Is Spanish A useful subject to be studying at GCSE level?

Obviously it's useful, but it's also supercool. My DDs were born in chile - although we came home to the uk when they were still very young so they had to learn spanish from scratch. One thing that engages them is spanish rock and pop music. There is loads of it. Try my favourite, Mexican rock group Mana - or Chilean Los Prisioneros, shakira of course, Laura pausini, There really are tonnes of great bands and solo artists - these examples are probs quite old now and embarrassingly out of date. Now with YouTube and amazon it is so much easier to find something you like. When I lived in Chile, English language rock music was one of the main ways in which young people picked up English and developed accents etc. don't see why it can't work the other way.

Languages are always a useful skill whether you intend to study them after school or not. And Spanish is probably the most widely spoken European language if you take into account South America.

My own Y8 DD is already planning on doing French & Spanish GCSE as she sees the benefits whenever we go travelling. She has the option of doing German & Mandarin but i don't think she'll take either.

If you're learning a language, you start from nothing and build up. GCSE is a stage on the way to becoming more proficient. I think it's quite useful, because I did it at evening classes.

Languages in general are useful - for being able to communicate with people in that language, but they also improve understanding of your own language and can give you other ways of thinking about some things. If I were recruiting someone, I'd be more likely to want someone with even basic knowledge of another language than someone who has no other language skills at all.

Besides, it's compulsory, so she has no choice - or did you mean a modern foreign language is compulsory, and is a different language a better choice? That is a different question, and depends on different things, most of which are personal.

Spanish is virtually the second language in America now, isn't it? South America, Spain, that's a lot of places where it could come in useful. Plus of the various European languages she could be tackling, Spanish is arguably one of the most straightforward.
Other than that, quit whining and get on with it!

Languages are always useful.

Is the language being badly taught, or is the child struggling with it?

Not being able to see the 'use' of it seems a bit of weird stance.

If it was something like cookery, or business studies, I could understand it at GCSE, but not languages.

Learning a language is useful in general. It's a particular kind of learning that you often don't get in other subjects.