Meeting with the DEM

On September 11th, 2020, Marine Dumond-Deprés, AQED’s Chair, and Noémi Berlus, AQED’s director, spoke to the directors of the Direction de l’enseignement à la maison (DEM) about certain rumours that were circulating in our networks. 

Contrary to these rumours, instructions to DEM agents for the academic year 2020-2021 remain unchanged. Since some resource peoples may have accepted learning plans that did not meet the expectations last year, these specific resource people may not be as lenient this year. Neither the DEM nor the Minister has issued guidelines to tighten the rules. 

Advice from last year to our members still stands. Learning project (LP) must indicate the activities that children will undertake to develop the required competencies for each subject. Keep in mind that an activity can support several competencies. In their LP, parents can either copy the list of the Quebec Education Program (QEP) competencies for mandatory subjects or simply write that they are targeting the competencies of the QEP for these subjects. If the LP omits to mention activities that support a specific competency, the resource person will probably contact you to determine which activity you are already doing would cover this specific competency. Following this conversation, your resource person will probably adjust your LP correspondingly. 

To facilitate its oversight, the DEM will publish a new version of its templates. These documents will include a box for each competency and parents will be able to how the child will develop it. Always keep in mind that one activity can be associated with many competencies. In their words: “There is no need to write 10 activities per competency”. AQED’s templates are still valid. We have added the competencies at the end of our templates to allow you to make sure activities mentioned in your LP have covered them.

Also, end-of-year evaluations will be conducted by subject and not by competency (they emphasized this point).

On September 11th, 10,900 children were registered at the DEM and 33 resource persons worked at the DEM. More candidates are interviewed everyday.