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"Castle School Education Trust is committed to high quality education across the primary, secondary and sixth form key stages. Our schools cover the South Gloucestershire area. We encourage independence within each school within a strong framework of values."

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To report a child's absence for years 7-11 please email dow-studentabsence@cset.co.uk or call 01454 862395.  For 6th Form please call 01454 862333.  

Year 9 Guided Choices and Subject Information

Welcome to the Year 9 Guided Choices Page

This is an exciting time for you as a Year 9 student; during the next few weeks, you will be choosing the courses that you will be following in Years 10 and 11. For the first time since starting school, you will have a say in what you learn.

Our Key Stage 4 curriculum is designed to provide a range of courses to enable you to tailor your programme to your strengths, interests and future aspirations. There are subjects that you already know, as well as new courses that you have not studied yet.

Choosing your courses can be daunting; the information on this page is here to help you make informed choices to enable you to continue in a broad and balanced education.

It is important that you, your teachers and your parents/carers work together to make sure that you choose the most appropriate options for your future.

PLEASE NOTE: 

We offer as much choice as we can, but it is not always possible to run a course that very few students choose. Equally, it may be the case that we have more students wanting to do a course than we have capacity. In addition, some combinations of subjects may prove to be impossible to timetable. If any of these affect you, we will let you know and we will help you explore other possibilities. 

 

 Curriculum

 
All students study a core curriculum of:

English Language
English Literature
Mathematics
Science (Combined or Separate)
Life Skills
Core PE

You can find out details about these courses by clicking here: Core Subjects

    Options

 

In addition to the core curriculum, students will select 4 optional courses including at least one from History, Geography or Languages. 

A full list of available subjects can be found here and you can find out more about all of our optional courses using the links.

 

 Timeline - 2024

 

Monday 29th January Guided Choices Assembly
Thursday 1st February  Guided Choices Evening
w/c 5th February Options Form Released*
Thursday 22nd February Y9 Parents' Evening
Wednesday 6th March Options Deadline

 * Option choices should be submitted using the options form which will be emailed to student email addresses during the week beginning February 5th. We do not operate a 'first come, first served' policy and all submissions are treated equally as long as they are submitted before the deadline.

Additional Information

 

Guided Choices: Information Letter 2024

 

Guided Choices 2024 - Parent Information Presentation

 

 ‘Help your child make the best GCSE choices’ (Department for Education)