Not sure if there are any High School, teachers here, but know a few of you have teenage children.

At the end of last year DS had to make subject choices for this year, being Year 10.
Compared to Yr 9 when he had 5 choices which were taught a Term each, for Yr 10 they were given between 2-3 choices only depending if it was a half year class or a full year.

Before school finished they stuffed up his subject choice, but I emailed his Dean and she said she would sort it.
DS gets his timetable at school this week, and they still had him down for the wrong subject.(not one that he was interested in at all)

DS went to see his Dean, and was told that the 2 subjects he wanted, clashed timetable wise and he would just have to pick another subject.

So hes had to pick a subject which was a 2nd choice rather than his 1st choice, which we and DS are a bit peeved about.

I asked my neice who is in Yr 13 at the same school and she says often subject choices will clash and you just have to pick something else.

I find this hard to believe especially when going in to NCEA years when you pick a subject which is aimed at your future career that the class may be full or clash with another??

It gets worse ... they can't do certain subjects in Year 13 unless they've done them in Years 11 and 12. Makes it really hard to plan your school 'career'!

I don't think it's anything new, I can remember it happening when I was in school. I think subjects are often grouped based on what kids generally choose, so perhaps music and art are popular choices together, so they make sure they don't clash, but art might clash with metalwork... Hope that makes sense. At this age though it's more about trying things, and I cant imagine not doing it at yr10 meaning they can't carry on with it? If clashing is a big issue later, I imagine you can use the correspondence school, that's what I had to do in order to do technical drawing in 6th form, so there are ways around.
J didn't have any issues with clashes because his subjects were commonly chosen together.

It seems an ongoing problem forever and ever.

I'd say at Year 10 though that unless he's wanting to continue something right through then its not quite so critical.

I remember in 6th form wanting to do Literature, Geography and Classics... I ended up with Literature (which is something I really wanted to do), History and Art History... and part of the problem is that the arts type subjects tend to only have one class of them but with the maths and sciences classes there were sometimes several, like there were three Biology classes for example so it was easy to get the choice I wanted.

It might be worth your DS looking at what he wants to do for the next couple of years and prioritising those subjects that he knows he's going to 'have' to do for next year, so if he's into languages he probably has to keep on doing that, ditto with graphics but with some other subjects, maybe such as History its less critical if you miss a year than missing Physics or whatever.

And also, had the lower levels, there are probably scheduled 'option' classes? So there might not be as much flexibility with what you can choose to do in those times compared with the NCEA levels. Do the kids tend to stay in class groupings for subjects like Maths, English and Social Studies?

I was going to say - its def not new. When I was doing 7th form - I had a clash I couldnt do ecomomics and calculus.


The school tried to get me into a economics class both at the other high school and at varsity but thay were both a no go - so I ended up doing economics by correspondance - in a class by myself in the time I would have been in the other class.

DDs timetable worked (phew) but I know we had to start thinking about required subjects for NCEA - she's thinking nursing, teaching or architecture - she has to do science anyway, but she had to do year 10 graphics to get into year 11 ncea graphics next year...

HCs right, its always been an issue - I remember science clashing with something back when I was at high school in the 80s And I think they do seem to group them by type eg arty/music, maths/economics etc

Suppose it depends whether one was a 'must do' or a 'want to do' as to whether I'd go talk to someone about it...

Nursing or architecture were my two choices too . I still can't figure out why as they are so different, yet they still both appeal.

Hi Linzi,

Dare I say this, but its reasonably comman to have clashes. DS who is Y10 this year, had his options "corrected" 4 times. Got an email, last day of term last year, with his supposedly correct options, only to find this year, they've been changed yet again.

School has said its do with "over subscribed" classes, which I presume means too many kids want to do that particular subject. All the tech subjects have a maximum class size.

But what gets me, if we choose them online, and surely their systems could keep a tally of the numbers for each class. Also, what irks me is people who move into the area, to get their kids into the school, get their options over kids who are currently at the school.

DD is Y12 this year, and its a whole other can of worms. She decided to drop accounting and do business studies. But the teacher is saying she should continue with accounting, cos its unit stardards, rather than achievement standards.

I had the sdame problem at school, as in 5th form PE, was a MUST do subject and science was optional and they clashed with other subjects, had to sit science in 6th form, but there was the option (unknown to me at the time) that i could have taken science extramurally through corospondence.

GAH! Is all I can say about selecting school subjects. My son (who is Year 12) was made to drop Maths and pick up Spanish again, which he didn't want to do. So this week he's dropping Spanish and picking up Biology.

I can't believe dropping Maths would even be floated as an option! Its just such an important subject for so many things.

Yeah I agree. But the H.O.D won't let him because he didn't pass one of the prerequisite papers, BUT he received a Merit pass in Maths. Going to call the Dean tomorrow.

that sounds so bad! Hope you can get it sorted Mel.

I do agree with this stuff going on since forever - when I was in highschool, pre ark, computing was pretty much brand new as a subject, I think there was one class - so it was lucky dip if you go it (I didn't) in 4th form (when it started as an opn). If you didn't get into it then, yo couldn't take ever while at school. Dumb!

Thanks all for your replies.
So more common than I thought

Considering I was in High School 1981-1984, you just picked your subjects end of story.
Computer Studies was new when I started in 3rd Form.
30 students crowded around one Apple McIntosh PC

Turned out to be a total waste of a year and so wished I had still taken typing.
Am a 2 finger typist

I did computer studies in form 5 (1985) It was a new exciting subject and everyone wanted in! Typing was on those old clunky typewriters and we wore a bib so we couldn't look at the keys There were 3 electric typewriters in the school when I sat school cert

I didn't do typing You only did that if you were destined for secretary work at my school, lol. Oh how useful would it have been come uni when everyone was starting to type assignments in the computer labs! Lol,I in form 1 in 85 So even by 88 the computer stuff wasn't much better. Though in 3rd form we all got a term in there, I can remember programming pics and sounds using the same stuff they do telext in... fun!

Mel,

I have a friend who actually is a qualified H/S teacher, but has just left the profession a year ago. Her daughter is 16, and Y12 this year.

She was horrified that all of her DD's class, were told they weren't sitting NCEA Maths Level 1. My friend went and saw the teacher, cos her DD wants to do a fashion design course, which requires a certain number of numeracy credits. Not sure of the exact details.

Basically, it turns out the teacher thought only a few kids in the class would actually pass (including her DD in that few), and he didn't want to have to tell the BOT why so many of his class failed. Also it would affect the school's stats on how many pass NCEA.

Seems to be really bad, that kids aren't even given the opportunity, just to a school can look "good" with their NCEA pass rate.

OMG that is shocking! Why would a school/teacher hold their students back like that?

Have put a call into the dean, I need to hear the schools side of things. I feel bad for C, but the H.O.D assured him that he had enough credits for Uni.

How did you get on Mel? I wouldnt be happy and taking maths to get your numeracy credits is really important - you want them to have level 1 & 2 numeracy and literacy!

We have fine tuning my daughters subject choices (year 13) and the school have been great at trying to fit in her choices. Not an easy task thou.

just butting in here...my mums an accounting/economics/business studies teacher, and she said if your DD is capable of Accounting then DEF DO NOT swap it for business studies - there's no way she'd let one of her capable yr12's do that

omg Mel, drop maths for spanish - thats CRAZY. heck who have these highschools got as their deans? PE teachers or something!!

yeah unfortunately clashes have bn happening for a long time,I hated it bcos I was good at maths and sciences but i really loved the history/classics/arts so i wanted a balance but was really tricky bcos the arts always clashed with the maths and sciences. i did manage in the end tho as compromised my 3 sciences for 1 general science -which was nowhere near as good (but i aced it hahaha) that allowing me to take calculus, classics, history, photography no wonder its taken me forever to find a career i never really lined myself up even at school lol just a bit of everything and im still like that (3degrees and all lol - B.commerce, B.Arts, and now B.nursing )

Thanks for asking girls. Just received an email from his dean saying that he has seen C, and they have changed it. He's dropped Spanish and is now taking Biology Lvl 2. This is perfect, mainly because C is very good at the Sciences, and we were all very shocked when he made the decision to drop Science this year.

I'm not worried about the Maths now to be honest, because he did pass Lvl 1 and the Dean has assured me that he has enough credits for Uni, should he chose to go down that track.

Mel does he have any idea what sort of path he wants to go down if he plans on uni? university entrance is 14credits or more at level 1, but a lot of the courses themselves stipulate their entry criteria is more than that or numeracy credits at a higher level - would depend what he wanted to do whether it mattered or not thou.
biology def sounds like a better option than spanish tho (unless he was reallllly into the languages or soemthing)