Year 9 Options question

@PresentingPercy
Thank you so much! They sounds like most schools - not in lessons but allowed in bags.
I am looking for the ones that use locker turn in though, do you know any of those?

I suggest you do your own research @Oohhhbetty. That’s your job isn’t it? But to help you, my DDs old boarding school gas a no phones in lessons policy as do my two local grammars. They all have comprehensive it installations in the schools so I guess they don’t need individual phones. They sweep their it for inappropriate material too. Sorry to disrail - but I’m being followed!

Hi BaconAndAvocado!

Your son will need strong or strong enough GCSEs at the end of Year 11. This will give him the best route, or the option of good routes, through A Levels and beyond.

So I would go for History plus one. History is academically strong enough. Also, in the long term, Computing or Business can be picked up later on and more easily if he needed.

@PresentingPercy Ah there you are! I am missing you over on the Dulwich thread, I wanted to pick your learned brain about the schools you know of with excellent mobile phones policy.

Some schools have abandoned doing an exam a year early but for strong mathematicians who will get a 9, it’s worth it. But, yes, you need the whole set because of the pace of teaching.

Shame a chemical engineer isn’t interested in working in engineering. Lots of posters have sneered at me when I’ve said lots of engineers never work as engineers. It’s true and it’s why there is a shortage of engineers. The universities churn them out but they get more money elsewhere.

I’d definitely go for History over Business unless he is laser focussed on a plan for running his own business as soon as he leaves school Alan Sugar style! He can always learn business skills later on if and when and I wonder how useful GCSE Business is really in terms of day to day real life running of a business or whether much of it you actually learn as you go and from others who are more experinced maybe?

Unless he is a budding Alan Sugar, if he thinks the course content looks interesting to him and is academic I think this is a no brainer. If he is more likely to go the uni route I do think History is a more academically rigorous subject. I’m a GP now and I would say that the skills I learned in History at secondary school in terms of critical analysis of sources and laying out content in essays etc. stood me in very good stead for a Medicine degree if that is something he might be considering in the future. I’m sure it would be the same for Law. And it also helps me understand current affairs better in terms of social skills/cultural awareness. In these post truth days I think it’s no bad thing to really be able to analyse sources critically and be aware of bias etc. As well as being able to see both sides of a debate etc. and look at things from different viewpoints.

I honestly feel that I still use the skills from History GCSE most days of my life at work and at home! And I absolutely loved it and found it so interesting (I actually did it for A level alongside the sciences I needed for Medicine in the end). I did have the benefit of having some very passionate and very academically respected History teachers at my grammar school, so perhaps that has influenced me but I’d definitely encourage him along the History line. I will say that yes I think it’s probably relatively heavy on the time and effort required for coursework etc. But an academic child should be able to rise to that challenge and actually enjoy it as I did.

As an employer I do not rate a GCSE in Business as highly as one in History. What is taught in Business is so far removed from the real world as to be useless in my opinion.

I see it as potentially last chance to gain more knowledge of the world before specialising in his interests.
You can do a business diploma and be a successful entrepreneur but surely better to do that with a good background knowledge of the world

Someone on another options thread pointed out that taking a subject you have never studied at GSCE, like Business, would at least help you decide if you enjoyed it. If you just take Business at A level and then find you hate it that's far more of an issue.

My son has just picked his options and has chosen history as his humanities subject, mandarin as his language. His other two are triple science and, his "fun" subject, psychology, which he has never studied. He will take 11 GCSEs in total, but if he struggles he can drop further maths. He wants to study Law at University and History is a good choice for this (so I've been told).

Who said they were unemployable? Obviously not. They might be limited in terms of becoming very senior though. If they are a niche employee, they tend to stay there. Overall, embracing writing skills helps with a career.

ones = models

I think writing is a desirable skill to have but don't agree at all that someone who is very mathematical / scientific and not great at writing will be unemployable. I have worked / know many such people in finance / economics / engineering and many of them are very successful and earn good salaries. They mostly have Maths to a much higher standard than A level Maths though, normally a phD and Maths / Further Maths at A level.

I used to work in economics / finance and you would often get people who could write and other people who were from a very mathematical background but couldn't write. So the mathematical ones build the ones and the ones who write write and present it. The ones who write generally can't do the Maths to anything like the same standard and vice versa. It's largely because to get the Maths jobs requires Maths and Further Maths at A level and often that is combined with science A levels or Economics where writing tends to be technical.

The person I know with a Cambridge Natural Sciences degree just works with plants and yes she writes reports about them but its a very different job, there's a huge range of jobs under science / engineering. Whereas my husband will be doing things like calculating is a crack in a nuclear power station safe, designing fuel cells in cars, I don't understand it tbh but you see 6 pages of calculations and computer models which run for several days of calculations. Almost everyone they recruit is foreign as the standard of science/ engineering education here they find poor historically and they have a shortage of people able to do the maths.

Obviously the ideal is a genius who does everything but certainly in economics I've never met a person amazing at maths and amazing at writing. The further maths requirement at A level for some courses is definitely worsening the writing issue in that field and there's very much an age thing where the older people tend to be writers, the younger one mathematicians so I don't think its sustainable like that and there needs to be a shift back from that. But in my day it was too writing based especially for girls who were pressured to take non-science /maths subjects - I was amazing at Maths but stopped it at 16. I was lucky Cambridge let me in without it but the lack of maths definitely held me back and in DH's work there are hardly any women. So I'm very happy my daughter goes to a school where they are supportive of girls doing science and maths.

I think schools changed when people could sit the exams when the reformed qualifications came in (2017/18?) and said that they had to be done in one or 2 sittings only, rather than a couple in year 10, 2 in January of year 11 and the rest in June of year 11. Previously you could resit modules but Gove decided that was unfair, so it went.

Some people on here write surprising things. History is good for essay writing. Scientists need to be able to write essays. My older DD is finishing her Masters year at Cambridge in Natural Sciences. In addition to her science/maths A levels. she also has English Lit and has found it really useful when conducting literature reviews and writing reports. Only at the end of last term was her report-writing praised in terms of her being able to structure her work coherently. Last year's literature review was published in a journal with no amendments or corrections. She did History and Business GCSEs; Cambridge was obviously happy with both.

Our school won't enter early for maths and they have a strange policy that when they do early entry its the whole year or nothing. They used to enter the whole year early for English Language which makes no sense at all in a comprehensive.

I think with the Maths it maybe as there's no 6th form so they don't teach A level Maths there and also the Further Maths / Stats is timetabled seperately so there would then be a gap in y11 on their timetable. I think some schools enter lots of exams for the league tables rather than the child, school asked DD to enter an extra 2 again and teach herself which would have taken her up to the equivalent of 14 and she'ld probably have only got a 5 in those so not in her interests but adds to schools passes so we said no.

Why don’t schools put their strong mathematicians in for gcse in y10? Then move on to A level in y11? FM too. Who needs all these extra exams and classes? Just accelerate learning but cut out superfluous exams.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/4178816-GCSE-Further-Maths-Does-your-school-do-it

Thread - worth checking exactly what it is as there seems to be a few qualifications with similar names and some schools doing level 2, some level 3.

Our school has a similar system - the top set do triple science and the top of top set for maths can take level 3 (like an AS level) in additional maths and it takes them up to equivalent of 12 GCSEs. I also think this is too many and both mine were selected for this, DD in y10 and DS in y9 (ASD). However, at our school the only way you can reduce is to go into middle set double science where the maximum grade achieved is 6/6 and its taught to a lower level or to not take the further maths level 3.

Does your son want to take triple science and extra maths and might he take them at A level? Both mine wanted to take and both want to do Maths and Further Maths at A level, DS wants to do Physics A level and DD isn't sure but may want to do a science A level. DD said she didn't think it would be too much work so she is doing the equivalent of 12 and she seems to manage it fine and her grades are fine - obviously GCSEs are a bit of a shambles with covid but predicted grades are all 9s apart from 3 8s. I would ask him how he feels and if he has any idea about A levels. You could also ask school, ours is only 1 hour more of lessons a week (instead of pe) and the rest is self-taught so it does require some self-discipline and ability to teach yourself. I did see someone say on a different thread that FM GCSE now Maths GCSE is reformed is very little work so if its definitely just the GCSE it may not add too much. Also if he was stressed how would he react? Would he just struggle on and get bad mental health or would he say, that would make a difference to me.

My DS I think will struggle a lot with so many but he is SN and very strongly wants to do the extra maths and science so will start him on all then adjust as needed but its likely to be different ones that reduce if he can't manage as those are ones he doesn't struggle with and will take to A level.

Computing and Business - one of these should go. Business probably. It’s pointless with the sciences, maths and computing.

He has found something he enjoys and he is excelling in it.

It takes practice though doesn’t it? Writing. I’m talking about DC self excluding from essay subjects because DC are only looking at Stem but don’t see the advantages of being able to write well. I’m not suggesting anyone is excluding them from subjects.

I hope your DS will find something he enjoys and can achieve well in.