GCSE option refused by school

I’ve just realised this is a zombie thread from last May.

Ultimately you have to decide what subjects are non negotiable and what can be compromised.

When dd chose her options she decided that RS was non negotiable. If she hadn’t been given that subject she’d have changed schools. She also wanted to take Computer Science. Her school were unable to run it that year so she opted for something else instead.

For Ds music was non negotiable. If the school hadn’t run music he would have found a school that did. However his school didn’t offer drama which he would have liked to have taken but he had to compromise on that one.

If she doesn’t like the other options offered at that time you can see if she can move her other GCSEs around. Ie say if she is doing history - see if they offer history in this slot and look at what they offer in the time she was doing history.

If she doesn’t like any of the subjects in the “Spanish block” then it is also worth asking if any of her other subjects can change blocks. For example if the blocks are like this:-

Block A
Geography
History
French
German

Block B
Geography
French
Spanish
Latin

Block C
History
Spanish
P&E
French

And she wanted to do Geography, History & P&E then they would put her in A for History, B for Geography and C for P&E. So at first glance, once P&E is cancelled, it looks like she can only choose from Spanish or French. But if you moved her to C for History then she could also do German. Or… if you moved her to C for History and A for Geography then she could do Latin.

Does that make sense?

I have had two children going through making subject choices (in Scotland, but same concept) and neither of them could choose exactly which combination of subjects they wanted due to timetable restrictions or lack of numbers meaning that for example Drama was only in one column the same one as Computing, and that meant they had to choose one or the other.

There is usually the option to rearrange choices for a better combination but if there just aren't enough kids for a class, it won't run

*a KS4 performance measure

If languages aren't compulsory they may have substituted with Spanish to get their Ebacc entries up. Entries for Ebacc are KS4 performance measure now.

If there aren't enough students a course cannot run. The end.

I feel they'll just keep rolling out the 'under subscribed' line. Yeah, they will. Because, y'know, it's true.

Lots of students pursue GCSEs privately with a tutor or parents' help in their own time. Just do that if it's such a burning issue. Stop blaming the school and direct your 'disappointment / anger' elsewhere - like year after year of funding cuts?

They always say about minimum class sizes for a subject to run, but there is often more to it than this.

If you have 10 students, and 2 subjects in the option block - 8:2 is not any more expensive than 5:5

By eradicating a subject, they can make meddle with part-time hours, or deploy the RS teacher into another subject area that she may not be so passionate about.

Its annoying but you can't expect them to run a class when not enough pupils want to do the subject.

Box clever OP. If it was offered as an option, they must have planned for a group. As others have said, it's all down to simple economics. So use whatever means you can to find other parents whose DC want to take it. Then ask the school how many students they need to make a course viable. If you can get the ten including your DD that they need, would they reinstate it?

There are other options such as studying it privately as happens with lots of our students who speak an additional language at home. They don't learn Russian in school but sit the exam there.

To those talking about group sizes in Music, we have 2 groups going into year 10 and one huge group going into year 11. However, we have compromised and will be teaching y12 & y13 together as it's the only way the school can afford to keep the subject running at A level. It's a very good state school but the money just isn't there to pay for 2 groups next year.

Dds' school offered Latin in twilight sessions for example (state comp)

You can't make them run it..

But if teacher is willing she could do in lunchtime or twilight sessions maybe some other kids want to?

Or take it privately with a tutor outside school

Or change school to one which offers the choices she likes

No point going in all angry you won't get anything

Aren’t specialist schools long gone now? I didn’t think anywhere specialised in mfl?

I think schools are too flexible and then end up disappointing pupils. My DDs has to do maths, English x 2, RE, a humanity, double or triple science, an art/tech, and a MFL. Then one or two additional choices so usually 9 or 10 GCSEs. It was a small school but it was made clear what was expected from the outset. Very few argued.

This happened to me 30 years ago. I wanted to do two languages, french and welsh (as a foreign language). They couldn’t run both, as not enough pupils wanted to do those two languages. even though they could run french and German together. I didn’t want to do German.

So I did french, dropped welsh and did Computer Studies instead.

On the day of the exams, some pupils were sitting both the french and welsh GCSEs. Turns out that the welsh teacher was privately tutoring them in the evenings. I assume the school knew, as the pupils had been entered for the exam through the school. I wished I’d known that this was a possibility.

Could you look into whether private tutoring exists for the P&E course, and whether the school would allow that to stand as one of her GCSEs?

Double check the spec for the course - a lot of school market RS as Philosophy and Ethics these days. It's the same course usually. It is actually a really interesting and useful subject and roughly a third each of religion (Christianity plus one other world religion ) ethics and phil. If she is really keen she could study in her own time and be entered as a private candidate.

There will be a minimum group size to warrant any cost agreed in advance.

You may wish to discuss if the course is offered at other schools they work with and if there are any collaborative options.

So do get her to check with friends that it definitely isn’t running. DD’s school 100% lied to me and her to try and force her to take a language

Dd had this issue. Was told she couldn’t do art as it clashed with product design and she’d have to do German instead. Again a specialist language school and she hadn’t picked a language which had caused a fuss from the teachers. And no they hadn’t released the option blocks.

So she started German, hated it, was doing badly and two terms into year 10 refused to go to anymore German lessons. And also realised at this point a boy in her form did art and product design and there wasn’t a clash. I politely kicked up a fuss and lo and behold she was then allowed to do art.....but missed two terms!

It's understandable that sometimes it won't be possible to run a particular subject due to low numbers.
What is less clear is why this "random" subject that your dd hasn't chosen has been allocated instead.
At dds school there was space for a "reserve" subject on her option form, in case a higher preference was not available, and if a preference wasn't possible then staff spent time with pupils affected to find the best possible alternative options for them.

I sympathise as RS was one of DD’s non negotiable s which she also did at A level.

Schools are never going to be able to offer everything an individual student wants. My dd was really disappointed she couldn’t do computer science for example.

So we made a list

A - non negotiable subjects (RS & Music)
B - preferred choices (Computer Science, Triple Science,)
C - Acceptable Choices - Geography, French, Drama, Double Science
D - No chance - Art, Food Tech, History

If A couldn’t happen & B had to happen we decided she would move school to somewhere that could accommodate it
B & C had to be compromised

Do you have information about the option blocks? If you do, you can look to see what is in the same option block as P&E.

If she isn't doing a mfl this is probably why they are trying to get her to do Spanish rather than one of her reserve options. Despite what lots of posters on here say lots of schools still really push the ebacc on their more able students and they need a mfl.