At Golf Links we have a very stringent process for grade placement. On the forefront of our decisions is what we as professionals believe is in the best interest of our children as we prepare them for the future. We completely understand that not getting that one friend or that one teacher is at times challenging, but as teachers, families and community we would be doing our children a disservice if we always allow children to have what they want and always providing what they perceive as their first choice.

A huge amount of individual teachers, teams and leadership time has been spent on student and parent friendship considerations.

As professional educators we strive to make the right choices, taking into account all of the information we have about students. Teachers have all of the academic and social information about every child and can make sound judgements to meet the needs of every student. Often children/parents request certain children, but it’s important to consider that the school knows the child’s friendships and that placing them without a particular friend might be so that the child expands their friendship base or another valid reason. We want children to be able to work and socialise with a variety of other children and build skills to make new friends. In addition, sometimes we may get competing requests from other parents/students/staff that have requested that they not be in the same class. Friendships can and do change throughout primary school, students leave, more students arrive and so it is important for children to develop friendship skills.

The complexity around all these changing scenarios is when one combination of students are moved to accommodate a request, it then creates a chess game of up to seven other moves. The hard truth about accommodating all requests is that helping one, comes often at the expense of someone else’s child.

When allocating children to classes, we endeavour to foster positive social interaction across a year group, by making socially balanced classes and to help prevent non constructive relationships. Class time is distinctly ‘work’ time and outside play time is a child’s opportunity to be with friends.  Obviously developing resilience is key for our students, as they develop into lifelong learners in an ever changing world. We need to prepare children for secondary school where they will have different classes, different teachers, and different groups of children. Eventually our children will be adults where they might not get the job that they wanted or perhaps the university course that wasn’t their first choice. I’m passionate about this and preparing our children together is paramount.