SACE and all the turmoil

We've had some angst this week with this one. A couple of months ago we all went to the school for subject selection.  We talked about subject selection possible need to pick another subject if he didn't get the appropriate marks etc.  His PE section was discussed and if he was prepared for the work involved and the exam at the end.  All was good he was prepared to put in the effort, it was a good fit for what he thinks  he might do at Uni.  They said there were only 20 places available.  We made sure that he kept PE a priority as he needed to be top of the class if he was going to get selected for those 20 places. As it turns out the marks weren't the problem, the problem was that the class didn't have the required number of student wanting to do it, it turns out the school has only run the class once in the last 7 years (if that had been mentioned we would have looked at other school alternatives or steered him away from the subject in the first place).

We emailed the school as he was not in the least bit happy PE had been on the radar for 2 years.  We all had a sleepless night as there was 3 week of school left, I started researching nearby schools to see if that was an option it was all to hard.  The next day the year 11 councillors recommended Tourism which didn't take into consideration his academic achievements or his interests but that was the only alternative offered, he left the counselling session despondent.  The response from the school was that as no Uni course required PE his tertiary options were not limited by it being dropped.

He then walked into the IT Unit upset and happened upon one of the teacher there that offered him an alternative a project in conjunction with the Uni of Adelaide.  This project is unique to the school, starting next year that can be counted toward Stage 2.  A select number of year 10, 11 and 12 students have been asked to join the project, the only draw back was Mo has been asked to join as a year 10 due to her academic achievements this year (she received a Medal for Excellence again this year).

He came around after a bit of discussion and the fact that I wasn't going to not let Mo miss it just because he thought she would lean on him to much.  Their academic approach is so different I don't think she will be leaning on him at all, I suspect what will end up working well together if they have to but I suspect that they will be separated to a certain extent.

I have spoken to the teacher coordinating the project and it will be a great opportunity for both of them that could lead them into a range of other tertiary studies.  We will have to keep an eye on Mo as she probably should drop some one of her lines of study to keep up but she doesn't want to.  I think we will play it by ear see how she goes, at the moment she thinks there won't be much out of school work for her choice line and she should be able to keep up.

So there is a silver lining, however I am less than impressed with the way the school handled the whole thing.  Maestro was lucky that this project came along he had studied Robotics and IT in the past  with good grades to enable him to slot straight into the project.  There were 10 other kids that have also been displaced and a couple of those were counting on PE even more than Maestro.