Doing additional GCSEs early - anyone here with experience of this?

Schools had a lot to answer when allowing DC to take subjects early and get low grades. Simply not in the best interests of the child. Good on you for resisting.

DS' school encouraged them to take their MFL end of year 9 so they could fit another GCSE in. I wouldn't let DS take his Spanish early. Most of the early takers got a C, some Ds and Es. By year 11, DS got A* which allowed him to take it at A level and he's now studying Spanish at Uni. He intends to use his Spanish in his future career. That would not have been his path had he taken it early.

My DD's school put all students forward for an additional GCSE in Year 10 and 11 GCSEs in Year 11 so everyone from that school has 12 GCSEs. So no, I don't think it will make her stand out but it does make the school look good.

Also, for languages, certification for a CEFR level is worth so much more than a GCSE. I got an A* in French and it was virtually useless when I lived in France and Switzerland, both in terms of utility and demonstration of level. It’s meaningless to non-British people. They want to know if you’re minimum B1 in a certain language for example and will ask for this.

OP, I’m a scientist; PhD in chemistry, ex-pat in pharma in Switzerland. I don’t even list my A-Levels on my CV, let alone GCSEs. Nor do any of my peers. In fact, if I see them listed on a candidate’s CV, I find it a bit weird. Everyone we recruit has an MSc at the minimum, most PhDs or MDs.

GCSEs make zero difference except to open doors to the next stage of further education.

But the number of native speakers is high so that’s reflected in the grades. The top grades in MFL don’t match top grades in maths.

I was in a similar(ish) position back in the day (did my GCSEs in 2005!). I did 12, with maths in year 10 and additional maths in year 11, which was standard for the top sets at my school. I was also torn between a second MFL and Music, and was doing lots of music outside school at a v high level. I really wanted to do Music in school basically because I knew it would be a total doss compared to my other subjects and I could just have a laugh. In the end I didn’t want to drop the MFL, which I couldn’t have done outside school, so I basically taught myself GCSE music and my school let me enter for it despite not being in the classes. I did it in year 11 though.

I went to Cambridge and doubt the no of my GCSEs made a difference. I now work in the city and we don’t care about gcses or use them to distinguish between candidates. I do notice them and tend to see that private school pupils have fewer than state school ones - make of that what you will.

I think ultimately your DD should get to decide what she studies and when.

GCSE it is not such an issue because many thousands of students are sitting GCSE French and there will be hundreds at most of native speakers.

2,500 students in the UK did German A-level last year (a scarily tiny number - compare to 41,000 doing history for example). I am betting that at least 500 of them were native speakers or had lived there.

[quote stuckinaGSCEloop]@SE13Mummy yes she does. I haven't spoken to them about her taking it through them but I will see if I can have a chat with someone about it there tomorrow. I think though that she'd still prefer to do it through school because she really likes the head of music (and he is strongly encouraging her to do it through school...)[/quote]
Music GCSE taken at school does offer something quite different from lots of other subjects e.g. collaboration for performances, recording compositions etc. and lots of scope for hanging out together in practice rooms.
Quite often, when taken at a junior conservatoire, GCSE music commitments mean the student attends fewer ensembles for that year which seems counterintuitive if that's part of what is being paid for and they're at a higher level than ensembles available at school. Given your DH's eagerness for your DD to achieve highly, limiting her access to conservatoire activities for the sake of a subject she can, and wants to, do at school sounds like muddled logic.

Most DC just take music exams from the different music exam boards. No need for the gcse.

Maybe DH might be happier if you point out that music grade exams are accredited in the qualifications framework. Grades 6-8 are "level 3" (like A-level) and carry UCAS points. Grades 4 and 5 are level 2 like GCSEs.

My ds wasn't a native speaker, but had lived there for several years. I do agree though that native speakers should take a separate exam, otherwise it just (unfairly) pushes up grade boundaries.

Which is a big argument for saying native speakers should be assessed separately and marked as such! There clearly is an advantage which diminishes the talents of others making the higher grades more difficult to achieve and turns off potential students.

@therespectablecardigan no I didn't read it as a stealth boast either, sorry.

Just didn't want anyone to read that and think GCSE MFL is easy - for a non-native speaker it really isn't, as I am sure you would agree :)

clary it was an MFL, old spec and I made it clear it was a language ds was already very familiar with so not challenging at all. My point of mentioning it was not to denigrate anyone's grade or stealth boast, quite the opposite - no one has ever been remotely interested in it.

The language GCSE's are often extremely basic

Well done to your DS, but MFL GCSEs are certainly not basic. It is a challenging qualification IMO and anyone who gets a 7 or above on the new spec has done very well.

Possibly your DS did the old spec which involved a good deal of rote learning and I agree, was definitely less of a challenge for anyone with a facility for that.

Kaptain thanks for the assumption, absolutely no helicoptering involved though. It was a language subject that was very easy for ds, we had come back to UK briefly and weren't sure if we would return or not. Our host country could not have facilitated the subject so ds wanted to go for it. He did a few past papers as practise, but needed to do no revision. The language GCSE's are often extremely basic, zero helicopter parenting required.

Really interested to know what sort of recruiting your DH does for graduate level that’s so fixated on gcse results? When I was looking for graduate roles after uni my gcse were a one line item listing number at each grade and referencing “includes English and Maths”. A levels and degree all listed plus job experience and volunteering etc. By the time I gained my professional qualification gcse weren’t mentioned and A level were one line item or not mentioned. I recruit now for jobs needing professional qualification. If the person has this professional qualification I don’t need any info on the school results. They’ve got a professional qualification and and degree school results are irrelevant by then.

You sound quite clued up yourself OP trust your gut instinct on this one. I would def be willing to argue with DH and at the end of the day it’s your dd choice anyway and she’s already said she wants to do music with her school gcse class. Doing it early will make no difference to her future at all. Have mandarin especially fluent speaker in her cv will though for certain roles. Things like that and Duke of Edinburgh or volunteering are more likely to be noticed that any gcse.

Interestingly DS2's 11th GCSE was music. His (state) school only allowed 10 to be taken but they supported him to do Music as an additional (largely self taught) one.
His Oxford place is as an organ scholar reading music. (Hence the earlier than normal offer).

Having just had my daughter do GCSEs you really do not want to put so much pressure on her. So what if she could get straight 9s on 12 or more, she doesn't need them. Let her spend that time and energy on something else, possibly non academic.
But taking an extra gcse early or concurrently but on your own is not unusual, especially if it's a foreign language. In our school those doing that did take it a year early as it was felt they would already have enough GCSEs do deal with at the normal time. But as mentioned up thread unis want to see you do them together - one could argue doing a standalone one or two GCSEs is not that challenging for a bright student; it's doing nine to eleven together over a few weeks that's hard.

I can understand the mandarin (she's studying it so why not get a GCSE in it but not the music).

A boy who had lived in France for a few years took French GCSE early but he then did AS Level in Year 11.

Music she should definitely not attempt to do it early. She probably can't anyway as the composition element has to be over-seen. A significant amount of the work has to be done in class so the teacher can sign it off as being all the candidates own work Plus it will force her to give up a subject she enjoys a year too early.

It might once have been common to do 12 GCSE's, but that was before the curriculum reforms. There is now so much more content in the new syllabi. Most schools offer 9. A few only offer 8. To do 10 is in itself slightly unusual today.