Year 9 - 2022/2023 Support Thread

@WimMum2015 your child is in yr6? And you’re already considering GCSEs in 5 years time? Breathe. Enjoy her. Have some fun! There’s so much more to life than academics. Please do not fall into this ‘tiger mama’ trap. The issue you now have is that you had her tutored to get into a selective school. This suggests that she wasn’t smart enough to get in on her own merits in the first place. Will she do ok at the selective school? If so then there’s no need for further tutoring. Let her be. The school will help her succeed & hopefully she’ll be motivated to put the effort in. I don’t agree with kids being tutored for entry into selective schools but I do know lots are. If she’s then struggling during yr10/11 then revisit a tutor AFTER exhausting all possibilities at school.

My DD will be starting Y7 in Sep 2023. I obviously mad to think about this already but had a question please for parents with children heading towards GCSE. So when my DD started prep school I was naïve enough to think tutoring would not be required and the school would prep her for 11+. Realized well in time that was not the case and got a tutor.
Am I being naïve again to think that if she is at a top selective secondary school G&L and LEH - she should not need a tutor? Would I still need a tutor for most subjects?

@Viperexyou need to contact his new school. Have you applied to the new school already?
If he has a place then any options discussion will be done with his new school now/soon and before he actually starts in September.
Most schools offer maths, English lit, English Lang, biology, chemistry, physics (either as triple science or double science), then choices are often from history, geography, RS (humanity option), art, DT, drama (art options), Spanish, French (modern foreign language). These are standard but some schools offer even more choices such as photography, film studies, law, business, sociology, psychology. The new school will send you their option choices. It’s up to your son, with your guidance as to what he fancies studying and how the school works with timetabling - some schools have student choose from option groupings.

Guess cold feet just want best

IN YEAR 9 will choose options next month and move id due to be completeed a week or so ?

@Viperex is your DS in yr9 at the moment and moving school after options?

Hi fellow members moving to the Area , due to work . Have a concern over my Year 9 child as his options are due to be in March this year . As a parent if only i had a crystal ball i dont know how he would react and being such a big move year 9 not to distrup his option choice.
Anyone else had similar problems and how did it go for you. any input would help . i am even prepared not to take the job.

Hi, I have been lurking in this thread. <waves to QueenMabby> Dd has to submit her option form at the beginning of March but they advised us not to fill it in until after parents evening which is the 23rd of Feb I think. She has already decided that she wants to do History (they have to do one of History or Geography) Spanish and Art so not much angst here. I'm a bit nervous about Art as I have heard it is a massive time commitment but she loves it. I think it will be good to have a subject which is different and over before the start of the exams!

I’ve just realised that I didn’t even see the form. The DC do it all online. She had a meeting with head of year but parents don’t. It’s all very DC focused. Easy for me as she’s my 3rd but it must be quite odd for those parents where it’s their first child.

We have the options evening on Monday, but headmaster has now asked for appointments with every set of parents (and the kids) in year 9 to discuss their options with him. Got that booked for next Friday.

I think we are the only ones on here without an options evening. I don't mind as I attended my older 2 ds's option eves. There are less options this time though with the extra compulsory subjects. Ds did have an assembly all about options, so he is happy with that.

DS submitted his options form today. Geography over History, they have to do Spanish and he has chosen Music & Economics. He will likely do Further Maths. They find out in the summer term if they will be in the triple or combined Science class depending on their summer term test results. He would rather do combined as he knows he doesn’t want to do Science A-levels. Stress is starting to ramp up a bit with his older sister in Year 11.

@NotDonna yes me too. I've seen @sofakingcool on another thread and read as sofa king too 🙈

i often get ppls names wrong but I thought so faking cool was sofa king cool 🙄

@NotDonna Good to see you. Hope dd is ticking along nicely. I did not know that they had ceased. What a huge shame. I wonder what prompted that?

@sofakingcool Good to see you too faking.

So, I got ds2's school report today, all fine. And an options booklet. We have a parents options meeting beginning of March. And parents evening end of feb. He's already decided and as per usual is very laid back.

Hi sofa welcome
our GCSEs don’t start til next year but I think a lot of schools start them in yr9 - did they have to choose in yr8 then?

Can I join in please?!

I've got one in year 9 and another in first year Uni * waves at other uni parents

My year 9 has just started his GCSE's - History, Geography, RS and Business studies (yes he loves the humanities )

It’s funny how a few of us have similar aged children and pop up on the threads! Hope your DS is enjoying his uni course @Oblomov23 my eldest DD is 2nd year PwC apprentice now, which they’ve bizarrely ceased. Middle DD applying for uni and looking at apprenticeships. And youngest DD has just chosen her options. She’s choosing to do 9 rather than the usual 10.
Maths, English lit, English Lang, German, History, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Food & Nutrition. They don’t have blocks at their school and they can choose as many arts, humanities etc as they like. They do encourage at least one language and one humanity. My middle one did triple science, 2 languages and both geography & history (plus maths & the two English) but all ten was quite a bit of work.

Forgiven

❤️

@Oblomov23 sorry. I didn't know I could tag you if you weren't actually on the thread. This one has been fairly quiet until the past week or so, no doubt will pick up as the months go on. So I would have told you about it. I've been on the 2 uni threads for many years and they have been very supportive. It will be great to have one for my youngest too.

@icanbewhatiwant
I can't believe you never tagged me, you bugger.

ican, as she said, she and I have dc the same age, and we are on a lovely now Uni dc thread with our older dc, which started pre GCSE's, and we've both been hoping /looking for a similarly lovely Year 9 thread.

@Oblomov23 👋