Help! My non arty dd has been given gcse art!

Art is a relaxing and easy subject like many people think. When I did it there was a full day painting exam and a massive design project that had a lot of work in it. I was good at art and loved it but it was a lot of work.

If she does sport to a high level wouldn’t PE be a better option?
otherwise, I’d make it very clear that she won’t have time to do any art outside school.

I didn’t say that PE GCSE is easy, just that it is very different from PE lessons! OP’s DD competes at a high level in sport, she is interested in a career in health and social care, and she wanted to take psychology or sociology GCSE but she hates PE lessons. The academic part of the PE GCSE fits with those choices - it is biology/physiology/psychology/sociology. Maybe it isn’t such a bad fit? I guess it depends how her DD feels about the sports options. Are there options that would work for her that are related to her sport eg if she is a gymnast, maybe dance and trampolining?

That's silly! Art is not for everyone. I can understand every child can't get all their top choices and might have to compromise but surely there's something else she could pick instead?

It's setting you up to fail, which will knock your self-esteem and risk further education and employment. I took a subject I didn't enjoy and wasn't good at. I was thoroughly bored, felt stupid, was miserable all year and failed the subject anyway.

I feel your pain, OP. My DS wanted to do history, geography and psychology but the way the blocks are arranged, has to do further maths instead of psychology (his other options in that block were BTEC business studies, BTEC patisserie, BTEC PE or art - wtf for a highly academic child?). Which is causing him to lose sleep already and we’ve only just finished y9. The infuriating thing is that if he dropped down from double award science to single, he could do all the other three - but it would mean sacrificing a pretty glued on A for a C as that is the highest mark you can get with single award, so we are forced to go for the further maths, which is likely to be a B and having to pay for his teacher to tutor him once a week as he’s so nervous about it. Really bloody irritating, all of it. His back up choice, Spanish, he was the only child in the school who wanted to do it (again, a locked in A) so that’s not happening either. So angry that what - with a fair wind and a lot of cajoling - would be probably a full set of A and A* is now going to be compromised because the choices need to be dumbed down. I have already had to fight to allow him to be entered for GCSE citizenship as a sole candidate instead of the cop out qualification the rest of the school are doing as well as swallowed the whole BTEC ICT thing. A school in a very, very deprived area with a very working class population just isn’t cut out to accommodate kids who want to go on to do essay based a levels and law at university. The careers adviser was flummoxed when DS told him.

It’s certainly the strangest view I’ve ever seen on GCSE’s.

Imaginatively artistic DD was inclined to say 'Isn't that kind of cheating?' when asked to do work 'in the style of'. (Then she left her nearly complete art folder out in the rain on a bench. Argh.

Omg. 😭 Was everything ruined it did she manage to save any of it?

PE GCSE isn’t an easy subject. There’s a lot of human biology involved and you need half way good grades in 3 or 4 sports (depending on the exam board).

I think you're right to not accept this. My daughter loves art but chose not to do it as her cousin did it and said it was so time consuming. If your daughter doesn't want to do it, it's never going to work for her.

Polite but very firm is the way to go with this, set out from the start that your daughter will not be doing art and they need to find something that your daughter is both happy with and won't disadvantage her in her other subjects.

Doing this on the last day of term would make me very mad. It's a tactic, they're hoping you and your daughter will just forget about it over the summer and just go along with it. 😡

That's such a weird way of looking at things. My DS close friend excels at Music and languages, should he drop these and do PE and art instead?

I'm all for a broad curriculum but by 15/16 you need to be thinking about the future and not battling with basketball if you would rather play piano.

This is true, however, the child with learning challenges/ difficulties should be given preferential treatment. I would be fuming.

I've had two very different kids do GCSE art and I must say that the more you love art, the bigger the time suck. And the process of writing out what your inspiration was, how you have taken elements from each of your 'works' and combined them to form, lo and behold, an entirely blue version of Matisse's Snail or whatever, is possibly better done tongue in cheek.

Literal-minded DS, who is an excellent draughtsman, refused to draw anything other than what was in front of him, and jibbed at calling anything his inspiration.

Imaginatively artistic DD was inclined to say 'Isn't that kind of cheating?' when asked to do work 'in the style of'. (Then she left her nearly complete art folder out in the rain on a bench. Argh.)

Good luck!

PE GCSE is very different from PE classes. Is your DD adamant that she would hate it? More than she would hate art? If a place in food tech isn’t available, but one becomes available in PE, would it be better than art?

@baital but that’s all about additional support. It’s the same at my children’s school. What I’m talking about is the PP who thinks you can just say no and send them somewhere for supervised self study. Not because they need to take other timetabled support classes, but just because they don’t want to do a subject.

I obviously only have anecdotal experience from a small group of friends and family, so maybe 10 secondaries. I’d be really interested to hear if some schools would allow it! I just don’t see it, for practical and policy reasons.

When i was in school (and that was only 5 years ago!) you just got to choose your GCSEs and got exactly what you asked for... I can't imagine having to do a GCSE i didn't choose! Only restrictions we had were the basics like we had to do maths english and science, then we also had to pick 4 others.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to kick off about it, if she's given a subject she's not good at/had no interest in they’re just setting her up for failure and that's totally unfair.

This is not education for the sake of self improvement, you can do that in your spare time. This is children's futures, they need qualifications and taking subjects they are not good at and will fail is daft (except the core subjects that are really necessary and everyone should do regardless).

DD's school offer this as standard to kids struggling academically, obviously in consultation with parents.

One options block is additional Maths and English support instead of an extra GCSE subject. DD was struggling so after a term in year 10 dropped the extra subject, others are offered that from the start.

They also put on additional classes straight after the end of the school day for the more able who want to do triple science instead of double.

It depends on the school

I know, I’m equally shocked. I’m not around any children that are in GCSE stage in the UK but the notion that they can’t choose which ones to do sounds completely shocking to me.

So children can’t choose the subjects which will to some degree determine which careers and qualifications they are eligible for in the future? Eh? 🧐

This is my advice as well

You genuinely think this is the point of GCSEs, do you? 🙄

I don’t know any school that would allow that.
Maybe if things are pear shaped with Maths and English in Y11, but not as a choice at the start of Y10. That includes my cousin’s daughter’s school where she had 50% attendance due to MH issues and they would not allow anything to be dropped.
If you let kids say no to a subject (how many?) and go sit in the library, you’d have half the year in there! And another quarter, if their parents allowed it 😉