In March of each year, the Board issues their projections for Allenby’s student enrollment for the following school year. The number of students enrolled in each grade and each panel (French and English), along with the number of teaching staff assigned to our school (classroom teachers, resource teachers, prep teachers, etc.) is used together to form classroom allocation models for the upcoming year.
The APA plays a critical role in helping the school to determine classroom allocations by providing parent input on specific models. The aim of the working group is to arrive at the best possible situation for all students at Allenby and as such works with the following principles in mind:
- Avoid split classes where possible. In cases where splits can not be avoided:
- Avoid micro splits by considering size of cohorts and gender splits.
- Recognize opportunities for collaboration between split classes.
- Make the upper grade the larger cohort in split classes.
- Avoid Grade 3/Grade 4 split class, where possible, especially in the English panel where the Grade 3s do not receive French instruction and the Grade 4s do receive French instruction.
- Avoid straight grade 6 classes with split Grade 5/Grade 6 classes in the same panel. Grade 6’s in split feel isolated.