Year 9 options (Secondary School) questions.

busiscoming2

My three chose their own GCSE, A level and Uni courses. If they asked for advice I gave it based on what I knew.

Sparkles87

It's a changing world in education, the English Baccalaureate has been scrapped ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21365817 ) and these young people will need to be in education, training or work with training until 18. With that in mind, encourage them to stay broad and choose what they'll enjoy and do well in.

I've not heard of any FE colleges that wouldn't allow you to take the AS/A2 option of a subject without the GCSE, because you didn't chose it. So the Russell Group link is slightly over-thinking things for a Year 8/9 student!

susancs

bizzybee wrote: »

My understanding of the sciences are that they study all three - physics (P) biology (B) and chemistry (C)

There are three levels of paper

P1+B1+C1 = Foundation

All the above and P2+B2+C2 = Additional

All the above and P3+B3+C3 = Triple

But I could be wrong!

You are right in your example that both double and triple groups study and take exams in the three subjects for the first two units, but as shown the triple group do an additional third unit for each subject. The double science group may get two GCSE's in science (core and additional) which is all the three subject results taken together to give an overall grade. The triple Science group may get three GCSE's in each of the subjects Biology, Chemistry, Physics.

susancs

Sparkles87 wrote: »

It's a changing world in education, the English Baccalaureate has been scrapped ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21365817 ) and these young people will need to be in education, training or work with training until 18. With that in mind, encourage them to stay broad and choose what they'll enjoy and do well in.

I've not heard of any FE colleges that wouldn't allow you to take the AS/A2 option of a subject without the GCSE, because you didn't chose it. So the Russell Group link is slightly over-thinking things for a Year 8/9 student!

In all the sixth forms (schools and colleges) in our area, to study a subject at A level you currently need a B in the GCSE. If it is a new subject that has not been offered at GCSE in the school previously then they want a B in a specific subject instead. They also require a minimum of a C at GCSE level in English and Maths to study any A level. My daughter has been offered places at 6th form contingent on her achieving certain grades in subjects at GCSE.

poet123

Sparkles87 wrote: »

It's a changing world in education, the English Baccalaureate has been scrapped ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21365817 ) and these young people will need to be in education, training or work with training until 18. With that in mind, encourage them to stay broad and choose what they'll enjoy and do well in.

I've not heard of any FE colleges that wouldn't allow you to take the AS/A2 option of a subject without the GCSE, because you didn't chose it. So the Russell Group link is slightly over-thinking things for a Year 8/9 student!

It was rightly scrapped because it was an ill thought out move with too tight a timescale for change. My claim to fame is that I am mentioned in the EBAC consultative document, where many heads and parents expressed their very real concerns. Thankfully and unusually they appear to have listened.

I don't think there is any issue with perhaps doing a single new AS subject, but I think in the main it is wise to restrict the other choices to those subjects you have experience of.

Smurfetta

WantToBeSE wrote: »

My son is in year 8 at the moment, and is about to choose his options for year 9+
I am just wondering (for those of you whose children have gone through it) if i could get your opinions.

Did you leave it to your child to choose, let them choose but with your 'encouragement', or did you tell them which subjects to take?

If you had a say it in, what factors influenced your opinion?

We sat down and discussed what his thoughts were about his future, what kind of work/career was of interest to him. He knew he wanted to go to university, so I encouraged him to go look at the average mandatory qualifications that would need, and then just reminded him that a qualification in a subject like geography would serve a better purpose than a btec in a lesser looked upon subject.
I also reminded him that he needed the essential passes in GCSE's to even sit A levels.I then handed him back the options form, went into the kitchen, poured a large wine and just hoped that he was as serious about his future as I was.
As it turned out handing that responsibility back over to him, and letting the final say be his, he did not let me down, he chose the harder subjects at GCSE level, like Spanish, Geography etc, and am pleased to report that this summer passed he achieved 14 GCSE's and is now studying for 4 A levels

Savvy_Sue

pigpen wrote: »

They are very limited on what they can actually choose between so it isn't a hard choice.. maths, english lit, english lang, science are non-optional At the high school mine are at they have to do RE (catholic school) and also a mickey mouse waste of time PE based subject (sports college) so they had a choice of 2 'art' subjects once we had binned drama/dance and 3 humanities to choose 1 of. So basically they chose 2 of their 'options' .. not very optional if you ask me!

Same with my three, they had to choose one DT subject, and then it was a case with two of them of 'strike off all the touchy feely stuff, and whatever remains must be what we do.' DS3 went for Art, which took a LOT of time, but he enjoyed it.

With DS2, we were initially told his first choices weren't going to be offered after all, as not enough pupils had chosen a second language. We had the nightmare of him being offered PE - in which he had ZERO interest - and some other subject he didn't want to do but had been forced to put down as a least bad 'reserve' option. In the end, I think some parents kicked up a fuss, and they found some money from the Gifted and Talented budget to offer both French and German to a smaller group than they'd have liked.

PudseyDB wrote: »

Art based subjects like textiles may sound like an easy option - but it actually took up a LOT of her time.

We found that ALL the DT options took up a completely disproportionate amount of time. And DS2 eventually said "no, I'm not doing any more", because he'd had enough of colouring in bits of paper and cutting them out. This was Graphics: we'd expected there would be more computer activity, but no, he seriously was being expected to do colouring by hand, and cutting out by hand.

susancs wrote: »

They also require a minimum of a C at GCSE level in English and Maths to study any A level.

DS3 was on course to completely and utterly fail English Language (D at the end of year 10, E in January of year 11), despite being a bright and very capable student. The school was in despair, I was in despair. He was bored, and spending exam time staring round the classroom daydreaming ...

The school got through to him by saying that IF he didn't get a C in the summer, they MIGHT let him into the 6th form, but he would be required to resit in January. If he 'failed' again, they WOULD ask him to leave. So it might be as well if he got his act together and 'passed' first time, rather than wasting time. He got the message!

pigpen

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

I think some parents kicked up a fuss, and they found some money from the Gifted and Talented budget to offer both French and German to a smaller group than they'd have liked.
.

My DD2 is doing 2 languages and she was forced to put German down as a second choice (other choices were history which she had already picked as her humanity or nothing).. poor girl didnt get any of her first choices (all of 2) it was really unfair but she seems to be happy with the other one but really hates the German.

valk_scot

My son is in the Scottish system which basically means Standard Grades =GCSE, and at his school they take nine. (Usually kids here sit eight to a maximum of ten Standard Grades.) English, Maths, a language and RE are compulsory (don't ask about the RE, I didn't understand that either) so out of a choice of five more he was told by me he was allowed one "fun" subject (in his case, music) and of the other four, we sat down and looked at what he needed in Highers/Advanced Highers to get into his chosen Uni course and worked backwards from there. It wasn't difficult after that considering he wanted to take Advanced Higher Chemistry, Biology and Geography, the other course boiled down to a choice between Modern Studies and Physics. He ended up choosing Modern Studies, which fits in well with the type of environmetal studies degree he want to take.

So allowing him to choose? Well, no and yes. I wouldn't have been at all happy if he'd come back with a mishmash of "fun" subjects that led nowhere and were based on what his mates were doing. That would have been a resounding parental NO. However when we looked at what he intended to do there wasn't actually much choice involved in the end once degree requirements and timetable constraints were taken into consideration. But he got to choose within these constraints, yes.

What factors influenced my input? He and I did a fair bit of reasearch as to what he needed to take, you can't argue with the uni prospectuses after all. We looked at what his abilities were and also his aims, though it's best to keep a reasonable degree of flexibility at this stage imho. But tbh neither his dad nor I would have insisted he took anything he really didn't want to do, it's hard enough getting kids to study the subjects they want to take after all, let alone the ones they hate.

poet123

I think if your child knows what they want to do then they should be able to pick their own subjects. if they want to keep options for careers open then they will need more input and guidance.