Options

On Monday J came home with a great big book all about his GCSE options. 'That's interesting, you'd better read it,' I said. 'Uh,' he said. P came home. 'We've got this book all about GCSE options you'd better read it,' I said. 'Uh,' he said.
So I was the only one who sat down and read it.

This year things are different from previous years. As well as Maths, English, Science and RE they used to have to choose a language, a technology and one out of Music, Art and Drama. Now they still have to do Maths, English, Science and RE but just choose any 3 other subjects.

Having studied the book I concluded that the best options for J would be Art, Graphics and German. This is on the basis that he loves Art so much he'd hate to give it up, Graphics might come in useful for engineering and some of the engineering courses are wanting a language GCSE. 

On Wednesday we had 'Options Evening' at school. In the first half there were stalls for each subject with teachers telling you how interesting their speciality was. The head of year with whom I previously got hysterical on the phone came over and was very helpful about showing us the wheelchair accessible way into the hall so perhaps our relatonship has improved which is good. After going round J said he'd decided the 3 options he wanted - Art, Graphics and German. So that's good.

Then we went into the hall for a talk by one of the assistant heads all about working hard and how we parents should support our teenagers. At the start he said 'Good Evening,' and a dad answered back 'Good Evening.' At the end his daughter turned on him 'I've never been so embarrassed in my life, he said Good Evening and you said Good Evening back, how could you?'

That's teenagers for you.