General Discussion

Here's something I believe is relevant to the future development of Dawlish.

Have just been informed that our Community College has this week withdrawn the year 9 option subject entittled - Travel and Tourism.  The reason given lack of student interest.

Now if this reason is true, it should make the owners of any tourist related businesses in town take note. Either the next generation dont consider the area worthy of providing them with a worthwhile future in the industry, or the mainstay of the towns ecconomy is about to change.

What maybe come apparent in the next two years is that no local school leavers will have the confidence to look for work here in town.

How did that get included in the first place.

Apart from retail work, cafe, pub and hotel what else is there?

'Maths and English' would help them more ..so many fall out of school now and are unable to spell and count without a calculator.

@wondering.   its nothing to do with maths and english, they are compulsorary subjects. this is about the subjects which year 9s can elect to study as options in preparation for further education or work. there are quite a few option subjects like french, history, geography, cooking, etc

I know! ..but they should not be sent out in the world unable to spell and count,  Text speak is not exactly good for a CV.

I have to agree with you, and sometimes I despair at some of the the teaching and ideas at the school. If the electricity ever fails and all the techno gadgets fail we are going to be stuck with a generation hopeless no nowts.

Whats the answer?

Trouble is teachers too are on their mobiles constant ...have seen on TV where students have been on their mobiles when a teacher is trying to teach. Why they allow them in school I will never know...and they are not cheap!.

Perhaps the lack of interest is because students and parents have realised that to progress to a decent university they need traditional subjects, not the woolly new ones.

There are a lot of changes happening in the exam systems over the next few years and students making subject choices in year 9 now are going to be affected by them.  My own children were advised to avoid certain subjects that had looked like good options just a few years earlier, because they were unsure how many GCSEs or equivalents they would actually be worth by the time they had come to the end of the course and the final exam.  It isn't like the old days when you took a subject, did an exam and came away with a grade for it at either O Level, CSE or GCSE.  Some subjects could be worth up to 4 GCSEs under the system they are currently changing.  Some of these will now be downgraded and that is why some subjects are now less popular than others.  It may not be a lack of interest in the subject, it may just be a realisation that if they want to get the right number of GCSE passes to take them on to the next stage (don't forget they have to stay in education or an apprenticeship until they are 18 now) they are therefore going to look a more tradiational core subjects or vocational subjects where the future of them has already been decided as so they can be sure what they would end up with.