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Original poster

GCSE option decisions....

31 replies

AdventureTravelDreamer · 15/01/2020 22:15

DD is about to choose her options. She has 7 subjects that she has no choice over (Maths, English x 2, Science x 3 & RE as faith school) so she has three choices. But she is struggling to decide between French, Art, Geography and Music. French is pretty much a definite so really it's between the other 3.

I have told her that it's her decision but not to rule out doing both Art & Music. Anyone got any experience of DC doing two creative subjects? For what it's worth she is very good at Art (teacher keeps talking about Art college to her) and is working towards Grade 5 violin at the moment.

OP posts:
lanthanum · 15/01/2020 22:32

She's presumably going to continue with violin, so she'll be doing music anyway. My DD doesn't actually much fancy the stuff they do in music GCSE. She'll be doing 75mins music lessons and 4 hours of band/orchestra rehearsals a week out of school, so that seems plenty to satisfy her musical interests.

We've checked the local sixth form prospectus and they'll let them do A-level if they have grade 5 theory and instrument/voice, so she's not ruling anything out by not doing music GCSE.

clary · 15/01/2020 22:30

Dd did music and drama and it went well (old style GCSE tho so don't know about the new ones).

Art is a lot of work tho. For dd drama was her release - would art be like that for your dd? If so, then it's a good plan. If not it can just become a hated slog. Geography might be better choice than music - if she is on grade five that's a similar level to GCSE anyway.

Stillabitemo · 15/01/2020 22:25

I definitely wouldn’t suggest art and music together unless she is likely to want to carry them both on, just because of the work load.

Geography is a really solid wide ranging subject which adds breadth to her other choices and builds a lot of different contrasting skills.

YeOldeTrout · 15/01/2020 22:22

Art is a notorious time suck.
DD often gushed about how relieved she was she had not done art, watching her BF exhausted by GCSE art.

PatriciaHolm · 15/01/2020 22:20

As above - there is an awful lot of writing involved with art too, it's a very time intensive subject, much more so than many people think.

BeBraveAndBeKind · 15/01/2020 22:19

My friend's daughter chose art and it's very intensive and takes a lot of time especially when doing her portfolio of pieces for the exam. My son did music and that was the same with composition and practical work so I'd check with the head of year exactly what's involved or she may become quite swamped with work that has to be completed to similar timescales.

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