This is the first year in which students are given a say in their own learning path. The subjects they choose in Year 9 will have a big impact on their future and long-term study goals.
What to expect
Developing effective study habits is one of the most important skills your child will need this year, as the workload is about to increase. Year 9 is the year in which students have a say in their own learning path and although core subjects (English, Maths, Science) still exist, they now have the opportunity to choose the rest of their subjects from the following:
- Creative Arts
- Human Society and its Environment
- History
- Geography
- PDHPE (Personal Development, Health, and Physical Education)
- Languages
- Technology and Applied Studies
These electives will comprise about 60 percent of their timetable. While volumes vary from school to school and even teacher to teacher; Year 9 students are likely to see an increase in homework as well with more subjects to study for. This means about 6 hours a week or 2 hours of homework each school day.
What does your child learn in Year 9?
Final NAPLAN Year
Year 9 is also the final NAPLAN year which offers students a good way to practice their exam preparation prior to the senior years to come. NAPLAN stands for National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy and the test assesses their literacy and numeracy levels against the national standard.
For English, students must answer spelling and grammatical questions, comprehension, write a persuasive text and compose a creative text. For Maths, they will have to answer questions on adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing plus Geometry, Graphs, Tables, Decimals and Fractions.
For more information read our Guide to NAPLAN here and check out our NAPLAN Test Prep Programs here.
There’s a big jump from Year 8 to Year 9 Maths and because the content is getting more difficult, students may find it hard to apply the concepts they’ve learned the school year before. The Year 9 Maths program covers Number and Algebra, Measurement and Geometry, Statistics and Probability, and introduces the study of Trigonometry, which is a critical part of what they will learn in the senior years of Maths at high school. Students use appropriate strategies to solve problems and link mathematical ideas and the relevant terminology and notations to explain their thinking processes.
Find out how Cluey can help your child with Maths: https://clueylearning.com.au/year-9-maths/
In Year 9, your child will be engaging in higher order reasoning and increasing abstraction. Students develop and justify their own interpretations of texts. They will interpret, create, evaluate, discuss and perform a wide range of literary texts this year. This includes various types of media texts, including newspapers, film and digital texts, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, dramatic performances and multimodal texts. Students develop a critical understanding of the contemporary media and the differences between media texts.
A full description of the content descriptions of the Australian Curriculum in Year 9 can be found here.
Find out how Cluey can help your child with English: https://clueylearning.com.au/year-9-english/
Things you can do to help your child thrive in Year 9
Students are provided with opportunities to make their own choices about learning and to specialise in the areas that interest them. These are decisions that should not be made lightly, as at fourteen or fifteen, not everyone is clear about their future path. Some children will know exactly what they want to do later in life, where others still have no idea.
Keep in mind that there is a lot of pressure on kids this age to achieve academically, and sometimes the hopes and dreams we have for our children do not match with what they want for themselves. It can be tempting to try and persuade your child to go in a certain direction, you want the best possible future for them of course, but youngsters can achieve rewarding careers in different ways.
Talk to your child about their elective choices and ensure they know how this might affect their workload and future study options for their senior years. Also encourage them to talk to their teachers, especially those who teach the subjects they are interested in. That way they can then get a feel for what the course content will be.
If your teenager isn’t sure what they want to do in the future, encourage them to select the subjects they’re interested in. It’s much more likely they stay motivated that way and it gives them the best chance for achieving a high ATAR in Year 12, to get them into their preferred university program.
How Cluey's tutoring can help your child succeed
While they may not ask for your help, with the right guidance even the most independent teenager will be prepared for the senior high school years, then university and the career of their choice. If you feel they could do with some extra help in Year 9, there’s Cluey Learning.
At Cluey, students are at the centre of everything we do. We know that it is their unique learning journey, which is why we develop an individual, personal learning plan for each of our students. For each subject, we use a learning program that contains all the content your teenager needs and is led by a personally matched tutor.
Our Year 9 Math program places a great deal of importance on consolidating prior mathematical knowledge, laying the strongest foundations for senior Mathematics at every level. The Cluey Education Team is ready to support your child them at every stage. For English tuition, we assist with units for essays, oral presentations, creative and persuasive writing, as well as spelling, syntax and grammar.
We can ensure part of the Year 9 learning program focuses on revision, skill building and mock tests to help your child practice ahead of NAPLAN. Whether it's catching up or getting ahead, Cluey’s custom learning plans are tailored to your child's needs. The programs are fun and unhurried, and tutoring happens face-to-face online, at a time that works with your busy schedules, so you can relax while they learn.
Find out more about our high school support and tutoring.
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