The end is in sight · Wednesday June 6, 2007 by june

James is coming up to the end of compulsory education – on the 29th June – so we only have a few weeks left. He wants to chill out and do animation, and I can sympathise up to a point, but I want to finish things off. So we are still working.

We have been spending a lot of time discussing career options and what to do next year. We came to the conclusion that he should study for his GCSE English and Maths at evening college, but that left us with several choices about what else he should do to fill up his days.

He could have gone to sixth form college to study science GCSEs – however he has already covered much of that material, and he wasn’t too happy about the way the sixth form college is still school, and very much based on the same procedures as school. For example his studies only take up 4 days, but they insist on attendance on the 5th day too, because this is full time education. In the end, the biggest issue for both of us was that it didn’t feel like moving forward.

We then looked at the Open University science courses. These look like a much more positive option. We looked at starting with a 10point course called “science starts here” and following that, the 60 point course, “Exploring Science”.

Then… it turns out that he is really interested in the idea of studying music. He went to a music summer school last year and it was an environment he enjoyed.

So the end result is that next year he will be studying music at a local college of further education – the resulting qualification is equivalent to 4 GCSEs – along with GCSE English and Maths. The idea is very much for him to enjoy himself. Next year we can look at whether he wants to carry on with the music, or do the OU courses, or maybe even a mixture.

It feels good to have successfully worked through the options with James, and for him to have secured a place at college on the course that he wants.

...sneaking in the back way So what have we been doing this week?