Year 9 Now

[Oblomov22]

Anyone with a Year 9 dc. Will be choosing options this year.

Yes. Although we haven't had any info yet. Have you?

We've been told that the kids will have presentations about options during November and the selection deadline will be in late January.

Yes, we have parents evening Feb. Options - parents evening beginning March.

Our pathway to options here looks a bit like this
October - College/Apprenticeship/university talks/visits during assemblies (already had this)
November - Careers fair
December - “Look to the future day” (I think this is a fancy name for an internal careers day only without the visits from local employers/no stands where they go and talk to people and the school starts talking about options with them)
January - Parents evenings
February - options evenings
March - submit options form

At my sons school he picked his options in year 8 and started them in September Yr 9. He has a new enthusiasm for school as he is doing subjects he is interested in. And they then can tackle the curriculum over 3 years obviously - not sure why more schools don't opt for this system?

@bert3400 it works for some and not for others.

I have 4 DC - 3 went to the same school, one HAD to be different and we gave in and let him go to a different school.

The school 3 of them went to chooses in Y9 and the other chooses in Y8. I think the choosing in Y8 works for the one DC who really knows what he wants and hates certain lessons so switches off, and it might have worked for one of the older ones had they been given the option but for 2 of them, Y9 options definitely was better as it allowed them more time to really understand what they were interested in and just to be non exam focussed for that extra year.

(I also think there some OFSTED politics around it as well which could be the main driver - OFSTED prefer 2 year GCSEs)