GCSE subjects for dyslexic pupils

I'm in Scotland so this thread doesn't directly apply in terms of GCSEs but I wanted to say it's given me hope for my dyslexic child. At 10 he can still barely write and hates to read so it's good to see these positive stories.

What does she want to do?

My DS is dyslexic and just chose what he loved and was interested in and did well with extra support and time.

You don't need to adjust life to this degree, and you need challenges, I'd say a massive range of subjects languages, maths, history and sports.

The best advice really is to choose the ones they enjoy most rather than than the ones they think they will do best in and somehow it all works out. DD did RS, Geography, History and French.

(French was a struggle and she ended up with a three but she enjoyed the course and the trips)
She absolutely wasn't going to do art, (actually she spends quite a lot of her free time drawing but was adamant that she wanted that to be a hobby and fun, doing it for GCSE would spoil that for her) music, PE or engineering and after that there wasn't much choice.

She worked hard, got the grades needed for A level (mostly fives and sixes) and is really enjoying her sixth form courses, with a good idea of where she wants to go next.

If they enjoy the subject then the harder work that our children with dyslexia have to put in compared to their peers is less of a chore.

(Also you need to keep reminding the teachers, nicely, of the additional need and the mitigations that need to be in place)

Oops as you can see one of my issues is that my brain runs faster than I can type so I miss words out!

Both my daughter and myself are dyslexic with poor short term memory, slow visual processing, poor organisational skills - what helped us both was learning study skills.
Learning how to plan and write essays, learning learning techniques etc.
Dyslexics also have amazing other skills my daughter has incredible auditory processing so she often by recording and listening to things, I am a massive problem solver and my career focuses on problem solving.
I wish study skills were taught more I struggled through GCSE without them had done help at A-level, but had a fabulous tutor at Uni who really helped. I got my daughter help for GCSE and now she is at Uni she has an amazing student support officer who mainly makes her accountable so she has lots of mini deadlines rather than fewer massive ones.
OP your daughter will do best studying what she enjoys as her passion will allow her to dig deep in a way that dyslexics have to to achieve. But being dyslexic genuinely is a super power and in life there are so many successful dyslexics as you have be resilient and find different ways of working to other people.

OP - my DD also has poor working memory (when tested she came back on the 1st percentile) and poor concentration. We really had no idea what she was going to do when she left school, but she took a extended BTech in a practical subject (there was lots of writing to do at home, but she spoke it all into her laptop and I edited by putting in the full stops, as she didn't pause for breath) and she is now doing a degree. She was also diagnosed with inattentive ADHD aged 19. I just wanted to say it is possible for them to find their thing and fly, even when they're struggling so much as school.

My dyslexic child has taken food tech, computer science, geography…. He dropped out of geography and swapped it for something else.
His food tech course is great, spaced out practical lessons and while there is some writing on nutrition etc it’s manageable.

There is a lot of theory and writing in Food. The year 11s in my DC's school don't really do any practicals apart from three trials for their practical exam dishes.

Have you had her assessed for ADHD?

My DD was diagnosed with dyslexia at 7 (was horribly obvious) and then ADHD in Y9 but we were pretty sure about it from Y4 onwards.

She struggles with working memory, organisation and focus... except with her areas of interest where she has extreme hyperfocus.

Medication and a laptop have both made a massive difference to results and happiness.

I think the schools with a big offer of subjects tend to be the large ones. DD has 450 kids in her year, so they can afford lots of different teachers and departments. I think we had around 30 to choose from including 4 language options and 5 art options.

As long as they are getting their extra time in exams for reasonable adjustments any gcse they want!

My dyslexic son has done a history degree.

My very dyslexic DD chose Art and then realised the teacher she had wasn't great and there were 40 pupils in the class (I think she was exaggerating) and swapped to Drama. She ended up doing really well. She enjoyed reading plays because they're made up of lines rather than paragraphs and she doesn't feel overwhelmed. She also did well in RE (Catholic school so she had to take it) but didn't do well in History. I can't remember why she chose it now. Possibly because it had a trip to Berlin rather than Somerset.
I'm not sure if she would have done any better in Geography though.She also did well in Music, but she plays an instrument. He friend took Music and sang instead of playing an instrument.

My DD does GCSE photography, GCSE food tech and BTEC dance. She started with geography but there was far too much content, so she has free study now instead. There is only one exams for food tech and none for the other 2. It’s great.

Oh, and make sure she gets a reader and/or scribe if it helps.

My daughter is dyslexic, found Spanish actually helped. Not easy but learning the words actually helped with learning English spellings as well.

She had extra tutoring (Kip McGrath)for English which impressed her writing.

In terms of exam technique she focused on shorter answers using bullet points where possible as she was more successful that way. When writing longer sentences she tended to miss words out leaving gobbledegook.

Generally though, whatever's they find interesting is more likely to lead to success.

Yeh that's my understanding; DS2 took PE and biology A level and always said he studied biology and biology!

Still GCSE PE will be no harder or more sciencey than GCSE biology. Netball would be good for the GCSE tho – students usually need to offer one team sport, one individ and one either. School will usually facilitate a couple. DS IIRC took badminton which he did in school and his sprinter mate took basketball and table tennis on top of his out-of-school athletics. Would she be interested in the syllabus tho? Have a look.

If not music, how about drama? Obvs exam essays about plays but also a decent practical element. Would she enjoy that?

Yes. Spanish is extremely phonetic and French isn’t.
dyslexia or not, French is hard to spell

If she is musically inclined and plays an instrument music would be a good one
similarly, drama

Just thought I'd add that BTECs do come with essays.

For Creative Media, DD has had to submit a pretty chunky one for the 1st Assessed Component and several sub essays before that, and I believe the 3rd Assessed Component is also an essay. 2nd is a creative product, but the majority of that is submitting your planning docs, mood boards, written section on what you did, problems, strategies etc.

But, it can be done with reference books and the internet with calm and time. And because it's all done and dusted before May it's one less subject to have to revise.

Actually yes Btecs are a good idea – does the school offer any? Sometimes there will be creative media or animal care or health and social? Then it’s not to much about essay writing in an exam.

Shame about music and art but fair enough. What about drama? Look at the spec the school does as they vary.

Wrt PE – does she do a sport outside school? That's a good idea IME.

You need to check with the school as different exam boards have different means of assessment and vary in the amount of coursework, practical assessment and exams. DSD is dyslexic and heading towards geography or RE rather than history, biology and chemistry and she struggles with maths so doesn't want to do physics, PE and food tech or music (probably food tech).

Slightly left field, but RE? Not as many facts but lots of opinions. My DD got on quite well with it.

Food tech has more theory than you might expect.