PSG - Medication Review & Yr 11 Subject Choices

I had a PSG at Brodie's high school on Thursday afternoon. The main reason for the meeting was to discuss how Brodie was going on his medication, well not on his meds but rather how he was going now he no longer used the Attenta (Ritalin) tablets.

From what I was told most of Brodie's teachers found that he took longer to settle once he got to class, is more restless than usual & that he was more likely to be distracted by the other kids especially if the weren't on task. Although one of the teachers said she finds him confrontational and more erratic than usual.
I was emailed a copy of the teachers remarks. I'll definitely be showing the paediatrician, Michael, when we go and see him at the end of this school term. If the school finds that Brodie's behaviour declines I'll even send Michael a copy of the teachers comments much earlier.

The second part of the meeting was to discuss with Brodie what subjects he would like to do for next year when he will be in Year 11. Now there is a choice of VCE (Victorian Certificate of Education) or VCAL (Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning) and there is a VET (Vocational Education and Training) component for either preference.

I was going to provide a link which explains them better than I can but it didn't work so I'll give it a go. VCE is like Matriculation when I was at school. It's a set syllabus where your years worth of work is assessed along with an exam to get your final scores.
VCAL is like an apprenticeship of sorts. Where things are more hands on and you are able to spend one day a week at TAFE studying things like Hospitality or Multimedia. There are other choices but they are the only ones I know of.

VCAL is more flexible than VCE and I'm not too sure that Brodie is ready for school to be less structured. He loves structure and predictability. So we have gone for the VCE option and if we find that towards the end of next year that Brodie will be able to cope with VCAL (he wants to be a pastry chef and VCAL is probably the best option for that) he can change to that for year 12.

I'm crossing my fingers for him as there needs to be enough kids to do Food Technology which is one of the electives he has chosen to do. The course outline looks so promising. He would learn so much that would help him become a chef like he wants.

I'm not sure when we will find out if the choices he made are in fact the ones that he will get to study but I am hoping that he gets the ones he wants.