Year 9 options. What is she supposed to chose?

Happilyconfused - that's good to hear

I think it all depends on your children, you said your daughter is bright so as a teacher I would try and encourage the more traditional subjects.

However, there is a lot of 'diploma' bashing going on. I may be teaching a diploma next year and like everything else it depends on the quality of teaching but also if it is appropriate for the child - some may well be for some children.

As a teacher I hate options evening as it is mostly about selling your subject to justify your department (and I teach a traditional subject!).

if it's like DDs two IT GCSEs, then there will be a coursework only one, and an examined one, but probably just taught as a single subject, and the extra coursework slotted in.

the business studies gcse also counts as two gcse's somehowneed to look into it further to see what exactly,but teacher says she will gain 2

before the 'crappy' BTECS get any more of a hammering I am really pleased with my students who with their crappy BTEC National Awards have been offered places on various courses, not including hairdressing, at Southampton, Loughborough, Sheffield, Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester. Hopefully those are not 'crappy' universities! However they are getting distinctions.

Thanks Decorhate and Intergalactic, that might make her choice a bit easier.

It's all about league tables.
DS's school got a pasting from OFSTED because they haven't moved into BTECs, in spite of having very good results on 5 AtoC including Eng and Maths.

The nearby mega comp gets far more "GCSE" passes because they count a BTEC as 4 GCSEs, but only 30% with English and Maths. Apparently they are outstanding.

My ds is at an international school in Belgium where RE isn't on the curriculum at all. However, I have kept my hand in by examining since leaving teaching, and so will be teaching him myself.

Doing 'catering' is great and very practical. Instead of designing a fish finger packet in Food Tech, it is like Home Ec used to be when I was at school. This means they learn to cook (bargain) and about nutrition. This is my academic ds's choice as he knows he will have to cook at some stage when at Uni, and I did tell him women find men who cook sexy! It also struck me that (besides being cooked for once a week), it is giving him a practical life skill that he will keep him away from ready meals, and is not a bad thing to have amidst all the academics - it could also prove a point of conversation at interviews and we will have to eat out sometimes to let him experience different styles of cooking.

Food tech seems a waste of time, Birds Eye do good fish finger products already, but actual cooking has to be a good thing.

Yup, Pixel, my understanding of ICT is that if she is already interested in computers and is computer literate she will find it very boring, and she won't need it to get on to a Computing degree if that's what she wants to do (although she will need good maths).

Pixel, from what I've heard ICT is all about using software packages rather than learning computer programming, iyswim

I think my DD must secretly read MN as she has decided she wants to do Geog, Geology and History. DD has to chose an option every year so now she'll have the lottery of every year waiting to see if she gets her first choices. I suppose in a way it does allow her to change or re think her long term plans so isnt committing herself aged 12. The options evening was a nightmare, there was the potential of 450 DC from years8-10 and a parent each so they crammed it into the smallest of the school halls instead of perhaps using two halls and the gym. Next step in the process is an interview with a member of the SMT. DD is booked to see the Financial Director - not too sure how this person can advice or help DD on options

NOTE : I left school in 1997, so chose my options in 1995. It wasn't THAT long ago...

I wanted to be a MFL teacher, and in order to do so, I needed to have both French and German for GCSE. The school offered this as an option, which I duly chose, then got called in to be told that as not enough pupils wanted to do both languages, they couldn't do it, and as all other places were filled, I now HAD to do food tech. Which I was crap at. I burst into tears and explained that they were preventing me from becoming a teacher, they refused to budge, and I promptly lost all interest in school, started bunking off (having been in top sets all the way through school, never would have occurred to me to bunk off before Y10), and left school with NO qualifications. I had to fork out and go to college after having my DD in order to gain my qualifications.

DON'T underestimate how strongly some Y9 pupils will feel about not being able to do the subjects THEY want to...

I think we will wait for the booklet, make a list of questions and then make an appointment to see the head of her year.

I will have to try very hard not to rant as this has really annoyed me. I had no idea about this diploma thing (in my day it was only for non-academic kids) and it's all come as a big surprise. Plus the way the whole thing was presented was a bit of a shambles (eg no one could work the projector properly, there weren't enough chairs/leaflets etc) which doesn't fill me with confidence. The most annoying thing was how they kept talking about student's 'learning' as if 'education' was too long a word for us to understand. I hate being patronised.

Food for thought here re: league tables. It just so happens that dd's school got a truly awful OFSTED report last year and the headmaster 'retired' (), to be replaced by a keen young thing who has apparently already turned round one failing school. Am guessing he's very very keen to get a few kids passing exams pronto!

Decorhate, thanks that's interesting about ICT being seen as a soft subject. Will have to find out more about what it involves. Trouble is dd has always been interested in computers (worked out how to log on to internet aged 2 after watching her dad) so it might be difficult to talk her out of it. Also dh works in IT so two against one!

Agree Eccenrtica.

You may have only one choice of school - so it is pot luck which specialism it will be and you had better hope that it suits your child's ability - or you have a choice of a good school (which specialism is a) or a crap school (whose specialism is b, or they are so crap they do not have specialist status).

Some schools have more than one specialism, they generally are then selective however.

It's a mug's game, this school lark. And to think I used to worry about dd having a dummy. Mothers of tiny babies don't know they're born

Interesting reading. I think when parents send their children to a specialist school (performing arts/technology/languages etc) they do not realise that their child will HAVE to follow one of those disciplines at GCSE. Perhaps this needs to be more transparent at age of secondary transfer?
So, if you send your DC to a specialist technology college (which sounds very 21st century doesn't it?) they may end up taking woodwork (how very 19th century).
Ho hum.

Sounds a very similar option range to my dd's, Eccentrica

Also entirely poss to do without a humanity but do lots of creative and tech stuff

I reckon one woolly/fun subject is fine but two is not ... so if she HAS to do a tech then no way should she be dropping a humanity

I think Art is Ok but not photography, Astronomy as a gcse is I think observational astronomy (ie fun), NOT like astronomy as in subset of physics where it is really hard and mathematical

DD thinking she may poss do science or teaching as a future career. The diploma presentation mentioned Child Devel Diploma as a good combination of both, but thankfully after initial enthusiasm she worked out for herself it was not the way to go

What happens to bright kids whose parents aren't aware of all this though? Do they get herded into doig woolly stuff?

League tables cause all sorts of distortions.

Just imagine Child 1 at Comp A gets 5 GCSEs A* - C by getting a C in Eng, Maths, Dance, Leisure & Tourism and Child Development.

Child 2 at Comp B gets 5 GCSEs A - C by getting an A in Eng, Maths, French, History and Geography.

Yet both children count in exactly the same way in the league tables - bonkers!!!

scary....i have tried to push mine towards doing the RE gcse,but to no avail. it doesn't count as a choice does it as they do it in year 10 here??

anyway,dd2 just chose hers following a parents evening where teachers indicated if she would struggle with her chosen subject or not

we have chosen

History
Business studies
sociology
catering (we are a performing arts school here so have to choose one of the 'performing' arts....PE wasn't there as a choice in this section,which is a shame)

at DD1s school, specific children were invited to do the diploma-type stuff - the default option was academic GCSEs (of varying levels of "hardness"). Seems a much more sensible way of going about things I'd have thought - unless we just have a school where they're not too fussed about getting their A-C results boosted by diplomas and the like. Although DD1 has ended up with two IT GCESs somehow, and Media Studies (which they did as an extra in English to avoid spending all of Y11 on past papers, whcih will have boosted their results somewhat.

I think it's the league table effect too, GetOrf. The local up-and-coming comp appears to be really taking off, but when you analyse its results english, maths etc still very poor, but lots of good grades in media studies and the like.

I thought my dd's wouldn't be like that but now i'm not so sure at all