Year 9 options. What is she supposed to chose?

[EccentricaGallumbits]

She has no idea and all she wants is to send time looking beautiful, dancing and giggling with her mates.

There is a parents evening science discussion thingy tomorrow and it's been recommended she does the stage 2 ?) bit but she has no idea if she wants to do drama, art, music or something else, while i'd rather she did 'real' subjects and she's adamant that she's not doing history or geography and only french.

I suppose they'll give some info about what direction to force encourage them in?

i should be thankful that she's fairly bright and keen and at least goes to scool. i can imagine how shockingly bad this is going to be in 2 years with DD2.

I am dreading this.

I moved dd's school in October (she was being nastily bullied) - her old school was excellent, selective etc, her new one is less good and certainly I believe will be one of the ones pushing crappy BTEC courses. DD has already come home talking about diplomas.

Her school seems really slack actually - the options evening (where the books are being given out) is not til March 11th, however the students are being drip fed info about courses already, which I think is wrong as it should be a parental/child decision.

I so do not want dd to waste 2 years of her life doing some crappy diploma which will be viewed as worthless and will not prepare her for GCSE/A levels.

Talk to her now, and discuss what she wants to do for a degree (hums or science), and then work back to A levels/IB and then to GCSEs. Explain that what she takes now will impact on what she can do later.

She can presumably go to 6th form college if necessary rather than stay at the school for 6th form.

I would not let my lad (who is academic rather than practical) touch a diploma with a barge pole.

I don;t know if my prejudices are influencing my thoughts on the matter. I have always been very academic indeed and so certainly do no want DD to do anything other than traditional GCSE/Alevel/degree. Howeer, she is a broadly average student - a good all rounder whose strengths at school are in the practical subjects so maybe I am doing her a disservice. But BTEC in hairdressing/catering/whatever - over my dead body.

DD wants to study Geography at uni and then join the RAF. So I think certainly Geog at GCSE followed by practical subjects (she has to do DT - I think electronics but these may be too hard academically).

I am not letting her have free choice - it may sound a bit dictatorial however i do crtainly think that I should have some influence on her decision as her mother, left to her she would probably (being 14 and all) think 'ooh photograht GCSE looks fun'.

Slightly worrying the post above which styates that teachers tell kids not to be influenced by parents

yes I was none too happy about that. Luckily dd is choosing sensible subjects but we're having a bit of an issue over priority order (she wants the fun one first)

Its parents evening next week and I'll see if I get a chance to find out more then

Just reading the pull-out guide for parents from the Which Way Now? guide by Connexions. Here it goes "Gently challenge any choices that concern you ... if you disagree with your teenagers choices, try to give in gracefully. Show them ythat you want the best for them by accepting that is their coice. If at a later date they realise that they made the wrong decision they will need your support to deal with the consequences"

Deal with the consequences my arse

Am normally laid-back woolly liberal. Now discovering I am total academic snob and would-be dictator

"If at a later date they realise that they made the wrong decision they will need your support to deal with the consequences"

Err, no. Not going to happen.

Yes, I am normally laid back to the point of horizontal, this is really bringing out the 'when under my roof young lady' crusty old autocrat.

Talking to a colleague who has a year 9 son, one of his choices is GCSE Catering (eh?) or GCSE Leirure and Tourism.

Seriously they are worthless aren't they?

Travel & tourism - I agree totally useless subject. Here's the diploma blurb: "learn about travel, forms of transport and national and international destinations and explore careers in the industry"

In my day: At least one MFL, Geography, plus good grades in maths and english to work in a travel agent I'd have thought, plus demonstration of good logistical skills

"Learn about destinations" indeed

Travel and tourism - it sounds like a kind of project I did when in the old top class of junior school when 11!

It makes me wonder you know. Poster above who says that the highly regarded school in which her daughter is encouraged to do some crappy hairdressing diploma - of course secondary schools ate viewed on their number of 5 A*-C at GCSE grade. So if they push more kids to do piss easy and pointless GCSEs they will have more chance of passing, and will therefore directly affect the school's statistics, league table position and future desirability. So they will avoid oushing a child to do a Biology GCSE for instance, where they may find it hard and will get a D, which however will be far more useful to them in life.

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

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.

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)

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!!!

Right. Interesting stuff and I am getting my head around it.

I too am of the horazontal neglectful child's choice type but I feel I may be influencing DD over this.

They do

English - the more capable get separated out at yr 11 and do both lang and lit - the less capable concentrate on just lang.

Maths

Science - all 3 for the next year - then separate out to diploma, double award or triple.

1 Technology (being a tech specialist) means she has to do something worthless wooly like food tech or graphics

1 Language (also a MFL specialist) so will do French

They all do Philosophy and Religion in yr 10 (I think to GCSE level but no one seemed sure whether a half or whole GCSE )

Then the options - either Drama and Art - meaning she has to drop history and geography over my dead body

or another language (spanish, german, latin), or one arty and one humanity, or PE or photography (?) or astronomy (??)

or drop them all and do a diploma in child care, electronics or IT (also over my dead body)

adding up to potentially 11 GCSEs. or if not so capable about 9 or 10 ish.

I think.

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?

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.

Or in our case it is the only school and you get no choice whether your children go there (unless you go private) and then they get less choice in their options.

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

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!

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.

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...

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

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

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

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).

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.