the course.
Students must carefully research the post-secondary schools and programs they are planning on entering to ensure they will meet all the entrance requirements. Some post-secondary institutions still require students to have their OSSD (Ontario Secondary School Diploma). Our guidance counsellor can help with this process.
If a home schooled student is taking courses with the Virtual Learning Centre and would like to enrol in courses from other programs that are privately or publicly funded, including the Independent Learning Centre (ILC), our office needs to be notified ahead of time. Failure to do so may result in withdrawal from our program.