What is a private school in Ontario
Start with the province's own description, because it is blunter than most parents expect. Private schools in Ontario “are businesses or non-profit organizations that must meet requirements set by the Education Act but are independent of the Ministry of Education.” The Ministry states plainly that it does not provide funding or financial support, regulation, licensing, accreditation, or oversight of operations for private schools, and that “you must do your own research if you wish to send your child to a private school.”
The bar to exist is low. A private school must provide instruction at some point between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on any school day, have five or more students at or over the required school age, and offer elementary or high school courses. Every private school must also file a notice of intention to operate with the Ministry each year, which is how the province's public list of private schools gets built. That list is an inventory, not a recommendation. The Ministry says so in as many words:
Source: ontario.ca/page/private-schools
Inspected and non-inspected: the distinction that decides everything
There are exactly two categories of private school in Ontario, and the line between them is the one that matters.
Not inspected
The Ministry does not inspect private elementary schools, and it does not inspect private high schools that do not offer OSSD credit courses. Schools in that category are not required to follow the official Ontario curriculum at all, though the province says they “should offer general elementary or secondary subjects such as mathematics, science, language and social studies.”
Inspected
The Ministry does inspect every private high school seeking or holding the authority to grant credits toward the OSSD, and the schools pay a fee each time. Inspectors review the course calendar, examine the course of study outlines for every OSSD credit course, review daily lesson plans on site, visit classrooms, read student work and the teachers' assessments of it, and examine school policies and records.
Credit-granting authority is only allowed after a successful inspection, and the province can revoke it after a later one. Inspections may be scheduled or unannounced, and the Ministry says it may inspect without notice “if there are concerns or complaints about the standard of instruction or credit integrity.”
Two practical consequences follow. A private high school that can grant OSSD credits is required to say so on its website, so its absence is informative. And what inspection covers is narrower than the word suggests: the Ministry explicitly does not inspect the condition of the premises, health and safety practices, or staffing.
Inspection is a guarantee about credit integrity. It is not a guarantee about the building, the supervision, or the people.
Source: ontario.ca/page/private-schools
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“Private” and “independent” are not synonyms
Parents use the two words interchangeably. The sector does not. CIS Ontario, the Conference of Independent Schools of Ontario, publishes its own distinction: “In Ontario, an independent school, differs than a private school, because it is a not-for-profit institution with a head of school and a volunteer board of governors.” Under that definition a for-profit school is private but not independent, no matter how it markets itself.
Three membership organisations are worth recognising on a school's footer, because each represents a different kind of commitment.
CAIS (Canadian Accredited Independent Schools)
The national accreditor, comprising over 95 schools in Canada and Bermuda, of which 29 are boarding schools. Accreditation runs on a five-stage process built on 12 National Standards: a self-study over 12 to 18 months, a peer review team of educators from similar schools who spend four days inside the school meeting students, faculty, parents, alumni and board members, a peer review report, a school improvement action plan, and an accreditation decision. Accredited schools undergo a peer review every five years. A school must have operated for at least five years to apply, and CAIS notes that most schools take four years from application to full membership.
Sources: cais.ca/about-cais · accreditation process · membership expectations
CIS Ontario
47 member schools, 44 full members within Ontario and 3 associate schools from outside the province, together serving over 28,000 students. Entry requires meeting six criteria, and one of them is unusually specific about governance: the governing body and the administration must be at arm's length from each other, with at least 80 per cent of governing-body members unassociated with the administration.
Sources: cisontario.ca/our-schools · becoming a member
OFIS (Ontario Federation of Independent Schools)
Broader by design, representing “traditional, faith-based, progressive, special needs, special-interest, and community/micro schools in Ontario,” and it conducts school management reviews covering governance, operations, policy, financial wellness and communications.
Sources: ofis.ca · ofis.ca/leadership
The questions worth asking before you sign anything
The province publishes a list of questions to put to a private school before entering a contract. It is the most useful thing on the page and almost nobody reads it.
Your shortlist checklist
0 of 10 answered
Tick each question once a school has answered it in writing.
That last question is ours, not the province's. Among the established schools surveyed below, practice varies enormously. Some publish a dated, itemised fee table for the coming year on their own website. Others publish figures with no academic year attached. Others host the fee schedule off-site, or block the tuition page from being read at all, or invoice families individually. None of that is improper. All of it tells you something about how the school will handle information you need later.
Source: ontario.ca/page/private-schools
How Ontario private school rankings are produced, and what they miss
Parents searching for a private schools in Ontario ranking are usually looking for one document: the Fraser Institute's Report Card on Ontario's Secondary Schools. The 2025 edition, published 27 November 2025 by Peter Cowley, Joel Emes and Max Shang, “ranks 747 public, Catholic and independent high schools based on seven academic indicators derived from provincewide test results.” Its results are also browsable school by school on the Institute's interactive site.
The Institute is clear about the purpose: the Report Card “collects a variety of relevant, objective indicators of school performance into one, easily accessible public document so that anyone can analyze and compare the performance of individual schools,” and it argues that the data show “every school is capable of improvement regardless of type, location and student characteristics.”
Understanding the ranking means understanding its raw material, which is provincewide testing by Ontario's Education Quality and Accountability Office. The Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test is the largest single input, and here is what it measures: “whether students are meeting the minimum standard for literacy across all subjects up to the end of Grade 9.” Students normally write it in their second year of secondary school. It is two sessions, 37 questions in total, scored on a scale from 200 to 400 with 300 required to pass.
Read that description again and the limits of any ranking built on it become obvious.
It is a minimum-standard test, not a measure of excellence
A pass tells you a student met a floor. It cannot distinguish between a school where students clear the floor and a school where they clear it by a mile.
It measures literacy up to the end of Grade 9
The results are then used to rank schools whose most consequential work happens in Grades 11 and 12. A ranking derived from Grade 9 and Grade 10 testing says nothing directly about the quality of Grade 12 pre-university teaching, university placement, or how a school handles a transfer student's transcript.
It measures two things
Literacy and mathematics. Not the arts, athletics, boarding life, pastoral care, class size, teacher retention, university counselling, or the specific programme streams that make one school right for a particular student and wrong for another.
It can only rank schools it has data for
A private school with a small cohort, or one that does not appear in the dataset, is simply absent from the table rather than ranked low.
None of this makes the Report Card useless. It is the most rigorous public dataset on Ontario school performance over time, and a school's trajectory across several editions is genuinely informative. But a ranking is a starting point for questions, not a substitute for them. The Ministry of Education's own position on lists of private schools applies with equal force to rankings: do not read them as endorsements.
This page does not publish a ranking of Ontario private schools. The schools described below are examples chosen to show the real range of the sector, each fact taken from the school's own website. They are presented alphabetically within each region, in no order of merit.
Sources: Fraser Institute Report Card 2025 · compareschoolrankings.org · EQAO OSSLT · ontario.ca/page/private-schools
Private schools in Ontario, region by region
Greater Toronto Area
Toronto and its surrounding municipalities hold the highest concentration of long-established independent schools in the province, and the widest range of models.
Branksome Hall
A girls' school at 10 Elm Ave in central Toronto, established in 1903, with a total enrolment of 910 including 54 boarding students from 13 countries. It runs the full International Baccalaureate continuum, from the Primary Years Programme in JK through to IB pathways in Grades 11 and 12. Its published 2026–27 fees are $45,140 for day students in JK through Grade 10 and $49,210 in Grades 11 and 12, with boarding at $86,640 in Grades 7 to 10 and $90,710 in Grades 11 and 12, plus a non-refundable initial registration fee of $9,500. Fees are set each January by the board of governors for the following year, and financial assistance is available for Grades 7 to 12.
Sources: branksome.on.ca · tuition and other costs
St. Andrew's College
In Aurora, founded in 1899, describes itself as Canada's largest all-boys day and boarding school, serving Grades 5 to 12 on a 126-acre campus with more than 650 students, over 360 of them day students and 260 boarders from Canada and 30 other countries. Its senior academic stream is Advanced Placement rather than IB: the school is a member of the Council of AP Schools in Ontario and offers AP Capstone. Published 2026–27 fees are $46,395 for day students and $79,880 for boarders, with higher rates for international students requiring a study permit, and mandatory technology, personal service and lunch fees on top. Roughly 26 per cent of students receive a scholarship or bursary from an annual budget of $3.7 million. One detail matters more than the fees: St. Andrew's accepts day applicants in Grades 5 to 9 only.
Sources: sac.on.ca/admission · tuition and fees · how to apply
TFS: Canada's International School
Bilingual and co-educational since 1962, running two campuses, Toronto for ages 2 to Grade 12 and a West Campus in Mississauga for PK to Grade 7, with about 1,500 students from more than 40 countries. It is the clearest example of a dual-credential school in the province: “All TFS graduates receive the Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD/DESO) and earn the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma,” and Grade 9 students also sit the French Diplôme National du Brevet. The IB Diploma is mandatory in the final two years.
Sources: tfs.ca · TFS graduates
Upper Canada College
Founded in 1829, a boys' school on 35 acres in central Toronto enrolling 1,280 students from Junior Kindergarten through Year 12, including 88 boarders from 25 countries, and an IB World School. Approximately 20 per cent of students receive financial assistance, with $6 million available annually to Canadian students. Its tuition page sets out fee categories for the 2025–26 year in Canadian dollars but the figures themselves could not be read from the published page, so no UCC tuition number appears in this guide.
Sources: ucc.on.ca · tuition and financial assistance
Ottawa and Eastern Ontario
The eastern corridor is where bilingual programming and boarding overlap most, and it is the part of Ontario closest to Quebec and to the Montreal and Gatineau catchments.
Albert College
In Belleville, founded in 1857, describes itself as Canada's oldest co-educational day and boarding school, running Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 12 with boarding offered in Grades 7 to 12, and is CAIS-accredited. Its senior school is explicit about the diploma pathway, setting out the OSSD requirements including 40 community involvement hours and the literacy requirement, alongside a small number of AP courses. Published day fees are $34,400 for Grades 9 to 12, with Canadian boarding at $81,300 and a five-day boarding option at $60,300.
Sources: albertcollege.ca · senior school · tuition
Ashbury College
In Ottawa, established in 1891, co-educational for Grades 3 to 12, taking day students from Grade 3 and both day and boarding students from Grade 9, with 110 students currently boarding on campus and students from over 60 countries. Average class size is 17 and the student-teacher ratio is 8:1. It has been an IB World School since January 1975 and offers IB “in alignment with the Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) requirements,” so senior students earn both the OSSD and the IB Diploma, with the IB Bilingual Diploma among the options. Published 2026–27 fees are $40,920 for day students and $87,660 for boarders. Boarding students are admitted predominantly into Grades 9, 10 and 11, “with few openings in Grade 12.”
Sources: ashbury.ca · academics · admissions
Elmwood School
In Ottawa, founded in 1915, a girls' school of 385 students from Prekindergarten to Grade 12 and, by its own description, North America's first all-girls school accredited in all three IB levels. All Elmwood students graduate with the Ontario Secondary School Diploma. Its boarding school operated from 1925 and closed in 1966. Elmwood's tuition page could not be read, so no fee figure appears here.
Sources: elmwood.ca · senior school · history
Lakefield College School
Near Peterborough, unusual in this group for starting at Grade 9: “a private, coeducational boarding and day school for students in grades 9 through 12,” founded in 1879 and open to girls since 1985. It has 425 students, approximately 290 boarding and 135 day, a 7:1 teacher-to-student ratio and average class size of about 14. It is explicit about the credential: “Upon graduation from LCS, students receive the Ontario Secondary School Diploma (O.S.S.D.),” under a programme that follows Ontario Ministry of Education guidelines and is inspected by the Ministry's private schools branch. Advanced Placement, including AP Capstone, is offered in Grades 11 and 12. Published 2026–27 day fees are $44,200 and international boarding fees $90,800.
Sources: lcs.on.ca · graduation requirements · day student fees 2026–27
Trinity College School
In Port Hope, established in 1865 and co-educational since 1991, serving approximately 600 students in Grades 5 to 12 on 100 acres. Its Junior School, Grades 5 to 8, is day only; boarding runs from Grade 9, and about 60 per cent of the roughly 500 senior students board. The academic frame is Ontario curriculum plus Advanced Placement: more than 20 AP courses and AP Capstone, which the school describes as enriching “Ontario Secondary School Diploma coursework,” with class sizes of 12 to 20 and an 8:1 ratio. Published 2026–27 fees are $47,000 for day students in Grades 9 to 12, $83,000 for Canadian boarding, and $94,500 for international boarding, with a Canadian Families Boarding Incentive Program at $70,550 for Grade 9 entry. Over $3 million in bursaries is distributed each year, approximately 90 per cent of it needs-based.
Sources: tcs.on.ca/who-we-are · senior school academics · tuition and fees
Hamilton, Niagara and the Golden Horseshoe
Hillfield Strathallan College
In Hamilton, founded in 1901, the clearest example of the large day-only model: “the only co-ed, toddler to Grade 12, independent day school in the Hamilton area,” on a 50-acre campus served by 31 bus routes, with a Senior School covering Grades 9 to 12, more than 100 courses, Advanced Placement from Grade 10 across nine subjects, and an average class size of 19. It is CAIS-accredited and describes the five-year accreditation cycle and 12 core standards in useful detail. Its fee schedules are published off-site rather than on its own domain.
Sources: hsc.on.ca · accreditation · tuition, fees and aid
Ridley College
In St. Catharines, opened in 1889, enrolling 870 students from JK to Grade 12 plus a post-graduate year, including more than 375 boarding students from over 60 countries, on a 90-acre campus with a student-to-teacher ratio of 8:1 and ten boarding houses to which every student, day or boarding, belongs. It states that it is “an International Baccalaureate (IB) World School and the only independent boarding school in Canada authorized to offer the IB continuum programme,” that the IB Diploma Programme is optional in Grades 11 and 12 under an open-access policy, and that “all Ridley students graduate having completed the OSSD,” with a hybrid OSSD/IB pathway available. Published 2026–27 base fees are $49,000 for day students in Grades 9 to 12 and the PG year, $80,500 for domestic boarding and $92,500 for international boarding, with over $3.5 million in scholarships and bursaries annually.
Sources: ridleycollege.com · upper school academics · tuition
Waterloo Region and Southwestern Ontario
Académie Ste-Cécile International School
In Windsor, “an English private, co-educational, day and resident elementary and secondary school,” on a 30-acre campus, with class sizes capped at 18. It offers K–12 programming “in which all students graduate with an OSSD,” and secondary students may additionally complete an IB diploma, IB courses or AP courses. It is an authorized IB World School for the Middle Years Programme and the Diploma Programme, MYP-authorized since 2021, and a candidate for the Primary Years Programme. It has two dormitories and states that it is listed with and conforms to the standards of the Ontario Ministry of Education. Annual tuition is not published on its site; fees are invoiced individually, with a $300 non-refundable application fee stated.
Sources: academiestececile.ca/about · IB and AP · admissions
St. John's-Kilmarnock School
In Breslau, established in 1972, a not-for-profit co-educational school from Junior Kindergarten to Grade 12 with 545 students, an average of 17 students per class and a 40-acre campus, describing itself as the only accredited IB World Continuum School in Southwestern Ontario. Grades 11 and 12 offer either the IB Diploma Pathway or IB Focused Disciplinary Pathways in areas including creative industries, human performance and health entrepreneurship, and STEM. Its boarding arrangement is distinctive: a co-ed residence for about 50 students in Grades 9 to 12, run in partnership with St. Jerome's University and the University of Waterloo, a 15-minute bus ride from campus. Published 2026–27 day fees are $36,475 for Grades 11 and 12, with boarding at $86,700.
Sources: sjkschool.org · boarding · tuition and fees
Northern Ontario and smaller communities
The pattern above is not an accident of selection. Accredited independent schools in Ontario cluster along the Windsor–Toronto–Ottawa corridor and the Golden Horseshoe. CIS Ontario's full membership inside the province is 44 schools serving over 28,000 students across a province of roughly fifteen million people. CAIS accredits over 95 schools nationally, of which 29 are boarding schools.
For a family in Thunder Bay, Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie or a small town two hours from any of these campuses, the honest position is that the question changes shape. It stops being “which of these schools do we choose” and becomes “boarding, relocation, or a programme that does not require either.” The Ministry's list of all private schools operating in Ontario, published as an open dataset, is the only complete inventory and the right place to check what genuinely exists near you before assuming nothing does.
Sources: cisontario.ca/our-schools · cais.ca/about-cais · ontario.ca/page/private-schools
Comparing Ontario private schools: the variables that actually differentiate them
Set the marketing aside and the schools above differ along about six axes. Fees are the loudest and rarely the most decisive.
Showing 13 of 13 schools.
School | Region | Grades | Day / boarding | Senior stream | Published day fee | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Branksome Hall | Toronto | JK–12, girls | Both, boarding Gr. 7–12 | IB continuum | $49,210 · 2026–27 | |
St. Andrew's College | Aurora | 5–12, boys | Both; day entry Gr. 5–9 only | AP, AP Capstone | $46,395 · 2026–27 | |
TFS | Toronto / Mississauga | Age 2–12, co-ed | Day (no boarding stated) | OSSD and IB Diploma, both required | Not year-labelled on source page | |
Upper Canada College | Toronto | JK–Year 12, boys | Both | IB | Not readable on source page | |
Albert College | Belleville | Pre-K–12, co-ed | Both, boarding Gr. 7–12 | OSSD, some AP | $34,400 | |
Ashbury College | Ottawa | 3–12, co-ed | Both, boarding Gr. 9–12 | OSSD and IB Diploma | $40,920 · 2026–27 | |
Elmwood School | Ottawa | Pre-K–12, girls | Day | IB all three levels, OSSD | Page not readable | |
Lakefield College School | Lakefield | 9–12, co-ed | Both | OSSD, AP Capstone | $44,200 · 2026–27 | |
Trinity College School | Port Hope | 5–12, co-ed | Both, boarding Gr. 9–12 | OSSD, AP Capstone | $47,000 · 2026–27 | |
Hillfield Strathallan College | Hamilton | Toddler–12, co-ed | Day only | AP | Published off-site | |
Ridley College | St. Catharines | JK–12 + PG | Both, boarding Gr. 6–12 | OSSD, optional IB Diploma | $49,000 · 2026–27 | |
Académie Ste-Cécile | Windsor | K–12, co-ed | Both | OSSD, optional IB or AP | Invoiced individually | |
St. John's-Kilmarnock | Breslau | JK–12, co-ed | Both, boarding Gr. 9–12 | IB Diploma or IB pathways | $36,475 · 2026–27 |
Curriculum stream is the choice that shapes the transcript
Some schools deliver the Ontario curriculum plus Advanced Placement. Some layer the IB Diploma on top of the OSSD and require both. Some make IB optional. At least one presents IB as the primary senior framework. These are not interchangeable. A student who wants a broad Grade 12 course load aimed at a specific Canadian university programme, and a student who wants the full IB Diploma, are not well served by the same school.
Day versus boarding is a fee difference of roughly double
And a life difference of much more. Boarding fees among the schools above run from the high $70,000s to the mid $90,000s, against day fees in the $34,000 to $49,000 range.
Entry point is the variable parents discover too late
St. Andrew's takes day applicants in Grades 5 to 9 only. Ashbury admits boarders predominantly into Grades 9 to 11 with few Grade 12 openings. Lakefield begins at Grade 9. Trinity College School's Junior School is day-only, with boarding from Grade 9. The market a family faces in Grade 6 and the market it faces in Grade 11 are not the same market, and almost nothing in the sector's marketing acknowledges the gap.
Accreditation is a process claim, not a quality score
CAIS accreditation means a school completed a self-study, hosted a four-day peer review and committed to a five-year re-review cycle against 12 standards. That is meaningful. It is also different from Ministry inspection, which is about credit integrity specifically. A school can hold one, both, or neither.
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La question qui vous amène ici : cégep ou 12e année ?
Pour un élève qui vient de terminer son secondaire 5, le cégep est la voie normale, éprouvée et solide. Le DEC mène à l'université québécoise avec un parcours bien balisé, et rien dans ce guide ne suggère le contraire. La 12e année ontarienne est autre chose : une porte d'entrée différente, dont l'intérêt tient surtout à ce qu'elle ouvre ailleurs.
Ce qu'elle ajoute
Le DÉSO donne accès aux universités canadiennes hors Québec et à de nombreuses universités à l'étranger sans passer par le réseau collégial, sur un calendrier d'une année scolaire plutôt que deux. Pour un jeune qui vise une université ontarienne, l'Ouest canadien, les États-Unis ou l'Europe, c'est le diplôme que les registrariats de ces établissements lisent sans traduction.
Ce qu'il faut savoir avant de choisir
NPU l'écrit sur son propre site. Le programme de 12e année constitue une voie distincte et ne remplace pas les programmes techniques ni les parcours préparatoires en médecine et en droit. L'élève admis à l'université après une 12e année a davantage de cours à compléter au baccalauréat qu'un titulaire de DEC. La médecine exige un baccalauréat en sciences, et le droit un baccalauréat ou l'obtention d'un DEC. La plupart des universités québécoises acceptent les candidats de 12e année, mais tous les programmes ne leur sont pas ouverts, et NPU nomme les établissements où les options sont limitées ainsi qu'un établissement qui n'accepte pas les candidats de 12e année.
La règle pratique tient en une phrase : validez vos programmes cibles auprès du registrariat de chaque université avant de vous inscrire. NPU le recommande explicitement, et c'est le bon conseil.
Sources : northernpreuniversity.com/fr/program-info · /fr/faq
Comment un dossier québécois est reconnu
C'est la question qui revient le plus souvent, et la réponse honnête est qu'il n'existe pas de table de conversion. L'admission commence par l'analyse du relevé de notes et une consultation sur le programme. Un élève qui entre après la 9e année peut voir des cours déjà réussis reconnus à son dossier académique, en fonction de son relevé de notes antérieur, et des tests de classement peuvent être exigés dans certaines matières.
Autrement dit : la reconnaissance se fait cas par cas, sur le dossier de l'élève. Personne de sérieux ne vous donnera d'équivalence fixe avant d'avoir lu le relevé.
Source : northernpreuniversity.com/fr/faq
Arriving late: the Grade 12 question
Read the entry points above and one gap in the Ontario private school market is obvious. The sector is built for families who commit early. A student who needs a strong Grade 12 year now, because the family moved, because a first-choice programme requires courses the current school does not offer, because an athletic schedule broke the timetable, or because they finished secondary school in another province and want to enter university without a detour, faces a very short list.
That is the gap Northern Pre-University is built for.
Its flagship school, NPU Canada, is a private secondary school located at 88 Queens Quay West, Suite 2500, Toronto, holding Ontario BSID 882700. It is inspected by the Ontario Ministry of Education and authorized to grant OSSD credits, and it issues its own official transcripts and Ontario Secondary School Diplomas.
Sources: northernpreuniversity.com/about · /faq
Two things follow from that address, and both should be said plainly. NPU Canada's school address and offices are in Toronto, and that is where the transcript and the diploma are issued. What makes the programme available across Ontario is not proximity but delivery. Its programmes are structured for distance learning, so a student in Kenora and a student in Kingston enrol in the same school and follow the same course structure. If you want a school your child walks into every morning, one of the campuses above is the better fit, and this guide is intended to help you compare them properly. If you want an inspected, credit-granting Ontario private school that does not require moving house, NPU is the option worth examining.
What the programme actually consists of
Each NPU course comprises 110 instructional hours, in line with provincial standards, and a full-time student typically completes 800 to 900 instructional hours per academic year. The minimum Grade 12 pathway is six Grade 12 pre-university courses plus the Ontario Secondary School Literacy requirement and community involvement hours. From Grade 11, students choose a study profile: Science, aimed at engineering, health sciences and medicine; Business and Law, aimed at business, management and economics; or Liberal Arts, aimed at humanities, social sciences and general university studies. Courses are offered in English and in French.
Assessment is where a serious online programme distinguishes itself from a weak one, so the detail matters: every NPU exam must be supervised by a qualified proctor. On-site students write at school facilities; off-site students use a video proctoring service, an NPU location, or an NPU-approved proctor.
$399
Full-time registration and application. Non-refundable.
$599
Per local course. Fully refundable within seven days, not after.
110
Instructional hours per course, the provincial standard.
Fees are published rather than quoted on request. Annual re-registration applies every 365 days. Full fee schedule.
Sources: northernpreuniversity.com/program-info · /faq
If your child already has a transcript
Admission begins with an academic transcript review and a programme consultation. Students entering after Grade 9 may receive credit equivalencies based on prior academic transcripts, and placement tests may be required for certain subjects. Retroactive registration is possible for eligible courses, which is how a student completes or upgrades work already partly done.
The important point for any family arriving mid-stream: recognition of prior schooling is assessed case by case, on the individual academic record. There is no fixed conversion table, and no responsible school will give you one before reading the transcript.
Source: northernpreuniversity.com/faq
Compare properly, then enrol
If you take one thing from this guide, take the sequence. Confirm the school is inspected and can issue the OSSD. Ask the province's questions about staff checks, teacher certification, contracts, refunds and records. Read any ranking as a prompt for questions rather than an answer. Then check the entry point for your child's actual grade, because that is where most searches quietly end.
If your family needs an inspected Ontario Grade 12 year that starts from where your child is now, have NPU's team review the transcript and set out the pathway before you commit to anything.
Start an application and have your transcript reviewed.
Frequently asked questions
Are private schools in Ontario regulated by the government?
No, not in the way most parents assume. The Ministry of Education states that private schools are independent of the Ministry and that it provides no funding, regulation, licensing, accreditation or oversight of operations. It does require an annual notice of intention to operate, and it inspects private high schools that want to grant credits toward the OSSD.
Source: ontario.ca/page/private-schools
What does “Ministry inspected” actually mean?
It means the Ministry has reviewed the school's course calendar, course of study outlines, lesson plans, classroom teaching, student work and records, and confirmed the standard of instruction and evaluation for OSSD credit courses. Credit-granting authority is granted only after a successful inspection and can be revoked after a later one. Inspection does not cover premises, health and safety practices or staffing.
Source: ontario.ca/page/private-schools
Can every private high school in Ontario issue the Ontario Secondary School Diploma?
No. The Ministry is explicit that not all private schools can grant the OSSD or credits toward it, and that a private school able to grant OSSD credits must say so on its website. Ask for the school's BSID number and check it against the Ministry's list.
Source: ontario.ca/page/private-schools
Who publishes the ranking of private schools in Ontario, and should I trust it?
The best-known ranking is the Fraser Institute's Report Card on Ontario's Secondary Schools, which ranked 747 public, Catholic and independent high schools in its 2025 edition using seven academic indicators derived from provincewide test results. Treat it as one input. Its raw material is EQAO testing, and the literacy test it draws on measures a minimum standard for literacy up to the end of Grade 9. It says nothing directly about Grade 12 teaching, university placement or fit.
Sources: Fraser Institute · EQAO
What do I need to graduate from high school in Ontario?
For students who started Grade 9 in 2024 or later: 17 compulsory credits, 13 optional credits, the literacy requirement, at least 2 online learning credits, and 40 hours of community involvement. Students who started in 2023 or earlier need 18 compulsory and 12 optional credits with the same literacy, online and community involvement requirements. A financial literacy requirement now applies to students who began Grade 9 in 2025–2026 or later.
How much does private school cost in Ontario?
It varies by an order of magnitude, and only some schools publish figures. Among the established schools cited in this guide, published 2026–27 day fees for senior grades range from $34,400 to $49,210, and boarding fees from roughly $79,880 to $94,500. Several schools publish no annual figure on their own website at all. Always ask which academic year a quoted figure refers to, and what is excluded.
Sources : Institut Fraser · EQAO
Is there a private school option for families outside the Toronto–Ottawa corridor?
Yes, but the campus-based options thin out quickly, and boarding or an online inspected school become the practical alternatives. NPU Canada is an inspected private secondary school in Toronto, BSID 882700, whose programmes are delivered through distance learning, so enrolment does not depend on living near a campus.
Source: northernpreuniversity.com/about
My child is entering Grade 12. Is it too late to change schools?
It is late for most campus-based independent schools, several of which close day or boarding entry well before Grade 12. It is not too late for an inspected credit-granting school that assesses prior schooling individually. NPU begins admission with a transcript review and programme consultation, may grant credit equivalencies based on prior transcripts, and allows retroactive registration for eligible courses.
Source: northernpreuniversity.com/faq