DS (y9) is very academic, so he is aiming for high grades in his GCSEs and potentially Oxbridge or one of the Russell Group universities. He is inclined towards maths/computing/science/engineering for his future career direction. He's choosing his GCSE options and the following are either compulsory or settled:
- Eng Lang/Lit
- Maths
- RP Short Course (they sit this in Year 10)
- 3 Sciences
- Spanish
- Geography
- Computer Science
Then he has one more option and he's deciding between History (Edexcel) and Food & Nutrition (AQA).
His history teacher has been very encouraging (he does very well in her class) and he's generally very good at analytical essay-based subjects, so it's a reasonably safe bet that he'll do well in it.
He also does well in Food Tech and enjoys it, so he is seeing it as light relief from other more academic subjects. It still does have some academic elements though - there is some written project work as well as practical work. But is it seen as a soft option? And does that matter given that he is doing lots of other more academic subjects?
Advice from school is to do what he enjoys most (likely to be food tech) but I'm not so sure. I dropped history at GCSE but as an adult felt that left an occasionally-embarrassing gap in my general knowledge, which I've never got round to filling by reading popular-history books. I see history as a fairly basic element of a good well-rounded education and it seems too soon to drop it. In contrast, I don't suppose not doing food-tech GCSE has ever held anyone back from being a confident cook if they had a basic interest in it (and he does, so he will still cook for pleasure even if he doesn't do the GCSE).
Any advice?