I wanted to put this in AIBU but didn't. What subject do you think my Year 9 daughter is NOT studying this year?

[NotanOtterOHappyDay]

she is good a english and well read

i feel it is a shame

formative years and all that

Am not trying to condone it at all (think it's mad tbh) but a lot of the skills they learn in Media Studies will be helpful for their English GCSE Paper One, where they have to analyse media texts.

Isn't ICT an essential life-skill now? [having no idea what they do for GCSE]

Looking back, I think I could have skipped a year's English without much ill effect at that age. If the girls at this school are generally like the OPs (good at English and well read), and if they have to maintain good written work in other subjects, perhaps its not quite so outrageous?

Only doing 50% History and Geography sounds worse, TBH, given that these may be dropped at GCSE.

But she will do English GCSE in the end? This is just for Yr 9? Don't they do GCSEs in yrs 10/11.

Presume they are just doing it to be different and get the less academic kids interested in something less arduous.

Have you not considered that they will be using English skills in other parts of the curriculum? report writing, persuasive text, note taking etc
If your dd is clever enough to take her SATs a year early (and given they have now been disbanded, that shows what they were worth!) then she will have no issues in picking up her Eng Lang and Lit in Years 10 and 11.

This is called cross-curricular teaching and it works

Try not to panic

nell has a point. The school might have developed a wonderful cross-curricular programme with specific english targets being met in other subjects.

You shoul ask. That might be very interesting. Secondaries can be pretty poor at cross-curricular

grimmathenome i agree

i am not panicking but simply feel it is a waste

i would rather and hour a week extra on the sciences

tbh i would rather cookery

But Geography is considered v similar to a science, especially with all the maths involved

History is a social science... lots of literacy links (authors, poets of the period being studied) research skills etc etc etc

cookery - well yes (and that def should be compulsory at boys' schools too!). Or statistics... well, maybe yr 9 is a bit early but that is something that everyone could do with better understanding of (amazing how woefully ignorant lawyers, doctors and even physical scientists can be).

geography is considred similar to a science?

it is according to Channel 4's tv scheduling for schools!

drives me bonkers - i know the physical sides overlap but even so!

hmm just the same as media studies overlaps english!

I am so surprised by all of this - surely kids have to do english & geography is not the same as science - I would complain to the education authorities & my mp if this was my kids school. I would remove my kids if the situation continued.

Do secondary schools have to have a governor for each subject? Maybe a chat to the English governor, if so, would be helpful to understand what's going on.

I would be absolutely hopping about this but would want to understand what the approach is first.

I was a bit concerned to read this earlier in the post :

"they want all the girls to come out with a superficial clutch of 12-14 gcses whereas the boys school next door do 9 GCSE's and come out with a sound in depth knowledge of those 9 subjects"

What's that all about then?

I know schools have a bit of freedom, but isn't that some sort of sexual discrimination?

Could you move your dd to the boys school?

So no English literature for a whole year? She's not learning any poetry this year? Any Shakespeare? Getting to know novels like Jane Eyre or To Kill a Mockingbird or Great Expectations or... [insert name of classic?]

This is dreadful. It's depriving young people of an important part of their cultural education. Literature is probably the strongest art form in this country.

If she did her SATs last year, the school has already "ticked the box" for Shakespeare, as legally they only have to cover one play in KS4 (although most schools try to at least give them experience of more than ne, evenif they don't read whole texts). Ditto re: Dickens and go: providing KS3 as a whole hits all of the curriculum obligations, they don't need to cover specific things in yr 9.

I do agree that some schools spread their brighter pupils "too thin" - at the end of the day, most colleges are only interested in the "magic 5" GCSE passes.

cups of tea I WISH i could move her the boys school

2Eliza2 - i agree with you and luckily for me she is a good reader and responds well to me 'throwing' books at her

still it should not be my role

i pretty much feel that despite her being in school - half of what she learns is home-educated

ach, that's how it should be

I hope so Pointydog - it wears me out enough!

Why not move her to the boys school? Why should the boys be the ones to get to study english?

are you in the uk?

i cannot see how this is allowed.

How is this allowed?

Because she has already done her English SATS and so they have a free year of trying to hoist up their GCSE figures with 'easy' quals like this one!

(Anyone for GNVQ IT???)

it's a PRIVTE SCHOOL, NO? sorry, caps. So they can choose their own curriculum