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

You need to know more about what the issue is to get it resolved

Is there a teacher leaving which means they can no longer offer one of your dd's subjects or the number of classes has had to reduce?

Have they had to swap the option blocks around for timetable reasons so all her preferred choices are now in the same timetable slot?

Children do swap options a lot in the first few weeks and up to Oct HT in exceptional circumstances so it may be so be possible to get her in if someone drops out. But you need to know what the problem is. Just demanding they fix it isn't going to help.

Alternatively:

Accept it.
Do the lessons, view it as relaxation time. Expect to fail, no extra work, and use effort saved on other subjects.

Could work?

What are the other options in the block? Are there any subjects your DD thrives in? If she is going to struggle to achieve 5 GCSEs, would dropping a GCSE and having free periods to study actually be of benefit to her? Or is she being denied taking a subject that she is good at or is useful for her future career?

Make an almighty fuss and get them to change it. Art is a high workload subject at GCSE. If she doesn’t love it and isn’t committed to doing it she will really struggle.

Email back and reject it. They can't make her do a subject. If they can't provide anything suitable in the time slot then suggest she has a free period instead of that subject and uses it to go to a quiet space/library and do homework.

I'd be very unhappy with this. It's one thing not getting all your choices, but I'd expect at least something which you have some sort of interest or aptitude in.

What is the point of doing GCSEs in subjects you are already good at? Surely the point of education is to improve in areas you are not good at?

It sounds like your DD has been dumped in Art & Design by somebody who thinks it's a soft option. It isn't.

It's got to be worth trying to negotiate something that is a better fit for your DD.

I have never heard of young people being given an optional GCSE subject that wasn't on their list. How daft is that ! maybe I'm behind the times.

Ring the head of year don't rely on emails being answered this time of year
If you can't get through before the end of term - the staff will be in school before the start of term so pick it up then and push hard.

Oh and you're absolutely right to be making a fuss.

Surely this is crazy? Why would she do a gcse she doesn’t want to do (and in the case of art, presumably has no talent in?) That makes no sense, and is setting her up to fail, and feel bad about herself unfairly. Get the school told, and get her out of that gcse, she needs to know you have her back on this. Incidentally, is this a thing schools do now? Just allocate kids to random gcse courses they don’t want, presumably to fill spaces? Mental.

Definitely say something, art is so time consuming there’s no point in doing it unless you love it.

Makeva fuss. They will change it.

Make a fuss. Gcse art takes up so much time from everything else she shoukd not be made to do it if she needs the time to revise for the other subjects. It's challenged for kids who like art, and it's full on for 2 years.

I would make a fuss too and would be asking for other undersubscribed choices to choose from.

I think you are right to make a fuss. I appreciate it must be a nightmare sorting optinos out, but if your daughter struggles a bit anyway, doing art could be a nightmare. It's such a lot of work and in this house, where both girls are good at art and love it (at least outside school!), it has taken time away from studying for other subjects. You and your daughter know best how much she can cope with so it you and she think art is the wrong choice, do keep making a fuss. Schools usually do have capacity to move one or two people around.