Urgent: GCSE v BTEC

Forget the label of EB, the mixture of subjects it contains is good for most DCs aiming at academic degrees.
I don’t really get a feel from your posts whether your DD truly is considering a future for hospitality or is just saying that to get out of doing German. Languages are really important (nothing to do with politics) especially for hospitality but GCSE German is not for her. I would suggest that she does speaking classes in a language if she seriously wants to do hospitality. The British come across as rather uneducated to other nationalities for their inability to even try with other languages.

I also would be concerned about course work for doing both art and hospitality. However again the art might be helpful if she is thinking of the more creative side of hospitality (the design and fittings). I take it there was no other attractive choice in the art group (and this post is too late).

Yes, the EB is a serious red herring. If you're looking down a list of schools it could, I suppose, be used as a very broad indicator of the School's approach to traditional academic subjects, but I have never heard of it being used to assess students, only schools. One very well regarded school near me has incredibly low EB rates because it has an excellent RE department and many scientists in particular choose RE as their humanities option and it doesn't count for the EB.

Might be too late, but definitely check what the BTEC covers because as Bert says it won't just be cooking. I would expect it to cover front of house / waiter / bar work too.

I do think German is possibly one of the most difficult GCSEs to do well in. If she doesn’t want to do it now, I would let her swap to BTEC hospitality.

Why are people saying she should do German as "she may like it" - presumably she has done it for two-three years and wants to drop it because she doesn't like it? I would not want to reach GCSE to a student who didn't want to study it.

My DDs went to boarding school and I didn’t help them with anything! You don’t have to help your DD! Let her do her own work.

German. If she ever wants to work in hospitality having some language skills will be a bonus.

Why is it that so many children want to drop languages when other countries the majority don’t drop a language? We seem so poor at languages!

Hospitality isn’ cooking, by the way.

I would encourage her to pursue German. She is not studying another language so if she doesn't take German she will not have the full range of subjects which make up the English Baccalaureate - those generally considered a good academic base. Languages open doors to travel and a more global outlook. Also, she may really like German - if so there will be increased opportunities to get into a great university, either on its own or with a whole array of subjects. Overall those studying German have plummeted - this gives increased opportunities to those with the ability and aptitude to continue. She is predicted a good pass- I would say go for it.

You won't need to help her with cooking if the course is good, but why not let her cook at home for some practice.

She has a good range and some strong subjects (history, computing) so if she would prefer the hospitality to German then go for it. Won't make any difference in the future. And I say that as a former MFL. teacher and German fan girl.

To further add both my DS and dd did a language as the schools they went to made it compulsory. My dyslexic DS did Spanish which was a disaster as we couldn’t help him as neither me or DH knew Spanish. He ended up being pulled from the gcse and did the hnd/btec equivalent and got a c equivalent. My dd learning from our mistakes did French equally unsuccessfully they wanted her to drop it just before the exam but we refused and got her a very expensive tutor . She ended up with a B (no idea how though). If I had my time with both kids again and they could have dropped the language and done something else I absolutely would have chosen this

So they do offer GCSE Food tech and BTEC hospitality. I'm surprised.

I would encourage her to pick German. It's a more academic subject that is likely to be better regarded by universities as a facilitating subject.

That said, it is ultimately her decision and it sounds like she favours the BTEC.

Why can't she do GCSE food technology instead?
Presumably because school don't offer it.

The BTEC will have regular coursework throughout the 2 years. If it has an exam (will it?) it will be a smaller % of the whole qualification. So doing the BTEC will reduce revision load and exam load in summer y11. She already has 9 GCSEs, so the 10th can easily be a BTEC, won't make any odds for university. Learning how to cook is a useful life skill. Is it just the cooking side, or also things like silver service etc?

If she doesn't do all A levels then knowing how a BTEC works already could be useful for college also.

It's her 10th choice, if she'd rather do Hospitality then I'd let her.

(Art is well known as a time eater. I'd drop that and then do both German and Hospitality ).

“I can’t cook,”

Sorry, I don’t believe anyone who says that they can’t cook. Unless you are dyslexic anyone can follow a recipe. There are people who aren’t interested in cooking or don’t want to cook, but “can’t cook”? Nope.

As your DD has the basics covered perhaps she should choose the subject she would enjoy the most. Why can't she do GCSE food technology instead?

A lot of ds's friends did Hospitality BTec. We live in quite a touristy area and it was very useful for Saturday and holiday jobs. There is only one university left that specifies it wants a language, so don't worry about that.