Founded in 1915, Roycemore continues to promote educational excellence through unique partnerships with Northwestern University and Adobe Inc., while offering a welcoming environment that gives students a strong sense of belonging and community.
Our Upper School students can attend classes at Northwestern University once they complete our offerings in a specific subject area. For example, a student that has finished Advanced Placement Calculus at Roycemore, may then enroll in the next level math course at Northwestern.
January Short Term (JST), a long-standing Roycemore tradition, gives Upper School students an opportunity for independent, exploratory study. With guidance from staff and project directors, students spend three weeks researching a topic that is meaningful to them. JST helps students learn to build and apply knowledge that they find personally enriching.
Each Middle School student works on a Personal Passion Project (P3) to experience the joy of self-directed learning and growth. Twice a week, students meet with a teacher or expert mentor to help stay on track as they move forward on a journey of discovery.
The culmination of the project is sharing their enthusiasm and knowledge with others at a P3 Expo.
Each spring, the Lower School devotes a week to an in-depth, project-based study of a special topic. Different groups explore different aspects of the topic, working together in multi-age groupings that engender collaboration and team support. Past topics include The Earth Beneath Our Feet, Architecture and Climate Change.
At Roycemore, we know that each student is full of endless potential, waiting to be unlocked. Learn about the MORE of Roycemore from parents, students and teachers!
Thinking back on my time at Roycemore, I most value how my teachers were collaborators in my education. They didn’t tell me what to do or how to do it – they sought out my strengths and used them to help me excel. My experience in expecting and advocating for teamwork from those in leadership roles has served me far beyond my years at Roycemore and presented me with opportunities that my peers have missed out on – both academically and professionally. I think more impersonal school settings can sometimes discourage students from asking ‘why’ and digging deeper in ways that Roycemore definitely encouraged me to do.”
When I remember my years at Roycemore, it is clear to me that Roycemore’s culture of excellence and individuality has positively shaped my life since graduation. Roycemore emphasized learning through discovery, critical thinking, and challenging oneself; values that have remained with me to this day. Outside the classroom, the opportunities to build friendships through the extracurricular activities offered also shaped my character and proved to be invaluable, particularly through soccer, baseball (which I had never played before), and scholastic bowl. Through my January Short Term projects, I learned and was inspired by the logic behind how computers operate, and went on to study Computer Science in college. I still remember how I learned to critically analyze film on another JST project. Roycemore provided me with a truly unique experience.
Roycemore was much more for me than just a series of challenging courses, competitive teams, brilliant teachers, dedicated coaches, extravagant Palio performances, and clandestine trips to D&D Dogs between periods. Roycemore was, and continues to be, a vibrant, stimulating and diverse community with a wide range of subjects, activities and sports to explore. Not to mention, January Short Term, which I’d look forward to every year. Whether it was living with a French family in Paris, winter ecology and hiking with Mr. Spica in Wisconsin, recreating Normandy’s D-Day invasion, or learning how to run a snowboard shop as an independent study on entrepreneurship, I was able to pique interests, gain international exposure and build lifelong memories.
