Year 9 options (Secondary School) questions.

Spendless

anniemf2508 wrote: »

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.

What's the reasoning behind this do you know? I'm assumming there is one? My son hopefully will do triple science but is hopeless with foreign languages. When I was at the school 30+ years ago they used to link how good your ability to do French and Maths combined to set you which I always thought odd. Also is it a faith school? Son's school you don't sit an exam for it.

megela

DD has just taken her GCSE options, Maths, English & Science are compulsory, a Humanities & Language are encouraged for top set academic students, PE is also compulsory, leaving her with just 1 choice left.

I left this one up to her and told her that as the rest were so academic to pick something she enjoyed as a little 'light relief'. However her Dad was keen for her to pick something more 'useful' like Business Studies'

She's picked Textiles which she loves and will spend hours working on. Although they take it over 1 year, so she had another choice to make next year!

BTW she also picked options in Year 8, then had to do them all over again in Year 9 for GCSEs, and at that point had to give up subjects.

Good luck to you with whatever you pick.

Savvy_Sue

Haven't foreign languages been 'in, out, shake it all about' for the last few years? At one stage the govt wanted it to be compulsory to learn one, didn't they? But I think that's been dropped.

The boys' school insisted on at least one being taken at GCSE, along with Maths, English x 2, Science x 1 (with double or triple being available as an option), RE and a DT. Since double or triple science was a 'no-brainer' for my boys and they could only take 10 subjects, they only had two choices to make, well, and which daft DT to choose ...

tango

pigpen wrote: »

that does not include my children.. we are all about as artistic as fish.. Had they wanted to do such things they would have ample opportunity to do so out of school hours.. on the proviso their academic grades were satisfactory. They did dance of various sorts, swimming, theatre classes on a weekend or after school.

The education in this area gives them a poor enough start as it is. They have to choose some 'art' subjects.. DS2 did resistant material, DD2 and DS3 are doing product manufacture, DD1 did textiles.. none did well in any of these. Getting them to do coursework is an unenviable task and I have spent 8 years nagging about it! 4000 word essays are done in days.. I know my childrens strengths.

But you said ' not allowed' not my children aren't artistic in your post

tyllwyd

My mum (30 years ago) would get hysterical if we thought about doing anything except science at O-level (yes it was that long ago), and I ended up studying four sciences, french and history (plus english and maths). I was good at science, but my heart wasn't in it. It put me off on the wrong foot at the start of my career - I ended up with a science degree but with no desire to work in science. My biggest regret is that I didn't do art at O-level.

My DD has a much better idea than I did at that age about what she enjoys doing - and she is gifted and talented in art, music, history and english. The last thing I want to do is to force her towards maths/science options if that isn't what she is passionate about.

WantToBeSE

So he/we have decided what subjects to go for:

Engineering
Computer Science
Resistant Materials Tech
History

He was advised by his careers advisor to go with History, even though he isn't all that keen on it.

notanewuser

WantToBeSE wrote: »

So he/we have decided what subjects to go for:

Engineering
Computer Science
Resistant Materials Tech
History

He was advised by his careers advisor to go with History, even though he isn't all that keen on it.

Why???!!! :huh:

thunderbird

story in the news today about language options
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21862762#

poet123

WantToBeSE wrote: »

So he/we have decided what subjects to go for:

Engineering
Computer Science
Resistant Materials Tech
History

He was advised by his careers advisor to go with History, even though he isn't all that keen on it.

I think it is a huge mistake to do a subject you are not keen on. Schools and advisors do not always get it right. When my youngest son was choosing options (he is yr 11 now) the Ebac had just come in and it was being pushed.

To achieve that he would have needed to take a Humanity (such as Geography or History) after much thought and against advice we advised him to ignore the constraints of the Ebac and go with what he loved (3 Sciences) Now, of course the Ebac has been scrapped, had he gone with what the school advised he would have studied a subject he was apathetic about and would now be really miffed that it was all for nothing.

arbrighton

susancs wrote: »

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.

The exam structures are now very different for double, which can be modular, and the papers have some bio, some chem and some phys, and triple sciences where all exams are taken only at the end of Y11 and are all chemistry or bio or physics.There is then an extra controlled assessment as well, as each subject needs one. In school I work in, triple science takes up one option block as there are more lessons in order to cover 3 GCSEs rather than 2.
Did look at whether one of the students I support could change down as workload too much but past the point of entry for the January module by then so they will remain in triple.