Tell me about Citizenship GCSE. Which is apparently compulsory at my DD's school. She doesn't want to do it.

Good point - is this one GCSE out of 8, severely restricting choice, or is it an addition 9th GCSE on the grounds that "we have to teach this stuff anyway, so they might as well get the piece of paper for it"?

I might be wrong but I think if this wasn't offered as a GCSE the school would still be required to teach it in some form anyway (possibly under the name of PHSE or something).
Maybe market it as you'll need to learn this important life stuff anyway so you my might as well get a grade at the end of it that you can add to your list of GCSEs.

I think OP's point, Woolf, is that to make room for citizenship as an actual exam subject, something has to be bumped off the list of other choices - so suppose OP's DD had wanted to do history, geography and music, and now finds herself only able to do 2 out of 3. OP knew this would happen with RE at a faith school - that timetabling compulsory RE would lead to less choice in other GCSEs. She didn't realise there would be an equivalent subject at a non-faith school with the knock-on effect of leaving less space in the timetable for a full range of options.

I don't doubt that the material citizenship sets out to cover is interesting and relevant to children growing up - I'm just not sure it's so interesting and relevant that it merits being made compulsory, or that a lot of the same issues couldn't come up in parts of the syllabus in say geography (globalisation) or history (how we came to have a parliamentary system, how that differs, for instance, from the system the US have, or Germany).

It's not the subject itself which is the problem - it's making it compulsory and thus taking away the choice of doing something else which perhaps might be more useful to OP's DD for future career choices, or more interesting to her, or for which she had a real talent.

If she is more interested in science could she switch to a 14+ STEM based school if there is one in your area.

You seem to have misunderstood the meaning of the word 'citizen' if you equate it with faith schools only. We all live in society and play a part.

How many people on here right now have an opinion on the government's actions, on Brexit etc? And how many of them have a severe lack of understanding about the nuances and can't argue their point intelligently?

There are skills to be gained from the subject and there are lessons to be learned from accepting what an institution deems to be compulsory.

I'm a big fan of GCSE RE. It's a fascinating subject (and the syllabus is very well thought out). I say that despite being an agnostic and despite having avoided schools for DS where it was compulsory.

RS/RE is a good O-level though, (DD has been writing essays on reproductive rights, true crime documentaries, all sorts, it is a great non-denom school though) and can be an "enabling subject" I believe. Citizenship not so much.

But I don't know how you can negotiate this if they have blanket decided that's what everyone is doing. I imagine there is no getting out of it. The issue to me is more that they are not offering 3 separate sciences as a pathway option, without eating into additional option choices.

Is it a very small school OP, or has it had a lot of very poor results? Or new leadership?

*Do you want combined science to a relatively low level of sophistication because the overall aim is to prepare the citizens of tomorrow such that they have enough of a nodding acquaintance with science that they don't fall prey to anti vax conspiracies or climate change denialists?

Or do we want in depth single subject sciences to prepare the scientists, engineers, medics, HCPs of tomorrow?*

It's fairly obvious that we need the former. We also need the latter, but actually we want those people to do A-level, not just GCSE.

I'm another person who didn't have the option of all three sciences. We were advised that if in doubt, we should drop biology, as you could still do the A-level without. However very few did pick it up at A-level, so most of us missed out on learning much biology at all.

The double/triple curriculum has been quite cleverly designed so that it is perfectly feasible to go on to A-level from double if necessary (eg where a school does not have enough students interested in triple for it to be viable). So we have a system that provides for everyone to cover a reasonable minimum across all the sciences, anyone who wants to move on to A-level and get more depth of knowledge, and where triple is offered, those who enjoy the subjects can spend more time on them at GCSE.

Citizenship is a much less rigorous GCSE than RS which is extremely interesting, and is good prep for A level RS/Philosophy and Ethics. Dd is doing rs, triple science and history and French. Thats 9 altogether, cant your dd do this with rs replaced by citizenship?

Do you want combined science to a relatively low level of sophistication because the overall aim is to prepare the citizens of tomorrow such that they have enough of a nodding acquaintance with science that they don't fall prey to anti vax conspiracies or climate change denialists?

Or do we want in depth single subject sciences to prepare the scientists, engineers, medics, HCPs of tomorrow?

Conversely, is it better to go into depth in a couple of science subjects and not cover anything in the third? Most people will tell you that students who took sciences at A level after only doing double science had a little catching up to do, but still managed to do as well as their triple science peers in the end, so I’m not sure your argument holds water.

DD took her GCSEs before the reforms, and she did triple science. The difference was that the double science students did papers 1 and 2, and the triple science students also did paper 3. Doing triple science took up an option at her school, which IMO was the sensible approach.

or whether they are using it as a way to cover PSHE etc issues & get a GCSE in say 2hrs/fortnight.

Which is how DD’s school approached it. She certainly didn’t spend 5 hours a fortnight on Citizenship.

As I understand it (and I could be wrong, just going on my children's school) it is part of the national curriculum in the same way as PE is. So everyone has to have Citizenship lessons until the end of KS4 but it doesn't have to be examined. They call it Personal Development at our school now but it covers basically the same stuff. It is definitely not mandatory to do it as a GCSE on a national level - it isn't even a GCSE option at our school but they do have a lesson a week til the end of Year 11.
I do have sympathy with you OP. I would see it as a waste of a slot too, especially if it meant that 3 sciences weren't an option. But you probably don't have much choice in the matter unless you change school. It does seem a bit odd that the school prioritises this over science. Could your DD dtop something else to fit the sciences in? I wonder if it is a result of league tables. Have the school found that they get better overall grades by insisting everyone does this?
I was a bit irritated when our school made the EBacc compulsory for the vast majority of pupils as it meant that my youngest child only got one completely free choice for GCSE, but at least the subject that he's been forced to do is one that I can see the value in. (And, grudgingly so can he really.) It's a fine line for schools to walk - making sure that pupils take a good, broad based range of subjects vs stifling individual choice. I can see it's difficult.

My hunch is where it's a niche subject like this which it is highly unusual to have as a compulsory GCSE (none of the 5 state schools in my city has it on their list of compulsory subjects; the faith schools have compulsory RE, which is one reason we sat playing brinksmanship on the waiting list for months before we finally got DS into a non-religious school), it is driven by the personality of one particularly pushy and ambitious head of department.

It may well be the other HoDs sat there thinking "anything to shut the bugger up" while the head of maths/IT (whichever one does the timetabling) simply sat there thinking "no skin off my nose and the more compulsory subjects we have, the easier timetabling gets."

But maybe I'm just cynical having sat through many such meetings during my time in higher ed.

The school also won't have decided this on a whim.
They will have discussed the pros and cons etc.

Yeah, practically at this point, it'll be difficult to get anything done, though if you can wiggle for 10, then it's not as much of an issue. I can see the benefit of focusing on 8-9, but it does seem a bit narrow.

I think it's a very useful subject and coves a lot of daily life politics, legal and responsibilities, and other wider considerations like the UK's place within international organizations. The increase in uptake since it came in not that long ago has increased a lot for not being an Ebacc subject (personally, I think if we're going to have Ebacc promoted, that there should be more humanities options and that Citizenship should be one of them).

I think there are three lines a "constructive" answer can take.

1. Already mentioned upthread - more info about citizenship as a subject, and how it can be academically rigorous and useful.

2. A "think of alternative ways of broadening your child's choices" approach. What was the subject "bumped" off the list of possibilities by the inclusion of compulsory citizenship? For instance (just a random example) if it was music, could your child add a musical instrument as an extra-curricular activity? If it was a second language, could you look at openings through say L'Institute Francais, or the Goethe Institute, or online resources? (In my case, it was my lovely history teacher stepping in to say "I trust you to do this as self-study - I'll guide you through the syllabus, mark your essays, give you feedback in the lunchhour, and make sure the school enters you for the exam.")

3. If other parents, and maybe some of the parent governers are open to the suggestion, try an approach of "I totally support the aim of children learning about the society in which they live, but couldn't this be achieved by having a protected block of 'choose one out of history, geography, citizenship'?" As a PP said, it's unlikely it'll change for your daughter's year, but it might change going forward.

The thing is, I think it is unlikely a school will change it's approach on something like this once the options have been published for the year. You can raise the issue, and it might change for future years though.

To be fair, we haven't been told whether Citizenship is taking up a 'full GCSE slot' (which at DD's school would be 5hrs/fortnight, or whether they are using it as a way to cover PSHE etc issues & get a GCSE in say 2hrs/fortnight.

I would be upset about wasting an option on “Citizenship” too (and if it is part of the national curriculum, it’s strange that none of our local secondaries offer it).

Fine, do PHSE as part of the normal school day, but actually wasting a full GCSE slot on it when you could do another language, three sciences, or something you might actually want to pursue at A-level like history or geography? No.

Even RE might eventually lead to a degree in Theology.