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

...and there we go. I'm out, OP youve got yourself in a right tizzy about this and you sound ridiculous. You've had plenty of posters who've posted links to gcse citizenship and they've gone unacknowledged. Your attitude throughout is that your dd is far too able to do Citizenship, but it turns out some of her choices are academically weak, so she could easily do Citizenship AND do academic subjects inc triple science if she wants.

You clearly just want a row for the sake of it.

Well if we are going back to the start, I defended the first responder.

I appologise if I shouldn't have and unintentionally derailed temporarily.

However, I don't see 'suck it up' as particularly rude, just a blunt way of saying 'get over it' which ultimately is likely what the OP and her DC will have to do and is actually quite good advice.

But I did see the OP's response to the response as totally unnecessarily rude and combative. The secondary board is normally full of helpful posters, sometimes blunt, but not rude.

The thread derailed right at the start as apparently the OP didn't actually ask what she wanted to ask. That's hardly my fault nor that of the original responder.

We took nearly 300 posts of persevering trying to help the OP to uncover a potentially much more serious problem, namely the OP believes the school only offers one English GCSE.

Perhaps you would benefit from studying Citizenship yourself.

You are being quite combative OP.

I can’t believe you are STILL whining about the first response to your thread!!
You really need to get over it!!

Teen you are right, English is double weighted in prog8 but only if students sit lit and lang at the same time. Then the highest of the two grades is double weighted and the "other" grade forms part of the 'other' basket in prog 8. So it does seem unlikely that a school gaming figures wouldn't sit both. (Not that I think the school is gaming figures, to me they're offering a broad curriculum to all).

Thinking about this more this morning (to save me worrying about my own much larger issues), I do find it surprising/highly unlikely that the English is really only 1 GCSE.

The reason is, the rest of the options include a compulsory History/Geography and a compulsory MFL. That strikes me somewhat as a school that is trying to get very good EBacc / Progress8 figures. However iirc those can only be obtained if the pupil is also entered for both English language & English Literature.

I am struggling to co-join (not the right word but I can't think of it) in my mind a school that on the one hand is academic enough to mandate Spanish for all, but on the other hand so unacademic it is somehow only offering 1 English GCSE.

*had

Dd did double science but still have physics, biology and chemistry as seperate timetabled lessons

I'd just never considered it as "triple science" as the 3 subjects are timetabled and staffed completely separately, right through the school.

It's OK @MrsAvocet . It's so easy to be at cross purposes ona an internet forum. DD's science lessons were timetabled as biology, chemistry and physics, and I think the double science students lessons were as well. They just covered less course content, and had time for another option.

Sorry Ginfordinner I think I've confused matters! What Frodont describes is what is compulsory at our school. I'd just never considered it as "triple science" as the 3 subjects are timetabled and staffed completely separately, right through the school. The options booklet lists compulsory subjects as maths, english language, english literature, biology, chemistry and physics. I've never seen any reference to triple science in any communication from school - they use the terms "separate sciences " and "double science" so I was thinking that "triple" must be something different, but obviously it isn't! Sorry for causing confusion....I'll get my coat....

Double science is shown as two grades - so dd got 8:8, apparently you can get 8:7 which means you got 7.5 for each one. I don't really understand it myself tbh. And just to make matters worse, double science is called Trilogy. I mean, why would you do that?!

Yes, they list them as separate sciences, and they've studied three full seperate sciences but you can't just take two full sciences iyswim. Eg when I was at school I only took Physics and Chemistry, not biology. Not many schools do that now, its either triple - Physics, biology and chem gcses or double - 2 x science grades.

Ah yes, I knew that. I wasn't sure how doube science was shown on the certificate as DD took triple science. My friend's DC went to a private school where they don't do double and triple science, but just single science options, so a pupil can do just biology and phyysics, for example.

Her DS had applied for a place at a 6th form college and wanted to study biology A level. He wasn't allowed to as he hadn't studied any chemistry since year 9, so he stayed on at his school for 6th form.

All schools have peculiarities in their options. RE or some version of it is very common in most school not just faith schools. Some insist on a language some don't. Some restrict through option 'bands'. It is very unlikely you will get anywhere if you suggest changes! I'd not worry about it really - if my child didn't want to do it I'd tell them to keep their head down and do the minimum! Maybe I'm a bad parent (and secondary teacher). 😀

Having had a DC go through GCSEs I think it's wrong for a school to do this. I can understand English (which is 2 - language and literature) and maths but, sorry to sound snobby, this sounds like a mickey mouse GCSE. As for being an easy 'A', that says it all really! The workload for GCSEs is huge so making a child do something they are not interested in isn't very motivating. If she wants to do science at 'A' level it's better to do the triple.

Unfortunately if the school are adamant every child has to do it what can you really do?

Double science has two number grades for 2 x general science gcses.

I think a couple of posters have misunderstood me about triple science. DD took triple science, but they are listed on her GCSE certificate as three standalone sciences - biology, chemistry and physics. She took her GCSEs in 2016. Do they not list them as separate sciences now @MrsAvocet and @Frodont?

I think you are totally over reacting and have been a bit off throughout. I hope your dd ends up enjoying Citizenship!