The secondary school years are designed to provide opportunities for students to explore and learn about a wide variety of areas.  Students are encouraged to choose their courses carefully. Program decisions made in the junior grades can significantly influence course selection in the graduation years (grades 10 to 12) and, in turn, the options for post-secondary learning or training.

The program planning at R.C. Palmer is a collaborative effort.  All of our staff is dedicated to help you make appropriate choices and achieve your goals.  Your counsellor is the first contact for assistance in program planning, someone who can help you to consider your interests and abilities as you plan for the coming school year.  Subject area teachers will be able to give you valuable insight into the different courses that are offered.  You need to consult with your parents, guardians, and subject teachers before making the final course selections.  Your success in school is dependent on taking courses that are geared to your interests and abilities.

While it is important to think about specific goals, and the courses that support these goals, secondary school is often the last learning environment where you will have an opportunity to explore a variety of interesting courses.  Consider taking courses from several different subject areas in order to broaden your understanding of the world. 

Some courses must be taken to meet the graduation requirements of the Ministry of Education, while others can be chosen to meet individual interests and goals. This planner describes the requirements of each grade, the content of individual courses, and the various programs and services at R.C. Palmer Secondary.

Timetabling (the number of sections of each course) is based on the course requests made by students in January and February.  Therefore, we urge you to choose courses and alternatives carefully, keeping in mind the following factors:

• Elective courses will be offered only if there is sufficient enrolment to justify a class. The possibility arises that a student may select a course that cannot be scheduled.  In this case, the student will be given an alternate elective, suitable for his/her timetable. Make sure to provide thoughtful alternate selections when you are course planning.

• Once the master timetable is built, course changes become much more difficult; therefore, it is very important that the selection of courses be done carefully. Upon receipt of this planner, students and parents/guardians should examine the book thoroughly, then discuss the choice of courses together, and consult teachers or counsellors if necessary.

• Students in the Graduation Program (Gr. 10-12) need to plan their courses with career and/or post-secondary programs in mind.  If students are in doubt about future academic or career directions, they should choose courses that allow them as many options as possible.

• Counsellors and the departments involved will review requests for English Language Support.

• Some BC Universities require students to complete a Modern Language to the grade 11 level for admission.  See the specific post-secondary institution’s website for updated details.

• For details on post-secondary options please go directly to the Post-Secondary institution website, and/or check in with a counsellor.

• All students are expected to take eight courses.  Students in grade 12 may apply for a study block as one of their eight courses.

It is essential that students consider the task of choosing courses as a major responsibility because the choices that they make determine the master timetable. The following steps are used to build Palmer School’s master timetable:

1. Students determine their compulsory courses and choose their elective courses using this Course Planning guide to assist them. Students will enter course requests directly online during a class tutorial.
2. The requests for each course are tallied and that information is used to determine how many blocks to build for each course.  Courses with too few student requests will be cancelled.  Students who have requested a course that gets cancelled will then be programmed into their alternate elective choice.
3. The master timetable is built using the numbers of blocks for each course as determined by student requests