Year 9 Options Overview by Mr Loveday
THE OPTIONAL CURRICULUM : OVERVIEW
In response to national and local developments the school has determined the nature of the compulsory core curriculum to be offered to all year 10 pupils. However, the children themselves, in partnership with their parents and their teachers, are asked to choose which other subject they wish to study. During the third term in year 9 pupils have been given much advice on how to choose wisely. The main points to be considered are summarised below for the benefit of parents.
The option form that your child has brought home indicates what choices are available to him/her. In order to help him/her choose wisely you should consider the following:
THE BASIS FOR CHOICE
a) Career ambitions
If there is already a strong and realistic commitment to a particular career, ensure that your child's choices include those subjects which are considered either essential or useful to it. Advice upon this matter can be sought from Mrs. Harnett and Mrs. Tickle, our Careers tutors.
b) Abilities. Interests and Balances
Success in any of the courses will depend upon effort, enthusiasm and commitment. Clearly pupils are more likely to provide these if they are studying subjects which they enjoy and which they are good at. In previous years, there have been up to 20% of pupils who have asked if their option subjects could be changed for a variety of reasons.
Each pupil will be given the choice of subjects to replace, complement and balance their core curriculum.
We live in an uncertain and rapidly changing world, and adaptability and flexibility are becoming increasingly more important in the world of work. Even those with firm career ambitions need to keep other avenues open. The best way to do this is to follow a broad range of subjects and not allow future employment opportunities to be barred because of a poor choice of subjects at this time.
After investigation, we have found that 9 out of 10 pupils who wish to change options have found their newly chosen subject too difficult. Pupils who are allowed to change their options end up with lower grades at GCSE in the new subjects, because they find it difficult to catch up any work that they missed.
Therefore we have continued with the successful system for Options procedures launched last year. We have looked at the achievement of each pupil very carefully over the first three years at Willowgarth so that we can guide every pupil to choices at GCSE in which they are most likely to succeed. Therefore some options will not be available to some pupils because they have not been able to show that they are likely to achieve in that subject
C) Further and Higher Education
Entry into particular colleges and universities often depends on pupils having taken, and achieved success in particular subjects at school. It is essential, therefore, that pupils with such courses in mind include the essential entry subjects in their choices at this stage. Up-to-date advice on this matter can be obtained from the Careers tutors.
September 1999 required all schools to deliver a range of courses in line with the revised National Curriculum. This has resulted in some important changes in the timetables of all pupils in the school, but particularly for pupils in the current Y9 i.e. your son/daughter. The option choices are not the same as in previous years, new courses and qualifications have been added, others have become part of the core, and yet others can be found as new option subjects.
In response to national and local developments the school has determined the nature of the compulsory core curriculum to be offered to all year 10 pupils. However, the children themselves, in partnership with their parents and their teachers, are asked to choose which other subject they wish to study. During the third term in year 9 pupils have been given much advice on how to choose wisely. The main points to be considered are summarised below for the benefit of parents.
The option form that your child has brought home indicates what choices are available to him/her. In order to help him/her choose wisely you should consider the following:
THE BASIS FOR CHOICE
a) Career ambitions
If there is already a strong and realistic commitment to a particular career, ensure that your child's choices include those subjects which are considered either essential or useful to it. Advice upon this matter can be sought from Mrs. Harnett and Mrs. Tickle, our Careers tutors.
b) Abilities. Interests and Balances
Success in any of the courses will depend upon effort, enthusiasm and commitment. Clearly pupils are more likely to provide these if they are studying subjects which they enjoy and which they are good at. In previous years, there have been up to 20% of pupils who have asked if their option subjects could be changed for a variety of reasons.
Each pupil will be given the choice of subjects to replace, complement and balance their core curriculum.
We live in an uncertain and rapidly changing world, and adaptability and flexibility are becoming increasingly more important in the world of work. Even those with firm career ambitions need to keep other avenues open. The best way to do this is to follow a broad range of subjects and not allow future employment opportunities to be barred because of a poor choice of subjects at this time.
After investigation, we have found that 9 out of 10 pupils who wish to change options have found their newly chosen subject too difficult. Pupils who are allowed to change their options end up with lower grades at GCSE in the new subjects, because they find it difficult to catch up any work that they missed.
Therefore we have continued with the successful system for Options procedures launched last year. We have looked at the achievement of each pupil very carefully over the first three years at Willowgarth so that we can guide every pupil to choices at GCSE in which they are most likely to succeed. Therefore some options will not be available to some pupils because they have not been able to show that they are likely to achieve in that subject
C) Further and Higher Education
Entry into particular colleges and universities often depends on pupils having taken, and achieved success in particular subjects at school. It is essential, therefore, that pupils with such courses in mind include the essential entry subjects in their choices at this stage. Up-to-date advice on this matter can be obtained from the Careers tutors.
September 1999 required all schools to deliver a range of courses in line with the revised National Curriculum. This has resulted in some important changes in the timetables of all pupils in the school, but particularly for pupils in the current Y9 i.e. your son/daughter. The option choices are not the same as in previous years, new courses and qualifications have been added, others have become part of the core, and yet others can be found as new option subjects.
