April 1, 2021
Dear ROMS parents,
RE: Class Building and Parent Placement Requests for 2021-22 (for Gr 6 and 7 students)
It is that time of year again when we start to plan for next year. We put a lot of time and effort into building classes at Royal Oak. The homeroom teachers place their students into classes for the following year with the goal of creating balanced classes. If you have input into your child’s placement at ROMS, talking with your child’s homeroom teacher is the best place to start.
With the daunting task of placing 600 ROMS students into classes each year, our goal is always to create balanced classes that provide the best opportunity for student success. With so many factors to consider, class building is a complex process only made more complicated by parent requests. It is our belief that, by middle school, students should be open to forming new peer relationships and that it’s important for students to develop the skills to work with a wide variety of peers beyond their current social circle. We want to help our students develop the resilience they need to thrive by teaching and encouraging flexible thinking and adaptability. We believe that our students are capable of working with and learning from the different personalities and styles of varying peers and teachers throughout their many years of schooling. Through such an approach, we are striving to meet our students’ long-term needs as well as furthering Royal Oak’s positive culture as an inclusive learning community built on our ROMS core values of curiosity, compassion and resilience.
Based on all of the above, we ask that parents only make a class placement request in extraordinary situations warranting special consideration. In such extraordinary cases, please send your request by email to Karen MacEwan, Principal, at royaloak@saanichschools.ca by our deadline of April 30th, 2021, including:
1. Your child’s name, current school and current teacher
2. The nature of your placement request
3. The extraordinary learning, social-emotional, and/or other needs warranting such special class placement consideration
We ask that you do not write to request a specific teacher - these requests will not be considered. Instead, please describe the type of learning environment that your child works best in. Please note that no requests are guaranteed, but your request and rationale will be considered during our class building process if submitted by April 30th.
Sincerely,
Karen
Karen MacEwan, Principal