Year 9 - choosing options - how is it going?

I wasn't on the original thread (fairly new to MN)
DD1 is in yr9 will be choosing this year.
No formal communication yet, option evening late Feb. Parent teachers in March, but not sure if choices will be finalised before or after this.

Going from previou years, they use a pathway system where the more academic having more core subjects. The remaining options are then chosen freely from a list including all the usual GCSE subjects, plus various BTEC and other "equivalents" that take (say) 2 options but are "worth" between 2 and 4 GCSEs.

As DD is in top set for everything, she should be in top pathway, so assuming nothing else changes, it should be:

CORE
Eng Lang
Eng Lit
Maths
Statistics (for top set maths in yr10)
Science x 3
ICT (DIDA GCSE equivalent in yr9)
RE (just short course, no qualification)

3 free OPTIONS (rumour has it this may change to 4 and bring back a compulsory language)
Current choices are French, Music and Geography. With Drama if there is a 4th.

The original idea behind triple science was to keep the options better open for A level, However, as her interest in science had lessoned as she has become more "Girly" she has been thinking of possibly just doing double so she can definitely choose drama. But this would then mean only 7/8 academic subjects, depending If music counts and assuming Statistics doesn't.

@oldbeforetime why no music, art, drama, history? Any of those would surely be preferable to the subjects you listed (apart from the languages). Food tech and textiles are not viewed as proper subjects, rightly or wrongly, nor is PE (rightly in my view). The languages would both be useful and well regarded so it's really down to whether you DC has a flair for languages and could cope with two, as to whether either of them would be a good choice. Otherwise, like I said - what about arts subjects?

Oldbeforetine - your DS already has 8/9 good academic subjects there, so the final choice is less important. Something he enjoys and won't be too time consuming.

Is the list of 6 the only options your DS would consider, or is it a compulsory list to chose from? Just wondered as there is no mention of Drama, Music, Art or History as an option.

oldbeforetime as an ex ICT teacher my thoughts would be the following on these options.
ICT non GCSE. If your dd is bright she will find this extremely frustrating as a great deal of lower level work has to be trudged through. As it is not compulsory I would not do ICT.

Textiles and Food both use lots of ICT. They are very courework heavy and take lots of time to do well. So its all about if you want to put in that much time and how keen you are on the subjects.

PE is fine if you like PE and doing a bit more science. It is obviously regarded as a soft subject.

Spanish/ German. This is fine if her French is built on a firm foundation. If so this is probably the least time consuming of the options. Also the most respected of the options academically.

*Physics

DD has
Compulsory
Maths
English x2
Psyics
Biology
Chemistry
RS (like someone else we are not impressed this is compulsory)
Language Option
French
Tech Option
Product Design
2 options
Geography - definite

Now got to choose 1 from this lot and this is in preference order for dd

ICT - I'm thinking she should do the non-GCSE qualification
Spanish
Textiles
German
Food Tech
PE

Any opinions on the bottom 6 gratefully received.

Certainly throughout the course DD2 wrote essays for history whereas geography tended to be learning about a topic and then doing homework based on that. To choose between them I'd look at exactly what the course covers and see which interests your DS. DD1 did volcanoes (and went to see Mount Vesuvius ) whereas DD2 did the history of medicine and Germany during the second world war. He'll probably do best at the one he finds the most interesting.

amicissima, I think History is ever so slightly more respected than geog. History teachers tend to refer to geography (rather unkindly) as 'colouring in'! Both my two did Geog rather than history though and I think it's more important to choose the one you are more interested in than be swayed by such heresay, but perhaps if everything else is equal...

My thoughts exactly. Must admit DS4 is thrilled with his choices and has told me all about them and they sound great....would have been nice to be involved in them though!!

Blimey Shabba, that's a bit highhanded. Personally I'd like to be able to discuss DD's choices BEFORE they were set in stone. What's the point of having a meeting in March if the decision has already been made?

Awww how special - DS4's school just sent us a lovely booklet and letter in the post. Just to tell me that he has chosen his subjects and we will be able to discuss them with school in MARCH!!! Also to say that he is in G group (the one he wanted to be in) which means he will be studying for 9 PLUS GCSE's....at his school if they fastrack in year 10 they will be allowed to do a different subject in year 11 to GCSE!!

My DD1's school also uses the SIMS Learning Gateway. It doesn't use NC levels at all. Rather, you get a grade for effort and a grade for attainment. On attainment, 'A' is supposed to be rarely seen and indicate superdooperness. 'B' is what they expect children to be getting in that school (with the emphasis on 'in that school'). C is below where a child in that school should be. And that's it.

LGP, I have posted previously about my frustration about the reporting of levels - we get twice yearly reports showing their level grades (in accordance with KS3) and grades for effort. According to these reports my dd has made little progress since Y7 in some subjects. School don't seem to have noticed this until I brought it up and can't get a straight answer as to why this might be...

She gets good effort grades & is (supposedly) bright. The school gets glowing Ofsted reports.

I have no idea where the problem lies but when I have asked teachers on here I get the impression that level grades can be a bit arbitrary & some teachers don't really think they are something to worry about...

LadyGlencoraPalliser DSs school uses an online system called the SIMS Learning Gateway and you can log in and see your child's levels.

Its updated with attendance daily and with levels every half term. It gives an actual level ie 6a and an effort grade of 1- 5 1 being excellent 2 good 3 satisfactory etc and an indication as to whether the student is on track to meet end of KS3 targets. Its a new system for this academic year and seems to be working well.

DS does get varying feedback on his work but in English there would always be a target for improvement.

Hello Roisin!
We haven't had any info on options yet, although their options evening is coming up at the end of Feb. I hope we get some hard info about their choice before then. I haven't even had DD's end of KS3 targets - though they will be low - the school is notorious among parents for setting much lower targets than the DC can actually achieve then, hey presto, the kids have exceeded expectations.
DD will be doing triple science, English (2), Maths and I don't know how many slots that then leaves her. She wants to do two languages, music and history but I have heard that she will be required to do a tech subject so that may put the kibosh on the second language. I have heard rumours that some subjects are offered as twilight options, but again nobody seems to know anything definite.
Just a question to the rest of you: does the school give you information on your child's levels? Our school does this ridiculous report where you get a numbered grade for achievement and a letter for effort. So if you get a 1 you are apparently working at Level 6 or above, 2 means Level 5 or 4 etc.
Obviously, this is ludicrously imprecise, but the only other information I get about DD's levels comes from what she tells me herself, or if she manages to bring a levelled piece of work home (mostly kept in school). I know she is still Level 7 in English (big bugbear) because she has started to bring her work home to me for advice as she wants to progress to level 8 and is frustrated at lack of feedback from school (work just marked with a tick and occasionally a number with no comments or suggestions for improvement). Is this normal?
I am starting a Secondary English PGCE in September, and everything I read suggests that the new Assessment for Learning means that pupils should be given constructive feedback on their work.
Sorry, ridiculously long post, but I'd love to know how these things work in other schools.

roisin, just a thought here - if your ds really wants to do spanish or latin (and I think either would be a really good addition to his choices which at the moment are a little skewed towards the science/tech side due to the IT bias) he might consider doing what ds did in a similar situation and do double science instead of triple, but read the books and do the extra science papers for triple in his own time.
It's not something any child could do, but I know your ds is very bright & was doing electronics etc years ago so he will very likely find the science GCSEs quite disappointingly trivial and be well able to do this without much extra work.

@Webwiz I don't know how options are organised at DD1s school. But in my day, we had the compulsory subjects, then 4 pools of subjects from which we have to choose one out of each pool. If they do the same at DD1's school, my fear is that one pool will consist of history and geography, and that's it. And that neither of the other two pools will contain either subject. this would guarantee the EBacc and would ensure there was no oversubscription. And it would totally zing DD1. she is very very good at art (never had a mark that isn't an A) but she really doesn't want to do art and music as two of her 3 options. And she doesn't want to do any of the other potential subjects.

If she ends up having to do IT (worse than useless - always at least a year behind the curve and irrelevant when you enter the workplace 6 years after the exam) at one of the top grammar schools in the country I will be completely furious. :(

I was wondering about that thetasigmamum as well, although at my DCs school around 45% do History or Geography so there is a bit more infrastructure there. I wonder if DS is going to end up with a lot of History haters in the class because they have to take a humanities.

DD1 is in year 8 bit since they do GCSEs a year early at her school (and maybe even two years early in some cases) she is about to choose her options. Officially, we (parents) have heard nothing at all. The kids have been told its options after half term, and we have a parents evening just before half term. The kids have been doing a lot of careers sty lee stuff on the web during PHSE sessions, apparently.

In previous years, the core compulsory subjects were

English x2
Maths
MFLx1
Sciencex3
RE
Then perm any 3 from a relatively restricted set of options including art, drama, music, hist. Geog. IT, DT, German, B. Studies, PE and I think that's it.

Obv this has EBacc implications which might be why we parents have yet to receive an official communication about it.

DD1 wants to choose History, Geography and music. But she is concerned that this may not be possible since as things stand we wonder whether there will be enough capacity for kids to do both hist and geog when in the last few years more than 10% of kids have opted for neither and therefore the staffing in the school probably reflects this. It's a worry.

amicissima DD1 did Geography GCSE (she hated history) she really enjoyed it even though it had a fairly in depth coursework worth 25% of the marks. I assume that has changed to a controlled assessment now. She went on to take it to full A level as well and is doing now Biological Sciences at university. It complemented her Biology A level and is helpful for some of the ecology and environmental science modules she does.

DD2 preferred History and was better at essay writing. She enjoyed the GCSE and went on to take History to AS as a change from the Maths and Science she was also doing (she has offers to do Maths at university this year). She found some of the source based work difficult at the beginning but got better at it over the course.

DS prefers History as well but has been getting better levels in Geography. He is still going to take History though as knowing where he's at compared to DD2 he'll be fine. He has plans to do something Englishy so History A level is a better match with that. He may end up taking Geography as well because he doesn't know what to do with his last choice.

I am going through this with my 5th Dc at the moment. You would think I have done it 4 times before, so some idea and no panic. Reality is that she does not have a clue what she wants to do, short-term, or long term!
I may result in sticking pins into lists at this rate!!!

Shabba - you and me both. And physics

You need to look at the English Bacc requirements. I think you need a humanities subject such as History or Geography.

Half an A level in Maths?

His Maths homework baffles me now!!!!