Dear Parents / Guardians,
I am writing to you to share some very early information about how part of the options process will work next year.
Your son will start receiving guidance about his GCSE options choices in the autumn term of Year 9. There will then be the Year 9 Parents’ Evening followed by the Year 9 options evening in January of 2025. This will provide parents with lots of information so that they can support their son in making the best GCSE choices that he can.
However, one part of the options process links to pupils’ Mathematics set and therefore it is appropriate for me to outline this now so that both pupils and parents have an early understanding of how this works. Next year, in Year 9, Mathematics sets will follow the same pattern as Year 8. The Y half year will be split into sets 1,2 and 3 whilst the Z half year will be split into sets 1, 2, 3 and 4 for Mathematics. As pupils move into Year 10 this will change slightly.
In order for us to be able to timetable the school’s lessons, Mathematics and Science are blocked together on the timetable. That means as your son moves from Year 9 into Year 10 in the Y half year those children who have chosen to do Triple Science will be put into Triple sets 1 and 2, and those children who have opted for Combined Science will be put into Combined sets 1 and 2. In the Z half year those students opting for Triple Science will be split into Triple sets 1, 2 and 3 whilst those opting for combined will be split into Combined Sets 1 and 2. These sets will apply to both Mathematics and Science. All pupils will continue to follow the same challenging Mathematics curriculum.
What this means for you and your son now, and our reason for sharing this with you, is that if your son feels he is likely to want to do Triple Science then he must work hard in Mathematics because we would only recommend that students in Set 1 or 2 in the Y half and 1, 2 and 3 in the Z half follow the Triple Science route. Mathematics is a good indicator of potential success in Science and therefore it is very unlikely that it would be appropriate for a student in the lowest Mathematics set of their half year to do triple Science. This therefore gives any student in the lower Mathematics sets a year to work hard on their Mathematics performance to enable them to undertake the Triple Science option.
I appreciate that some of this sounds quite complicated. There will be lots more information about options that will be published through Year 9. If you have any concerns about the content of this letter then please do not hesitate to contact me at the school.
Yours sincerely,
E. Hodges | Principal
