As you will be aware, your child will be making important decisions soon about what to study at Key Stage 4, in Years 10 and 11. They will have some compulsory subjects and will have some subjects which they can choose. It is important that they are as well-informed as possible and that you have all the information needed to help guide them to making the right decisions.

To help you with that, I would like to invite you to our Y9 Options Evening, on Tuesday 21st March 2023. We are planning to hold the meetings in person at SJP. Students in ALPHA, and their families are invited to attend at 18:00 and BETA at 18:45.

I will be explaining how the process works, what choices your child has and how to access all of the information about each subject so that your child can make fully-informed choices. You will also have the opportunity to speak to subject teachers to gather subject specific information and guidance.

You may be aware that your child has participated in a series of live Teams sessions with employees from Nestlé. The mentoring sessions focused on enable to self-reflect on the skills that they have and to make them think about future choices and destinations. Our careers lead, Mr Wellens, and a representative from Careers Connect will be available to answer any questions that you may have for the duration of the evening.

This is an exciting time for your child and whilst we endeavor to make the transition from KS3 into KS4 seamless, we appreciate that at times, for some students, making those important decisions may be daunting. To ensure that your child is fully supported in their choices, we will also run a series of assemblies, each child will have a subject taster session in their timetabled lessons to ensure that universally, all are able to experience what it feels like to transition into their final phase of their compulsory school study.

We appreciate that this is also an exciting time for families and it is essential that families are also as fully informed as students. In our campaign to elevate the importance of making those choices, we are planning to host additional online parental drop-in sessions and will also share subject specific information Loom videos.

If you have any questions that you would like me to address either at the meeting or by return email please email Year9@stjohnplessington.com and I look forward to seeing you and your child.

Please confirm your attendance at the evening by completing the GoogleForm HERE.

Kind regards

Ms J Gascoigne

Assistant Headteacher