Number of GCSEs

My DS1 did 11 GCSE as he was top set doing FM, otherwise most kids did 10.
DS2 will be doing 12 GSCE as RE (short, done in Y10) is compulsory and he is also top set doing FM.
They are at grammar, very selective schools with all academic kids.
For university you only need 8 good GSCEs, not sure what is the need to do 10-12.
Saying this for DS1, I have not really seen him revise and be worried for his GCSE and he got all 9s, one 8. Maybe they were not really too difficult. He does a lot of revision now for A levels.

My DDs both did 10 - anyone not doing triple science in their school would do 9.

Having seen how hard they both worked (both pre COVID) I'm glad they didn't have to do any more. DD2 did all new style GCSEs and it was incredibly hard work - in many ways she found it harder than A levels. And oddly enough she is finding her uni work less hard than A levels too, but that may be because it is a single subject she is passionate about.

My dd was the first to sit the reformed exams.

Unless your child took the exams in 2018 or later it is not comparable.

My DD did ICT in Year 9, and will do another 11 this summer. Seems like a lot, but she’s coping okay.

Government report
In 2011 the vast majority of GCSEs were modular examinations. From 2012, the rules around GCSEs were modified to require students to take all of the assessments at the end of the course.

My DD1 did GCSEs in 2015, her exam timetable was nothing like as heavy as DD2's would have been in 2021.

It wasn’t that long ago. It was this millennium anyway! I didn’t do anything modular, it was all sat in two weeks of exams, I remember doing three exams a day some days.

My DDs were like that in 2015 - she did 12 inc FM. But that was just before the reforms, not comparable with the situation today.

Thanks @TeenPlusCat

It wasn’t that long ago. It was this millennium anyway! I didn’t do anything modular, it was all sat in two weeks of exams, I remember doing three exams a day some days.

I haven’t had that much info from DCs school about the different courses and how they differ, I’ve sat back and let them choose I suppose but to be fair, we had to choose during covid times when everything was up in the air so long. I guess I need to do some reading on the subject before we get to the sharp end.

Ours do 10 as standard - double science is the standard, these doing triple have to use one of their choices for it. Those doing core do 9 GCSEs.

The only people doing 11 are those who take FM.

And they will let this early who want to take a home language use the school as exam centre (they used to dothat in year 19, so it didn't get in the way of the main bunch, but I'm not sure now). If the home language is one the school teaches, they have to include it in their options.

My daughter did 9 plus an Arts Award, she wanted to do 10. The kids that did more usually did the extra maths or a foreign language that was their native language which they had to do them pretty much on their own, and tended to sit those in Year 10.
Our school day was 8.50-4.30 with just one double games lesson a week and no study periods so hard to timetable more than ten in!

My year 11 daughter is doing 11 in a state comp.
Her sister did 10 last year at an independent school.

My children's independent has scaled back how many they can do. The vast majority only do 10 now.

Mind you I only did 9 and some did 8 in my school. Only the very clever did 10.

Look at university admissions. None will require 11. Take less and have more chance of higher grades. 10 7's is better than 6 6's and 5 7's.

The three different schools my children attended all did 9 apart from the ones who took Additional Maths who took 10, ones who did an extra curricular subject (drama, Greek and computer science were offered out of hours at one school) who also did 10 or ones who for various reasons SEN/struggling etc) dropped a subject and did 8.

My oldest did 11, when RE was compulsory, but only taught it 2 periods a week. They dropped this, made RE a choosable subject with fully timetabled lessons if you wanted it, and move to 10 subjects, with some doing 11 if they were doing further maths. So my middle did 11 with further maths, youngest doing the 10. Much more manageable really in my view but still think GCSE exams are crazy - too many, too long. In Scotland standard 5s (is that what they're called now? O grade equivalents) are done over just a month. So much better. Never in your life again are you expected to spend 7 weeks doing exams.

We were told that was how the school was structured at the time, but they no longer do this, so maybe we had an influence on that…

My daughters school had the option to convert to combined science at the end of year 10.

Schools seem to pick what they think works, then if a pupil isn't coping there tends to be some flexibility even if it isn't advertised.
Different schools will take different approaches, partly at least based on their 'average cohort'. For example a school may prioritise extra maths/English/science over an extra GCSE.

If you think it is 'too much' your best bet might be to try to decline triple science if offered it.

DD is at a state comprehensive she did the same - English x 2, maths , triple science (although there was an option to do combined science for 2 GCSEs) RE (short course, so she finished that at the end of year 10) and 4 of her own choices. That counts as 10.5 because it was short course RE but there was the option to do it as a 2 year course.

posting not posing

Even 10 years ago there was considerable coursework which lightened the revision/exam load in the summer of y11. up to some point (not sure when) some exams were modular and were taken when ready, not left until the end of y11, they could also be retaken.

It is very different now with the terminal exams and the 9-1 grading. In a lot of ways it is more akin to O levels (which I did). (DD1 did GCSEs 2015, DD2 should have done them last year).

Students are typically doing fewer GCSEs now than when they were more coursework/modular based.

I did 12. My DC is currently doing 10.

I remember when they published them in the paper (do they still do that?) with me how many you got and seemingly most at my school did 11 but there were a fair number of 12s

Standard state school nothing fancy

DD did 12.5! But they had a strange system where they did 6 (plus short-course RE) in Y10 and then 6 more in Y11. The school has now abandoned that approach as there were issues with it, and 9 or 10 GCSEs is the recommended number I think.

DS1 is at a grammar school and choosing his options and they are only doing 10 - have to do English*2, maths, triple science, French, then he has chosen three others. They do offer a language that is not taught in school and another "hobby" subject as an extra "after school" GCSE, so some of them will be doing 11.
They do the GCSEs in two years though so he will only narrow down to those subjects in year 10 and 11 - I know some schools start in Year 9 so maybe they do more because they have more time to do them in?

My DS did 11 - he was at a comp. I never understood the logic of doing so many though. At his school the majority took 9. Top two sets for science did triple so that meant 10 GCSE's. Top set maths could take Further Maths if they wanted to, so that was DS's 11th. FM was optional, but they all did it as they liked the teacher and she made it fun. Honestly though, 9 would have been far more sensible!