Appeals if year 9 options are refused?

sunnyone

Is there an appeals procedure if your childs year 9 options are refused by the school?

There are so many choices this year and my friends and I are worried that our children wont be allowed to follow the courses that they have chosen.

Thanks

gorgeouslatinrose

This happened to me, I selected Spanish, but they tried to put me in for German. I think your best bet is to make sure you have listed the most favored subjects first, and get it in as soon as possible. If after that you still don't get the options you want ( unlikely) , write a letter to the head of year, and possibly subject teacher highlighting why your child wanted to do it, grades they have gained in the subjects and possibly say that so and so is interested in becoming a ..... in the future, so it is essential that he /she has the chance to take ..................... as it will be required for University / A Levels they want to do at a later date. However make sure you get them in as soon as possible, as I have heard at some schools its first come first served, but in the long run it would take a lot for a school to refuse someone a chance to study a subject, unless of course a module was severley undersubcribed.
(Sorry for any spelling mistakes, heads going mad this evening!)

flea72

sunnyone wrote: »

Is there an appeals procedure if your childs year 9 options are refused by the school?

There are so many choices this year and my friends and I are worried that our children wont be allowed to follow the courses that they have chosen.

Thanks

you can appeal anything, but that doesnt necessarily mean that its possible to alter the outcome

where options are concerned, there are timetable constraints, which usually means you cant study more than two subjects from the same core group. however i wouldnt recommend studying more than two from each group anyway, as it doesnt give you a broad enough spectrum of subjects

In fact, my DDs option forms were split into categories and you could only choose so many in each defined group, so i would think the school had already worked out their timetables, and we had to base our choices against that

F

Indie_Kid

flea72 wrote: »

where options are concerned, there are timetable constraints, which usually means you cant study more than two subjects from the same core group.

This is how it worked when I was at school. However, there was one or two subjects I think that were in 2 groups.

tattycath

My daughter has come home tonight and said that she can't do 2 of her choices because there are not enough students who want to do the courses in question

Oldernotwiser

tattycath wrote: »

My daughter has come home tonight and said that she can't do 2 of her choices because there are not enough students who want to do the courses in question

That happens - there's not much anyone can do about it.

valos_mummy

tattycath wrote: »

My daughter has come home tonight and said that she can't do 2 of her choices because there are not enough students who want to do the courses in question

and if they do do it, the facilites might not be up to scratch. I did music techology for A level, there were only 8 of us. We were the guinea-pig run - it had never been done before - and it was awful. They had to draft in a teacher from another school so we had no support if he wasn't there; the set up was an old cubase system I think. And then weeks before exam time, they removed all the music equipment because they wanted it for the school play!! Everyone dropped out, and I only sat the exam because I thought I might as well. I got an N.

If they had said it was going to be so carp, I wouldn't have bothered. The next year they bought in tons of new equipment and a proper teacher :mad: Much help that was! It sucks, but if the quality of the course won't be that good it's better to go with something that is going to be better supported.

purplepurple

Courses can't generally run if there are less than about 10 pupils who opt for it... in my experience though, there is some movement between option groups once pupils are in year 10, so even if your child doesn't get in first time around, sometimes it is possible to swap groups in the first couple of weeks of year 10.

Savvy_Sue

If there are seveal pupils being told they can't do X or Y because there aren't enough of them to do it, it's worth writing to appeal / complain. DS2 was told that he couldn't do two languages, and I think that meant he was going to have to do PE or Media Studies or some 'fluffy' subject which would not have suited him AT ALL!

Some other parents complained (I hadn't got round to it!) and suddenly there was a letter to say that they'd diverted some Gifted and Talented money to allow those who wanted to do two languages.

loftus

Just to point out that GCSE PE isn't a "fluffy" subject .

Glad he got his 2 languages though - these days will open many doors for him.

Savvy_Sue

loftus wrote: »

Just to point out that GCSE PE isn't a "fluffy" subject .

I did think as I wrote it that I might get some flack.

But with all 3 of mine, we crossed off the truly unthinkable (for them) subjects and were left with a VERY limited choice. If he'd had to take one of his second choice subjects, he would have been miserable. And he would probably have chosen not to do any work in it, which would have made his teachers miserable. And I would have had to make him even more miserable by trying to insist he did some work. And so on.

I'm glad it's all behind me now ... :j No more parents evenings, no more meetings about trips (at which by the end of their school careers I could predict EXACTLY what would be said and what questions would be asked!), no more detentions! The odd letter about bunking off, but nothing serious.