Year 9 Options Evening

Dear Parents/Carers

We wanted to take this opportunity to write to the parents/carers of the Year 9 students to share with you more information about Key Stage Four Choices and the support on offer.

Changes of Key Date

Thursday 23rd March - Key Stage Four Options Evening (in person)

This is an opportunity for you and your child to come into school and speak to subject staff to find out what studying each subject is like. Please note this date has changed. 

Here is the booking information, booking opens at 16.00 on Friday 3rd March:

This evening will take place in our Dining Hall. 

We are dividing the evening into three sessions. 

Session 1 - 16:00 - 16:50

Session 2 - 16:50 - 17:40

Session 3 - 17:40 - 18:30

We have 90 slots available for each session so that parents and students can easily discuss their option choices with staff.  In order to book a slot please log on to School Cloud and pick one of the sessions to book into.  

When you select a session, you will see that you have the option to book a one minute slot with one of the staff attached to the evening. This will secure your place for that whole session.   For example, if you want to attend Session 1 from 16:00-16:50 you log on and book an appointment within those times with either Mrs Wood, Mr Murray, Mrs Elson or Mr Carter (it doesn’t matter who you select or which specific one minute time within the 16.00-16.50 session).  

The booking system will allow us to have a register of who is attending each session.  

Just as a reminder - You only need to book onto one session for the evening. 

How to book 

1. Log on to School Cloud using the following link  https://towers.schoolcloud.co.uk/ 
2. Select the Options Evening session time you would like to book in for.  Session 1, 2 or 3. (You only need to make a booking on one of these sessions) 
3. Select an appointment with any of the 4 staff shown.
4. This will secure your session time. 

Information, Support and Guidance

Apprenticeship and Technical Qualifications Assembly

To ensure that all students in school know about the range of education and training providers that are available to them now and in the future on Thursday 23rd February all Year 9 students were delivered an assembly from Liberty from the Education People on Apprenticeships and Technical Qualifications, we hope that this information will help your child consider how they may wish to learn and train in the future and how this can help them make decisions on what to study now.

Options Booklet

Attached to this email is the Options Booklet, it will allow you and your child to explore the range of subjects that will be on offer and begin to read about what is studied. This will help you to start to consider a shortlist of subjects your child could be interested in and help you identify what subjects you will speak to on Thursday 23rd March and what questions you will ask. If you require this booklet in a printed form then please can your child visit the Careers Centre to request one.

Careers Centre

The Careers Centre is open to students before school, during recreation time and after school so if students have specific questions regarding the Options on offer and where they can lead to then they can come in and speak to a Careers Advisor, alternatively you and your child can make an appointment to meet with a Careers Advisor by emailing careers@towers.school.

General Advice

Our advice to students when applying for particular choices is to think carefully about what subjects they enjoy, to consider the career pathway they may have in mind and to find out about all of the subjects, ultimately choosing the ones that they are most passionate about. 

We want Towers students to achieve the very best across all of their subjects. The greater the number of high Key Stage Four qualifications a student has, the more doors that will be open to them. Therefore, we want students to choose the subjects they feel they can do well in and make sure that they study hard for everyone, right from the start and throughout Key Stage Four.

Yours faithfully

Kevin Murray

Careers Lead