Ever Active is leading the way in supporting Alberta schools and teachers in piloting and implementing the new Grades 7-9 Physical Education & Wellness (PE&W) and Career Education and Financial Literacy (CEFL) curricula. Let us help you prepare and implement with resources, workshops and customized consultation.
Overview:
The new curriculum follows the same design approach used in other recently updated Alberta grades and subject areas. Learning is organized around Organizing Ideas, Guiding Questions, and Learning Outcomes, providing a consistent framework for planning and delivering meaningful learning experiences.
While the structure may look different from the existing program of studies, the transition is more familiar than it might first appear.
Physical Education & Wellness: Supporting the Whole Student
Physical Education & Wellness (PE&W) promotes the development of the whole individual and supports each student in pursuing a healthy and active life. The subject brings together physical education and wellness education within the context of a healthy school community, encouraging students to develop the knowledge and practice skills that will support their present and future well-being.
There are 10 Organizing Ideas in the Grades 7–9 curriculum, with seven carried forward from the K–6 PE&W curriculum. This provides continuity for students and teachers while expanding learning into the middle school years.
Career Education & Financial Literacy: Preparing Students for What’s Next
Career Education & Financial Literacy equips students with the knowledge, understanding, and skills to explore career pathways, make informed decisions, and manage money responsibly.
Students examine a wide range of career opportunities, reflect on their interests, strengths, and goals, and begin connecting their learning to possible futures. They also develop practical financial skills related to spending, saving, budgeting, and planning, as well as consider how these skills can support their well-being and long-term goals.
Together, CEFL helps students build confidence through critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and decision-making while preparing them for successful transitions to further education, work, and life.
What’s New?
The most important thing to know is that this is a reorganization, not a total rewrite.
While there is some new content, much of what teachers are already delivering has a place within the new subject areas. Existing learning has been moved, updated and re-framed rather than simply replaced. The 2 existing courses: Physical Education, and Health & Life Skills are reorganized into 2 new courses: Physical Education & Wellness, and Career Education & Financial Literacy.
One notable change is the recommended instructional time for CEFL: 50 hours per year. This represents an additional time requirement on top of the 125 hours currently dedicated to the existing two courses, and may require an integrated programming model in which the outcomes from two or more subject areas are addressed within a common time block.
There are also some genuinely new topics that will require teachers to expand or develop resources. In particular, CEFL introduces greater depth in financial literacy, including topics such as taxes, credit, and investing. These areas were previously addressed later in students education, most often through senior high CALM. The curriculum also places increased attention on labour-market trends, technology, and automation.
The combination of new content and reorganized existing learning provides an opportunity to rethink how these subjects can work together to support students. Rather than starting from scratch, teachers can build on what they already do, identify where new learning fits, and create stronger connections between wellness, life skills, careers, and financial literacy.
What Are the Opportunities?
1. A More Holistic Approach to Wellness
PE&W creates an opportunity to look beyond physical activity alone and consider the whole student. Movement, mental health, relationships, safety, and personal well-being can be intentionally connected to help students understand how different aspects of wellness influence one another.
2. Comprehensive School Health and a Whole-Child Approach
The new curricula align naturally with a Comprehensive School Health and whole-child approach. Learning can extend beyond individual lessons and connect with the broader school environment, relationships, and community.
3. Transferable Life Skills
Decision-making, communication, self-awareness, goal-setting, problem-solving, and critical thinking are emphasized throughout both curricula. These are durable, transferable skills that support student success across school, work, and life.
And the good news? Many of you are already teaching them!
What’s Staying the Same?
For many teachers, the transition will involve more relabelling, reorganizing, and resequencing than starting from scratch.
Games, tactics, and fitness units map naturally into PE&W’s movement-focused learning. Relationship, safety, and mental-health lessons connect with its wellness learning. Career exploration, volunteering, and future-planning activities continue to have a home within CEFL.
In other words, the work you are already doing matters.
For most PE and Health and Life Skills teachers, your existing games units, fitness activities, relationship and safety lessons, and career-exploration activities can continue to be valuable. The task is to identify where that learning fits within the new curriculum and determine where new content or approaches need to be added.
How Ever Active Can Help
Ever Active is ready to support schools and teachers throughout the transition.
Starting in Fall 2026, we will be field testing the following Grades 7-9 resources:
- Wellness Word of the Week
- PE&W Student Journal
- Lead the Way: Building Your Leadership Toolkit online course
- Peer Literacy Peer Coaching Cards
- Risky Business Cards
If you are currently piloting either subject area and would like access to these resources as part of our field testing process, please email us .
Further, explore our Energizing the Grades 7–9 Curriculum workshop, which is available for school bookings and will be at Teachers’ Convention around the province.
Looking for support that is specific to your school, students, or teaching context? Customized consultation is also available.
The new Grades 7–9 curricula bring change, but they also bring opportunity. Ever Active is here to help you build on the great work already happening in Alberta schools, fill the gaps where new learning is needed, and implement the new curricula with confidence.
Reach out to Ever Active to learn more and let us help you get ready for PE&W and CEFL!
written by Chesa Peter
