The Year 11 Progress Evening take place on Thursday 29th February. Our Year 11 pupils sat their mocks after Christmas and we were delighted with the engagement and maturity shown by our pupils. We would now welcome the opportunity to discuss their performance and our plans for preparing them for the formal GCSEs, moving forward.

The summer GCSE/BTEC exam season begins on Thursday 2nd May 2024 and this is the start of a very critical time in a pupils' education and future. This information and the linked pages below are important, so please read them carefully.

The Year 9 Options Event takes place on Thursday 8th February 4-6.30pm. It is a really exciting opportunity for parents and carers to speak face-to-face with subject specialists about KS4 courses, career pathways and combinations of subjects to consider. We are very proud of our excellent careers advice and guidance for all year groups, particularly Year 9, and believe it is vitally important that we equip parents and carers with all the information they need to make an informed decision about the option courses for next year. 

Staff will be wearing clearly labelled badges so that guests can see what they are able to speak about in detail and the local colleges will be available to offer valuable advice. With a wide variety of courses on offer at KS4 and new courses like the T qualifications and apprenticeships available post 16, please use this opportunity to find out all about everything on offer and possible career pathways. There will also be two information talks about the options process on the night, which parents and carers are encouraged to attend. One at 5pm and a second at 5.45pm. Please complete this form to confirm your attendance

The Options process

Pupils will shortly be receiving a copy of our Options booklet, which will also be available online. Please read the booklet carefully and use the discussions held with staff at our recent Progress Evening. The options booklet, options information at the event, and the online options subjects are on our website.

Pupils will be having an assembly earlier in the week to outline the process to them. Following the options event, they will also attend some short assemblies on subjects that they have not yet experienced, e.g. Business. These are designed to give pupils a flavour of what each course entails and possible pathways of study post 16.

Once discussions with pupils have taken place,  parents and carers can use the online option form, via Parentmail, to submit their child's choices. The form will be available on the website from Friday 9th February and all pupils need to choose seven option subjects in order of preference (1-7) on the form, one of which must be History or Geography, by the strict deadline of Thursday 29th February. From their preferences, we will then select four options for them to study. Consider very carefully the different types of courses available and how they are assessed. It is important to ensure that pupils are doing a balance of courses, i.e. not all Btecs, but a combination of GCSEs and Btecs. Staff will also be able to offer advice on the different course types and how they are assessed. 

Places on some courses will be limited, so it is important that forms are submitted as soon as possible, having considered the subjects on offer carefully. Please be aware that it may not be possible to give pupils their first 4 options preferences, which is why we ask them to choose 7 preferences. For example: they may have options preferences 1, 2, 5 and 7 on their timetable next year. Some courses may not run if there are insufficient pupil numbers to make a group viable.

Take note of the additional information box at the end of the form. This is a free text box in which you can add in any further information you think we need to be aware of. e.g. the pupil speaks fluent German and is interested in doing an additional GCSE in German in year 11.

Some combinations of subjects may not be available due to the blocks that subjects will be timetabled in, but we will do our best to work with the child’s preferences. Please be careful when completing the form and don’t choose the same subject twice. Also, please remember that we have introduced some new courses this year that pupils haven’t studied previously in years 7-9 e.g. Sociology, Business etc, which are well worth considering, so read the information in the booklet carefully. Don’t complete the form online until pupils have listened to the subject assemblies if there is one subject they are particularly interested in, so that they can make an informed choice. 

Finally, and most importantly, please ensure that pupils have selected either History or Geography as one of their preferences before the form is submitted. All of our pupils study either History and/or Geography at KS4. It is possible to study both History and Geography if your child particularly enjoys the humanities subjects. 

Not selecting either History or Geography will necessitate us having to contact parents and carers and will delay the processing of the child’s preferences.

Once we have received the completed options form, we will check the subject preferences and combinations and do our best to accommodate the child’s request. We will speak to parents and carers  if there is a problem with the combination, or we have any concerns about the subjects or types of courses chosen. There will be an opportunity to book an online appointment through SchoolCloud (the same process as used for our Parents’ Evening bookings) if you wish to discuss the pupil's option choices in more detail prior to submitting the form. These appointments will take place weeks commencing 12th and 26th February and the time slots available will be posted on the options page of the school website, so please check it regularly. Each appointment slot will be 5 minutes long, so please select a 5-minute slot as appropriate for your discussion.  Our SEND team will also be available to advise the parents of pupils who they work with throughout the process and will be making calls as appropriate.

Option choices will be finalised by June and pupils will receive confirmation of their choices at this time.   

If you have any queries or questions please email fay.welsh@coopacademies.co.uk, and I will respond to you in due course. 

Kind regards

F Welsh, Vice Principal