Year 9 - 2022/2023 Support Thread

[QueenMabby]

Hi
Having got a lot out of the thread for my ds who's just finished year 11 I though I'd start one for anyone wanting support/chat about dcs in year 9 from September.

Some schools will be starting GCSE syllabi this year and for those that don't there'll be options later in the year.

I have a dd starting year 9 in September. Her favourite subjects are languages and chemistry. We've not taken gcse options yet - that joy is to come.

Ooh that’d be very useful if it’s accurate (ish - no accounting for a bad day etc).
@AmyandPhilipfan sorry that made me laugh - doing what’s needed but no extra. I have always told my 3 girls that you absolutely do not need to give 100%. But I think some girls can be perfectionists.

@NotDonna - definitely agree about girls being perfectionists! I still tease dd about the time in year 7 when she cried (proper snotty sobbing) over her maths assessment result - she got 91%!

She will also spends hours on a piece of work that could be done in about 30 mins.

I have a friend whose children are opposite to mine (a dd in my DS's year and a ds in my DD's year) and she asked if dd was getting a lot of homework as her ds seemed to have very little and she remembered her dd having more at the same age.

I replied that dd spends a lot more time on her homework than ds used to but that actually if you looked at the academic content it was broadly the same it's just that dd will take all the extra time to "pretty it up" where as ds didn't.

Dd is having to make judgement calls on this now as quantity of work is increasing so she just can't spend the amount of time on each piece that she would like. No tea-staining of paper and adding wax seals for history projects any more here!

Hope everyone's dcs are continuing to enjoy the year.

I was only asking Ds this morn if he has any idea when they pick options. He said nothing mentioned about it at school yet. I expect it'll be near Easter.

It's January for ds2

February for ds, they have an options evening at the beginning of February, we meet all the teachers for the different subjects with ds. Then at the end of the month they make their choices.

Thanks. I looked on our school Facebook page and last Feb. people were asking when the info eve would be. They were told early March. It was online last year. Hopefully it'll be back to normal this year. I'm not that bothered about the information evening though. I'll go if Ds wants to go. I've been to 1 with ds1. Ds2 didn't want to go.

Last year our options talk was in January with the options deadline the first week of March.

Hi everyone, how's your year 9s getting along?

Our options evening is early Feb and choices have to be in by the 1st of March. We haven't had much info at all yet about how the options work and whether they have much free choice at all. I think DS might do triple science. RE is compulsory. He seems to have a knack for geography, so that's definitely an option, along with music and PE. I thought he'd do comp science, but he doesn't seem to like it and he's not doing well in that subject which has come as a surprise to us as he's pretty good at maths.

What options are your DCs thinking of?

How many subjects do they take @DataColour?
DD’s school do 10 normally, can drop to 9 if any learning issues or increase to 11 if top set to include further maths. She’ll hopefully be doing 9. Hers have to be in by 10th Feb so not long now. She’s quite unsure. She can’t decide between German v Spanish; double v triple science. Or if Food & Nutrition will be too science heavy and not as fun as she first thought. The only one she’s sure if that’s not compulsory is History.

I think they have to take 10. The usual core ones, Maths, English Language and English Lit, Sciences, RE , either history or geography and then 3 choices from a creative art, a technical, MFL, sports etc
DS doesn't really know what he wants to go in the future, I wouldn't expect him to right now but he has no strong ideas yet. He was mentioning Mechanical Engineering yesterday, but then asked me what that entails!

Bloody nightmare here! We have to take 10. Dd has whittled down to 11 and now we're stuck.
I've emailed school for advice. We have an options evening at the start of March. Our deadline is the 10th March I think.

Dd will also do further maths as an extra (but within the allocated maths timetable) and is taking Greek off timetable currently to sit the gcse next year in 2024. So 12 total if we can get the current 11 down to 10.

Dd is finding the whole experience v traumatic. She's terrified of making the "wrong" decision. Cue lots of tears. Apparently I'm not helping. I thought I was being quite useful and supportive. Obviously not!

I've heard nothing about options yet. I've heard that last year there were only 3 choices along with the compulsory subjects. My older ds's had 5 subject choices. But now they've made language compulsory as is citizenship. So that leaves 3 subjects choices. So that will be 12 GCSEs if you include English as 2 (eng lit. and eng language) triple science, maths, French, PE (I'm sure they have to do pe at our school) citizenship plus 3 chosen subjects. That seems a lot.

Our options evening is on 13th Feb, choices to be in the week after half term. Ds can take 9 or 10, I’m advising 9. He’s confident about his choices, I will be interested to get the teachers opinions.

@icanbewhatiwant although doing PE/games once a week is mandatory at all uk schools, the GCSE probably won’t be. But you’re right that still leaves a fair few. I’m surprised you’ve heard nothing whatsoever - has your DC? Most schools ask for gcse choices in Feb/March.

@NotDonna ds1 and ds2 both had to take either gcse pe or b-tech pe. They are 19 and 21 so maybe it's changed at their school now.

PE lessons at our school is compulsory till end of GCSE, but not an actual GCSE in PE. But I think DS will be taking PE as a GCSE option as he is quite sporty, competing at club level and besides it's mostly science anyway.

That will be good if it isn't compulsory at our school anymore (for gcse) ds3 is in top set PE but he's not sporty and doesn't do any out of school sports, so won't want to do gcse or b-tech if he doesn't have to.

@DataColour ds2 was fairly sporty, he really enjoyed the written part of gcse PE more than the practical.

After I said I'd heard nothing about options, Ds has bought home a booklet today all about choosing options. They had an assembly about it yesterday. Nothing for parents to attend. It doesn't actually tell us how many of the options they will actually study. Obviously there are the 3 core subjects and a language. He has to choose either history or geography. Then all the other subjects are listed and he has to put 4 of them in order preference. It says they will not study all 4. So that's annoying we don't know how many. It also says they will continue with PE, RS, RSE (no idea) and citizenship.

@icanbewhatiwant - I think RSE is relationships and sex education??

Dd had her "condom lesson" this week where they all put a condom on a boiling tube or something.

Some of the sixth formers who want to study medicine help out (because that's not at all awkward!) although they do put girls with girls and boys with boys. Just as well as one of her older brother's good friends was helping out in her class!

I'm waiting to hear from school about DD's options and whether they'll let her take an extra one. We've had the email about our options evening but it's not for another month or so, so plenty of time for dd to stress, cry and get worked up make up her mind about it all.

@QueenMabby yes you are probably right about RSE. Ds wouldn't tell me what he'd learnt in lessons.

He's not sure which subjects to choose. He knows which ones he doesn't want to do. His first choice is computer science, that's probably a good choice. Then probably business studies, then either Psychology or film studies, also Art or photography. He's not great at art/photography but I think one subject that is fun is good. It would be helpful knowing how many of the 4 choices they'll actually study. I'll hope it's 3. But if it's only 2 and he wants to do a more fun subject then maybe that needs to be choice 2. Oh well...

Well ds was dead set on taking computer science - now he’s having a big wobble about it. Apparently he’s struggling with the coding they are doing at the moment (python?) and he thinks he won’t manage the GCSE. Should he’s thinking of swapping that for either History or PE.
His other choices are
Drama
Geography
Business.

Ive suggested waiting until the options evening and we will talk it over with the teachers then.

@MissyB1 I'm all for doing subjects you enjoy not just the ones you think will be better when thinking of jobs etc. Unless there is an A level a student particularly wants to take that has to have a certain gcse. But I think mostly as long as they do well in the core GCSEs then most courses are accessible.

At ds's school they have to take history or geography but can't take both. Ds prefers geography. They have also been told they are only to choose computer science if they are good at maths and science in general. Decisions don't need to be made until 10th March.

@icanbewhatiwant
thats interesting, he struggles with maths so I suspect Computer Science is not really for him. Yes I think their choices should be what they enjoy, if he really wants to do PE (and I suspect he does) I will advise he goes for it.

@icanbewhatiwant - I think Art is quite hard core and definitely not as fun as you might think. It has a very heavy workload and lots of time needed on the portfolio. A friend's ds did it and was very busy with it.