Please or to access all these features

Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Choosing options in yr8. Does your school do this?

28 replies

roisin · 14/01/2010 20:12

Apparently some schools are teaching a 2-year KS3, so students choose their options at the end of yr8 and drop some subjects then.

Is your school doing this?
Is this right? Is it legal?

I think it's wrong that such young students should be making choices that will affect their future education/employment prospects.

I also think it's wrong that their education is becoming narrower, and less broad and diverse.

OP posts:
roisin · 14/01/2010 22:25

I think this is quite shocking.
I just think it is wrong that pupils are having to make decisions about what subjects they want to study at age 12 or 13.

And I think it is wrong that their general/rounded education is stopping at this age. What about art, music, dance, drama, French, German, Spanish, history, geography? Why are all those subjects all being dropped so early?

Does anyone know if this is legal? It seems very wrong to me.

OP posts:
Docbunches · 14/01/2010 21:36

Yes, my DD is in Y8 and has to choose her options by the end of May this year.

I'm not particularly happy about it, but DD seems to know what she wants to do, and, what she doesn't want to do... however, that certainly isn't the case with many of her friends and peers.

If this had happened to my DS when he was in Y8, it would've been a nightmare... it was hard enough for him to make choices in Y9.

LadyGlencoraPalliser · 14/01/2010 21:10

No, ours don't choose until year 9. I would hate DD to be choosing this year, she doesn't even turn 13 until the summer holidays. Far too young to be narrowing down her options IMO. She has no clue yet what she wants to do in life, and for some of her subjects she hasn't even been doing them long enough to know if she would like to carry on with them long term.