K-9 FAQs

We have enrolled, talked with the Registrar and Regional Administrator, what are the next steps?

Please view our New Families: Eight Steps for getting started in K-9 for more information.

Who is my Regional Administrator?

You can see who your Regional Administrator is on the HCOS Website.

We also have a Middle School Administrator for our grade 5 to 9 online courses, which you can find on the HCOS Website.

When will my support teacher contact me to get the school year started?

Generally, support teachers will reach out to families toward the end of August. They will start by making sure they have your correct email address and then move to ensuring you have resources in place for the upcoming school year as they work with you to build the Student Learning Plan (SLP).

Support teachers may reach out prior to the end of the previous school year, but the majority of communication starts at the end of August.  

How much communication should I expect with my support teacher and online course teacher?  

Communication with your support teacher will take place on a weekly basis and will vary between different forms of communication. HCOS teachers will often communicate over over  email, Zoom, SeeSaw, phone calls, home visits, and various other forms throughout the school year. As a parent, you will be responsible for sending in work samples for your child. Your support teacher will reply and be able to provide feedback and open communication with you through this.  

Online teachers primarily communicate with students directly through their feedback on submitted assignments. Parents can reach out to an online teacher at any point via email and at any time during a school year.  

Am I able to track where my child is at in their online courses or connect with online course teachers?

Online course progress is available for parents to see for each online course their child is taking. This is done by selecting the ‘Online Course Progress’ button in Encom (our data management system), where you can see all online courses and how much has been completed in each course.    

• • • • It is advised that parents keep track of their child’s progress in each online course,   as the year progresses to ensure they are on track to complete the course in a timely manner.    

Parents are welcome to meet with online course teachers. Teacher contact information is available available  through the Teacher Directory or by clicking on the teacher’s name on the report card tab in Encom.

Do I meet with my support teacher?

Support teachers aim to have at least three home visits a year with their families that are within a reasonable distance (as decided upon with their administrator). These visits are intended to help aid in gathering student work samples, collaboratively building the learning plan for the school year, meeting and (at times) working with students, and general relationship building.  

How do I share work samples with support teachers?

This will depend on whether the course is an individualized course or an HCOS online course.  

For individualized courses, parents send work samples to their support teacher using a variety of tools including, but not limited to, email, SeeSaw, FreshGrade, and in person home visits.  

For HCOS online courses, students submit work online directly in the course and will also upload completed work samples to a management tool called Moodle (which uses a simple drag-and-drop method for adding completed documents)

(Moodle is still there for the next year 2023 for students who are finishing old courses; otherwise, we have transitioned to Brightspace).  

How is a plan built for my child’s school year?

Your support teacher will work with you to build a Student Learning Plan (SLP) for your child, each school year. The SLP is done collaboratively with the parent, support teacher and the student. It is the support teacher’s responsibility to write this and upload it in Encom (our data management system at HCOS). The SLP will outline the plan for each course for the year and will be worked on throughout September and part of October. Once the SLP is finalized and agreed upon, parents sign in acknowledgement that this is the plan for the school year.    

Will I get to choose my support teacher?

The Regional Administrator (RA) for your area will assign a support teacher to work with you.

Parents can make requests and the RA will take this into consideration when they are assigning a support teacher.

How much funding do I get for resources and lessons?

The amount of funding received will depend on your choice to pay for tuition or not. Please check out this page on Tuition and Bursary: Family FAQs

Are there additional activities and resources for my child at HCOS?

The answer is a big YES! We have a variety of face to face programs available to students and these vary depending on where families live. All options offered in areas around BC are listed on the HCOS Learning Groups website. These range from single events, to longer camps, to full one-day-a-week campus based programs running the majority of the school year.  

We also have many additional, free resources available through our Learning Commons website. This includes books and ebooks that can be signed out, online subscriptions largely paid for by HCOS, Unit Study Kits, resource suggestions for each grade, and other free resources are available throughout the school year.

What is a reasonable amount of time to spend on school work each day?

This largely depends on the age and ability of a student. A very general guideline would be thirty minutes of seated work time per grade for the core academic subjects. For example, a grade 5 student would spend three hours each day working on Math, Language Arts, Social Studies, Science, and Second Language resources. The other four subjects (Christian Studies, PE and Health, Career Education, and ADST) would be completed largely through activity based learning.

This general guideline needs to be considered as just that, a very general approach as each student will have a learning plan designed to meet their individual needs and abilities.  

Parents are encouraged to review this with their support teacher and online course teacher as they will be able to offer insights and suggestions on how best to organize a work day.  

What is an ‘Individualized’ course?

An individualized course is one that a parent delivers to their child in a home learning program that has the oversight of an HCOS support teacher. For each Individualized course, the support teacher will build the Student Learning Plan, and will gather work samples and provide feedback and assessment throughout the year. Students will receive two report cards a year.  

What is an ‘Online’ course?  

An online course is one that is primarily completed online. Each online course has a subject specific specialist teacher who manages the course, marks and gives feedback on assignments, holds office hours for student support, and gives report card marks and feedback twice a year.  

Online courses are also available in two formats, asynchronous and synchronous

• • Online Synchronous - this option uses the online courses that HCOS has written, and also has the added benefit of weekly zoom meetings with the course teacher. The student cohort in these classes work together at about the same pace, beginning in September and finishing in June.
  • Online Asynchronous - this option also uses the same online course as the synchronous course, but students have the flexibility to work at their own pace. Typically, these courses begin in September and finish in June. Students can start at different times, but we don’t advise to leave it too late in a school year to start them. These courses can also be finished earlier than year end if a student works at an advanced pace.  

Can I use a combination of online courses and individualized courses?

Yes! HCOS is set up to be flexible: we want to meet each child's learning needs.

We offer online courses from grades 5 - 12 and you are welcome to choose online courses as an option for your child. (We encourage students in grades five to seven to limit their number of online courses and to work with their support teacher when selecting them.)

Does HCOS offer summer school?

Summer school is offered for students in Grades 8 and 9 for asynchronous (self paced) online courses.  

Does HCOS offer a Homeschool Registered Program?  

Heritage Christian Online School welcomes and supports registered homeschoolers by providing some support and parents can check out all the details on the HCOS website on our Homeschool Registered page.