The following email has gone to all Year 9 families:
Term 1 was a chance for students to get a ‘taste’ of other languages. It is now time for students to select the language that they will continue studying for the rest of the year.
Students will continue to study English and Te Reo Māori throughout the year, unless students are enrolled in a literacy class. All year 9’s need to choose a third language to continue with for the rest of the year for 2 hours a week. At the moment, every year 9 student is studying a language during period 1 either:
- on Monday and Thursday mornings (Line 81) OR
- on Tuesday and Friday mornings (Line 82).
Please discuss language selection with your child and help them make the choice over the next few days. We realise that due to the change in circumstances at the end of last term that not all taster courses were completed. This means that there will be a flexible approach, if class sizes permit, to changing courses if your child feels that they would prefer to study another language.
- You will be able to make your selection on the portal from Wednesday 15 April.
- The deadline for selection will be the end of Monday 20 April.
- The new language course will be delayed slightly and now start on Tuesday 28 April. This, of course, will be an online course if the school is closed due to the lockdown.
There may need to do some balancing of the groups before the course starts on Tuesday 28 April, which may result in students not getting their first choice. The sooner students make their selection, the greater the likelihood of getting their first choice.
How to make your selection
To select their language for the rest of the year, students can
- log in to the student portal and make their choice from Chinese (9CHI), Japanese (9JAP) or Spanish (9SPA).
- Alternatively, you can choose by logging onto the parent portal using your portal login.
To help make an informed choice please read through the attached Year 9 Languages pamphlet: Year 9 international Language choice pamphlet
Students are required to choose from the line associated with their current study pattern i.e. if they study a language on Monday and Thursday mornings, they choose their language from the Line 81 option, Tuesday/Friday mornings should be chosen from the Line 82 option.
They also need to choose a second choice language from the Alternate column, in case they cannot get into their first choice. (Please see the image below)
When they click ‘Save’ it will save their course selection into the timetable.