Changing GCSE Options

Your son has had dreadful advice, I'm afraid. He really should be doing triple science. RM would have been a much better choice than either business studies or computer studies too (most people taking them at uni don't even have A level in them, nobody could care less if they did GCSE). That's not true for science, especially if he's been taught to a lower level because the more able students in his year are taking triple, and many sixth forms (not all) won't even let him on an A level science course with double science from a school which offers triple.

If he really wants to be a programmer, he needs to go beg to be allowed on the triple science course and to work like stink to catch up. Programmers don't have GCSE IT or even A level IT and only rarely have degrees in IT, they generally have maths and physics degrees. He's cut himself off from that and the school should have picked up on it.

TeenandTween - no worries but its something that as a teacher of Business I really get fed up of hearing (even from my SLT as they try to stop higher ability students from choosing the subjects but want lower ability to take it and then grill me about results ) it is a 'light weight/easy subject and is not worth studying when past students of mine (including those who completed a BTEC Business) can gain places at Oxbridge I often find myself fighting the common misconception regarding the subject

It's OK, I'm not at all offended. I used to think that PE was a lightweight subject, only for those who were good at sport, and I was surprised to read how academic it was.

Sorry, didn't mean to offend anyone with the 'lightweight' comment.
For what it's worth my DD would not have been able to manage the maths content of Business Studies. She would also be lucky to get an E in any DT subject or PE.

I think OPs child is only in y9, so they appear to be doing a 3 year course? Would that make a difference to being allowed to change?

I would have thought that it would be too late to change GCSE options now OP. Transferring from IT to Computer Science would be relatively straightforward as it involves similar skills.
Most DT subjects are not soft options either - they are actually quite a lot of work and involve quite a range of skills: design, understanding of technical details as well as making the products (practical skills). At dds school they have already made one set of products and had these assessed, so it wouldn't be possible to make this up after missing the whole of Term 1.

According to the booklet that DD's school produced about GCSE options PE is most definitely not a lightweight option. You have to be good at writing essays, study anatomy and various other topics all related to PE. It is far more academic than most people think. Practical PE skills are only a very small part of GCSE PE.

Does he still want to do gaming?

Without getting into a discussion regarding the supposed 'light weight' subjects although I will say that analytical and evaluation skills coupled with high standards of literacy are needed to gain a C, never mind higher in GCSE Business you might find that the school would not allow any subject movement now - I will not accept after 3 weeks as we have already covered a lot of new learning

RM would be useful to a would-be engineer.

Computer science is probably programming, good for a mathematically minded person. I wouldn't be surprised if he has good general 'Computer skills' anyway, not sure he needs a GCSE in it to prove that.

I would (perhaps wrongly) consider PE and Business studies to be a bit 'lightweight' and, as a more practical subject, I would put RM in there too. otoh he has 8 strong subjects (assuming English is 2) already, so the rest don't matter much anyway.

Does he really know what RM would include? Or is it a case of the grass is always greener elsewhere?