Schools & Choices
 

Unbelievably, my 12 year old is being asked this term to make her choices for year 9. We're anticipating that we'll be moving sometime during the winter 2008/2009, so whatever she chooses will be disrupted, but what I'm wondering is, what are the subjects that we can hope for her to have the most continuity with, after we move?

Does that make sense?

I've looked at loads of different school Curricula & there seems to be an enormous range of subjects on offer - it seems as if every school offers something different!

If anyone has any advice/experience to offer, I'd be really grateful for it, as if we can help my daughter make choices now that she's happy with that she knows she can continue to some extent, it will make for a happier move for all of us :)

Very many thanks :)

Re: Schools & Choices
 

I can only speak from my experience in Sydney, but the compulsory subjects for my son who went into year 9 today are English, Maths, Science, History, Geography, PDHPE (a rather vague mixture of health/personal development/phys. ed. which seems to be pretty standard here) and Christian Studies (he's at a Christian school). In terms of his School Certificate (end of year 10) he then had to choose a 200 hour elective (over 2 years), a 100 hour elective and 4 "just for fun" modules which included things like leadership, first aid, and international cuisine.

It's worth going onto the Board of Studies website to familiarise yourself with the School Cert. programme. For instance, they say that you can't change electives once you are a couple of weeks into the programme. My son started in year 8 here when we arrived in July and had to choose his electives for year 9 by August. However, he moved schools after a term so when he arrived at his new school at the beginning of term 4 we were told that the students had already chosen their subjects for year 9 but they would try to accommodate his choices. If your daughter will be starting in Y8 next January there won't be a problem (and if she is 12 now then that would probably be the "correct" year group for her age, although there is lots of flexibility here regarding what age kids start school and therefore a wide variation in ages in any class), but if she's going into Y9 she mightn't be able to do her first choice of subjects if the classes are already full, obviously depending on the school.

Music. drama and various art options seem to be fairly standard (they break down the visual arts into fairly specific subjects). With regards languages, a lot of schools will offer Asian, rather than European, language options, though in both schools my son attended he could have continued with French if he wanted to. Various IT options were offered at both schools; his current school doesn't offer Commerce, his last one did.

The good thing I find here is that they don't start limiting options as early as they do in the UK - for instance in England my son would have had to choose between Geography and History for GCSE whereas here he will do both for his SC. It is also common to pick up a totally new language at a beginner level, even for the HSC.

Hope that helps :)