This was a private school, but its courses had to adhere to the public curriculum requirements and was comparable to local public schools. Math and science were each one course in grades 9 and 10. I've seen a course load that looks like this for grades 11 and 12:

1. Biology
2. Chemistry
3. Physics
4. Calculus
5. Algebra & Geometry
6. English

Stats is also offered.

There would be 1-2 spare periods in the day left for lab work and homework, and some ambitious people would pick up an extra course if scheduling allowed. The school did an admirable job compressing the other mandated courses into the first half of high school to facilitate enrichment or specialization later. About half of the class were IB diploma or certificate holders.

I am going to tread lightly here so as not to offend or over generalize, but I know that the math standards at my undergraduate economics program allowed graduate level material to be taught in 3rd and 4th years. Several of the professors had previously taught at Harvard and Princeton, and they used their PhD material because we had been required to study calculus and linear algebra. Given that my class had incoming students from a wide array of high school backgrounds, I'd hazard a guess that this was fairly representative for the province.


What is to give light must endure burning.