Year 9 options (Secondary School) questions.

kitrat

WantToBeSE wrote: »

I totally agree with you, it's just that he isnt in the slightest bit interested in any arty stuff. I was hoping he would do art & design, and that is a work in progress as he is not too keen. I actually think it'll fit in well with his engineering option.

If he doesn't want to do it that's fine, sorry, I just meant I wouldn't be saying 'yes' or 'no' to anything, I'd let him choose

WantToBeSE

Thanks kitrat, i think i am going to do just that.
Ideally i would have liked him to take a language and history..but only because those were MY favourite subjects as a child!

Spendless

My son's in yr 8 too and they choose some of their options as they go into yr 9 but are allowed to change at the end of that yr if they realise they've made a mistake and have dropped a subject they regret. There are only limited subjects that they choose from at this stage and I was prepared to let son choose himself but with guidance rather than tell him he wasn't allowed to do x, y, z.

Son approached it from the angle of what he didn't want to study, which isn't the way I'd have gone about it and ended up putting down history and geography but I always knew he would drop music, dance, drama and art when he got the chance and the other option of Spanish wasn't available to him anyway as he'd never studied it this year as only the students that had done well at French in yr 7 or the ones who attended the Spanish lunchtime club could opt for it and son hadn't and didn't. Again, it's of no surprise to me, I know he'll drop French too in a year's time.

Who does what science is decided by the school based on the student's ability and the design department gives the students the options to decide, but I asked for more detail at parents evening recently and it looks like textiles or food is going to be one option and design with resistant materials or design with resistant materials and electronics is going to be the second design option for him this year. I can already guess what DS will be more inclined towards.

My younger child is still at Primary school but I can see the 'arts' subjects will appeal to her more, languages and dance/drama. Again I have no problem with that. She will still do enough 'traditional' subjects which are compulsory for me to be worried if she wants to do drama as 1 of her options at GCSE level than insisting she takes something like geography instead, which she'll dislike and probably get a poor grade for.

thunderbird

I wouldn't write off subjects like drama.

At school I did the traditional academic subjects, there was very little choice - some people did art or music if they were particularly talented but that was it. There was no drama or PE or design with resistant materials (what does that actually mean?) anything like that.
However, I think drama would have been a far more useful subject for me than, say, German or Geography. Really good for public speaking, confidence-building etc.

Person_one

Is a language not compulsory? It was when I chose my options in year 9.

Mind you, we were given a form to fill in during 'form period' and that was it, not weeks of decision making and input from parents so maybe I'm older than I think or my school wanted to keep the parents noses out!

Person_one

thunderbird wrote: »

There was no drama or PE or design with resistant materials (what does that actually mean?) anything like that.

Woodwork, metalwork etc.

thunderbird

Person_one wrote: »

Woodwork, metalwork etc.

Thanks

- I think compulsory language differs between schools. It is at my son's school, but then he doesn't have compulsory Re which other schools seem to have (and some of them don't have a compulsory language).
Isn't there some statistic for league tables which includes a language subject? I guess that is why some schools include it.

WantToBeSE

Person_one wrote: »

Is a language not compulsory? It was when I chose my options in year 9.

Mind you, we were given a form to fill in during 'form period' and that was it, not weeks of decision making and input from parents so maybe I'm older than I think or my school wanted to keep the parents noses out!

No, no languages are compulsory. I was shocked at that too, as when i was younger we HAD to chose either french, spanish or german.
They do have Chinese as an option though?

Spendless

A foreign language wasn't compulsory when I went to school. I left yr 11 in 1983, though I chose to do French. Son attends same Secondary I did and a foreign language still isn't compulsory after yr 9.

anniemf2508

At my daughters school a language isn't compulsory after year 9 unless they are doing triple science (which she will be).
RE is compulsory too.