GCSE options due today help!

Half way through year 8 is very early to make decisions about your facility for languages. At my school, languages are almost universally everyone’s least favourite subject and have the worst results (I taught one student who got 8 9s and a 5 in French). We have many parents begging us in year 10 to let their child drop the language (we don’t allow). I’d definitely take the support. DD did PE and food tech and I don’t remember the coursework timescales clashing particularly but she went on to PE A-level and would have taken food tech if it were an option. It’s a shame about the geography, which I feel
is more accessible to a wide range of students.

Some teenagers wouldn’t want to do extra work in year 9 and 10 because they can’t see why they’d have to start studying so early for an exam in the future iyswim. If his friends are higher sets then they may not start revising until year 11 and some boys downplay how much they study anyway which might not help how motivation to work with the tutor and do homework for them year(s) earlier.

i understand that he might not want his friends to know that he needs support and not picking support will help that denial but they will find out during the course - especially if the friends are studying higher and he’s studying foundation. Having a tutor is still a sign of needing support but it would be easier to keep it private if he wanted because the only people who would know are you, him and his dad.

Yes, the usual step when needing support in English is to remove all other language subjects.

Would he do a level french? If not then not a huge point with the extra work.
As hes y8 only i would let him

have you not been given predicted grades?
We got some a few months ago (y9)
And its still hard choosing. Mine has asd/adhd and wants history, spanish art and RE.
Mine is also young in year. Its frustrating as our school enforce geo/history. But the ones we want would be possible alevel choices.

Before you said he was y8 i had been thinking he sounds young with wanting to pick for teacher and friends.

@5gymbabe Some schools choose in y8 and then have a 3 year KS4.

They don't choose gcse options until year 9 ?

Interesting to note there is a foundation level - his ( lovely !) teacher said at parents evening he is doing well and she would be happy to teach him for GCSE.

Yes, I say that to my students and their parents too, and I mean it, but we don't get to choose who we teach. Just because she would be happy to teach him, that doesn't mean he will actually get her as a teacher.

If his French teacher is encouraging him to take French, then I would let him take the subjects he has chosen and re-evaluate at the end of year 9. They should still let him drop French for support then.

Does he need support in both English and maths or would English be sufficient? Could you maybe afford an English tutor once a week or once a fortnight? Maybe even just initially to figure out what and how much support he needs and then drill a bit on that. I wouldn't go over board with out-of-school tutoring though unless it really is necessary. Does he read for pleasure?

If he needs tutors in two subjects, I would take the school support.

so tricky. If you can encourage him to take the support route that would be the most sensible option. The less GCSEs the better in my opinion! However it’s hard when they just want to be like their friends. Ultimately you could say if he wants to go to the same colleges as his friends he will need to pass maths and English. It’s hard when they are that age as they can’t really think ahead.

Is he being assessed for dyslexia? I would push that if you can.

I know a number of YP who have dyslexia and did very well at MFL GCSE. Not that that proves anything for the OP's DS. A friend of DD's got an 8 in her German GCSE. And I know others who got good grades. It’s harder for sure but then so is anything involving reading. Which is every GSCE to some degree really. I am not saying he should take French as noted already.

I would avoid a language with dyslexia. Especially if poor memory/recall with it

Check DT GCSE curriculum, for our school DT there is a practical as well as exam part. The exam is maths and physics heavy so easy for some and very tough for others.

My ds really enjoyed Food Tech because he’s naturally very practical so learning stuff like how to make pasta from scratch was both fun and a good learning experience for him.

Does your son know that this year’s subject teacher may very well not be next year’s teacher?

I would ask the school about French. His teacher may have a better idea if he’s a good candidate for GCSE.

lol @MrsAvocet ”this is not GCSE footy” - yes indeed.

I know you agree but it annoys me when people talk about PE (or anything) as less academic or lighter.

All GCSEs are challenging as they are meant to be.

I missed that his main reason for French was liking the teacher! Yes that might need a rethink as he may have a different teacher or that teacher may leave. I do still think a keen student should be encouraged to take MFL but yes if English is a struggle it may not be the best plan.

You don’t say if he plays sport or likes science but if not then I suggest geog or French (depending on above), DT or food, and another.

My DS sat his GCSEs last year and two of his options were food tech and PE. He’s quite able but doesn’t perform his best in exam conditions so we felt these were good choices for him.

However, this time last year he was snowed under with coursework at a time when ideally I would have wanted him to be revising for his mocks. I would imagine with DT thrown in there too it would be pretty overwhelming. I guess it may vary depending on the exam board though but both his final pieces of coursework were due in by February half term.

I notice a pp said that food tech was very heavy on theory rather than the practical element but this was not my DS’s experience of it. There was a fair amount of theory content but he did practical cooking every week and it was a huge part of the course. He loved it and did well.

PE had a lot more theory content than maybe we had anticipated. DS is very sporty (although he plays a lot of sports well rather than excelling at any particular sport) but he found the biology and psychology stuff very difficult. The grade boundaries are also higher than many other subjects so despite being his favourite subject, it ended up being his lowest grade.

My DD is now in year 9 and choosing options. She was originally keen on doing food tech and art together but we’ve strongly encouraged her to do either/or because of the amount of coursework.

This is one of the reasons that I am opposed to schools starting GCSEs in year 9. A young for the cohort year 8 is only 12 - how can they be expected to understand the implications of their choices at that age. It's hardly surprising that things like what their friends are doing and whether they like the teacher are a bigger influence than long term goals. To be honest I think year 9 is too young to be making the decision to rule out multiple subjects but year 8 is ridiculous.
However I appreciate that you have to work with your school's policy as it is now @nextchapterplease. I think I would be asking them how set in stone this decision is, especially given his young age. Can he start with the full set of subjects and if he is struggling with maths and english in year 9 or 10 can he change his mind? Or indeed will they impose a change on him if that is the case? If there is room for manoevre I would probably let him make his choices now, but if not, I would probably insist on the extra maths and english. Whatever else he does, not passing those would hinder him going forwards.
I'd also add my voice to those advising caution regarding picking multiple subjects with a large coursework component and seeing such subjects as "light relief". I can't speak for all of them but PE GCSE is 60% theory and as quite a lot of the practical assessment is based on sport that pupils do out of school, it's likely that the actual GCSE PE lessons in school time are likely to be more like extra science classes than extra sport. I remember when my DC were choosing, the "practical" subject teachers made a point of stressing that their subjects were not an easy option - the PE teacher specifically said "This is not GCSE footie. Don't pick PE if you think you'll be kicking a ball around for 2 years". Lots of kids didn't listen and were disappointed though. There's still a lot of theory in most of these subjects and the practical element can be very time consuming so personally I probably would only pick one.

Y9 (and Y12) mum here. Have you looked at the requirements for PE? My Y9 DD was keen for PE and knew that there was a big extra curricular sport requirement. The syllabus her school follows requires continuous improvement in 3 sports - but parkrun and kickboxing (2 of her sports; the other is year round cricket) aren’t eligible.

DS (17 now) last year struggled a bit with Maths, but breezed through English. All the 16+ options her considered made you do m&e alongside whatever else you do anyway if you don’t get GCSE passes. I wouldn’t turn down the school’s offer for support now. Unless he’s in a tiny school, he may well not be in the same classes as his friends anyway.

I would take the support route, and do it now. Then there's more of a chance of getting 5x passes at GCSE inc maths and english.

I would not take French, unless he understands he's likely to get poor marks, the teacher may change, and he's just doing it because he enjoys it (rather than because he thinks he'll get an A).

If he was year 9 going into 10 I would suggest you overrule him, but the extra year changes things a bit. tbh I would be speaking to his head of year and asking if he took the options he wanted and he struggles, can they be changed to the support route for year 10?

French won't be "starting a year early" - it's a subject where you gradually build up knowledge, so he'll be likely doing the same in Y9 as if he "officially" started the GCSE in Y10.

The main concern if he doesn't have the extra support in English and Maths in Year 9, he will fall further behind. Not having a French GCSE will not hinder his lack of later prospects in the same way that not having Grade 4 in English and Maths will.

If school are offering support, I strongly suspect they are expecting it to be taken up, and only framing it as a "choice". Does he have extra support now? What level is he working at currently?

Please don’t let him choose French because he likes the teacher. It rarely ends well. The GCSE teacher may be someone else, the teacher may leave part way and if he has some difficulties, it’s not a great idea.

Is there an option support at the school. It usually means one less GCSE with support lessons for the other subjects, not just core subjects.