Dear fellow Parents,
DD is in Year 9 and her school have asked us to decide her GCSE options this week.
DD would like to study medicine at university -- as we all know this is a very competitive area of study and she will need top grades to even stand a chance.
There are 6 core subjects and 4 additional, 11 subjects in total.
Core:
- English
- Mathematics
- Chemistry
- Biology
- Physics
- Religious Education
Additional:
- English Literature
- Spanish (or French; not both)
- Geography (or History; not both)
- ICT
- Business
In this latter group we were given freedom to choose 5 subjects from a list that also included Arts & Design, Food, Music, PE, Statistics, Resistant Materials.
DD's school does not offer sixth form so what we are looking at now is carefully choosing her GCSE options to increase DD's chance of getting admitted to a competitive sixth form.
I am trying to get my head around a few questions:
- - Would DD be better off if she studied History instead of Geography? Bearing in mind that further down the line, at A levels, she will be expected to study 3 science subjects (Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics) and one non-science subject (Art, History, Design Technology, Philosophy).
- - English is not DD's native language although she is very comfortable with it given that DD lived here for years. What are the benefits of taking English Literature? What are the consequences for not taking it?
- - It is one thing that DD will study these 5 additional subjects but should she take exams in all of these? In total these are 11 subjects. Some competitive sixth forms list 8 GCSEs as a minimum requirement but 'minimum' is usually emphasised in their prospectus indicating that it obviously the more the better. What are the benefits of taking 11 GCSEs over taking 10 or even 9?
The sixth form we looked suggests that any students considering to study Mathematics, Biology and Chemistry at A Levels must achieve 4 A at GCSE as a minimum, including 2 As from these 3 subjects.
Many thanks,
Lora