GCSEs in England: which subjects / how many are compulsory? What can each school force kids to take?

It’s often referred to as a gcse but it’s correct that it’s a “level 2 certificate”. When mine listed all their qualifications for sixth form entry and on ucas etc, as well as listing all the GCSEs, they chose the dropdown for “level 2 cert” and listed further maths in there. It’s effectively a gcse type thing. We didn’t even realise it wasn’t until he got his actual certificate in it! (He knew, we didn’t).

Our local grammar does 11. Kids are required to take triple science, and at least one language and humanity. Our closest school (with quite a rough intake) does 8. Most of the rest are somewhere in between.

As others have said, subjects can change, especially “interesting” more niche ones, as they’d typically just have one teacher who would take those classes - eg Astronomy, Latin - if that staff member leaves then they may not get someone else in as it may have been a bonus they had someone who doubled up as a science teacher and an astronomy teacher, for example.
Or one of the DT teachers leaves and they can’t get a replacement in on time.
Most schools will list their KS4 subjects on their websites - it’s usually easy enough to see what subjects they teach?

Regarding your third point - usually the students who end up taking more GCSEs are the much more able students who can choose to take gcse statistics, and / or further maths - these are often managed by eg the top set teaching at a faster pace (which is fine for the most able students) and covering a lot more material. At our school they weren’t compulsory even if you were in top set maths.
And again, more able students will often do three separate sciences rather than two combined qualifications - that adds another one on but you’re covering just a bit more material and it’s all timetabled.

So the more able students can readily have 3 extra GCSEs - stats, FM and an extra science qualification - and it’s more about covering more material in class and perhaps one extra after school lesson weekly. It’s not usually people also taking extra GCSE’s in history, French and computing on top of all the other ones people are doing.

I do think the “is RS compulsory” is really important, because children tend to prefer to have more choice over their options, and they might have to pick just two or three out of a whole massive list of history, geog, Spanish, French, German, computing, DT, food tech, business, music, drama, art, media studies, gcse PE. If your child likes a lot of these but eg not RS, it’s deeply annoying to have a compulsory slot taken up by it.

Interesting, locally this doesn't happen. 10 is the norm. DSs school had a SEN specialism department with a wide range of ND kids. Friends daughter got 8 GCSEs having joined the school in YR7 not being able to read. ASD and dyslexic kids in DSs year opted out of doing a language and did 9.

It’s fairly common as far as I know. DD does it - it’s called AQA level 2 certificate further maths. As I said in previous post, it’s compulsory at there school for set 1, optional for set 2 (they split into parallel set 2s : one does it the other does not). They have 7 sets in total, so it’s only the students who are v strong in maths. I know of two other schools in our (small) city who offer it at least.

(edited for a typo)

Further Maths is not a GCSE it is a "Level 2certificate". IDK if that's why it's not listed with GCSE subjects.

I just googled Further Maths GCSE (because I was curious too!) and yes it is an actual GCSE.

I’ve no idea how common it is for schools to offer it though.

Great question OP. My DC ended up with 12 GCSEs and I felt it was too many. (She had extra-curricular activities on top as well.) I looked into the results and 10 is the maximum beyond which results in each appear to suffer.
Your point about a wide range of subjects being nice to have is true but the opportunity creates pressure. There's a kind of fear of missing out so the kids feel they have to grab the chance- that's how mine found herself on the 12 subject treadmill.
Noting your username, your child might want to take Italian which will always be an extra in English schools (most will agree to put a child in for the GCSE if they feel convinced of a decent pass).

This is large school by the way - large enough that there are never too few pupils doing an option!

I’m really surprised the schools you are looking at are not being upfront… when my children moved to their school they were crystal clear on the school’s policy (my eldest is now in year 11 - it’s all exactly as they said back when she was tiny and we were looking round).

Their school has the usual core of English lit/lang, maths (top set is also required to do further maths), science (triple for upper sets, double for lower sets). Then the school policy (and I don’t believe there’s any wiggle room at all…) is that all students must do one MFL plus three choices, one of which must be a humanity, which there means one of geography, history, classical civilisation or RS. The final two are free choice pretty much provide the time tabling works (DD picked music and drama on top). Other kids might do both history and geography plus electronics or DT, or art, or a second MFL etc etc.

A good question would be to ask for previous years’ GCSE options booklet or “column choices” (you usually pick one option from each “column” for timetabling). They will know exactly what their policy is because it’s all explained every year to the year 9s!!

More rock/metal but it's a fun name.

I found most schools have current GCSE course options on their website in our area. They don't always indicate the number of choices. Or how many as if a student is going to really struggle with 9 GCSEs there are options such as BTEC courses.

I don't think the give too much information as they don't want students picking their school on the basis they can do a certain subject(s) for it then not to be available.

All of my local secondary schools have English (both language and literature), Maths, Combined Science plus one humanity as compulsory subjects.

Some also have other compulsory GCSEs, such as the example of RE above.

In terms of optional subjects for GCSE, the important caveat to bear in mind here is that the options may change between now and your DC picking their options, and also that whether an optional subject can go ahead will be dependent on enough pupils wishing to study it.

When my DC1 chose his GCSE options, he was told that he couldn’t do one of them because not enough other pupils had picked it. So rather than the school run a GCSE course with 5 or 6 pupils in that year group, they dropped it altogether and DC1 had to go for his backup option instead.

One of his friends had the same problem with a different subject.

Our experience all in same local education authority was that Maths, English Language, English Literature were all compulsory plus double or triple science. The 3 sciences in Science were Chemistry, Biology and Physics. Pupils studied all 3 regardless of whether 2 or 3 Science GCSEs were being studied for. Literature and Language were taught separately.

After that various subjects were in option groups leading up to a total of 10 subjects. The options were grouped to ensure that pupils studied a broad range of subjects and not too many soft subjects like Business, Product Design, Food Tech, Textiles. The general aim would be that at least one of History or Geography was taken and at least one Modern foreign language. Further Maths was an extra in case it was started and then dropped out of because difficult. The other academic subjects vary according to school - Music, Economics, Computer Science, Sports (which had 2 different levels of ability) etc. Then there's Art and Drama which are both quite skilled requiring academic and creative ability. Music might be considered similar by some.

As far as I know, this is the standard template here now as it was 4 yrs ago when DC in secondary

I think this is difficult for schools to determine. Options can change each year depending on staffing levels, uptake on courses, pupil numbers and results from courses.

If you are in the process of picking high school so current y5/6 this could be three or four school years until options are chosen. By which time the school could have decided the current options are not appropriate or removed courses as they no longer have staff to teach. A compulsory subject could also be moved to an option if staff levels drop meaning a child may not be able to take that subject and vice versa.

Most schools will group courses together, we had option blocks and you could choose one from each block - up to two depending on triple or double award science. RE was compulsory, and then students had to choose one from French, Spanish, History or Geography with those also appearing in the option blocks if students wanted to pick more than one of those options. Though there was a BTEC option for some students.

The year dd1 picked her options, one of the subjects she was interested in Creative iMedia, changed to Film and Media studies and her year would have been the first time the school was offering that subject.

I think it is unusual for comprehensives to have 10+ compulsory subjects. They may offer extras like stats or further maths to high achieving students. It might be different in selective schools.

1. might matter to you because if there are multiple compulsory subjects you get very limited free choices. In my relative's school you couldnt take art & drama even if that was an area of interest to a student because they only had one unrestricted option slot.

Realistically only the best 8 grades matter, including English and Maths. Not many will timetable 10+ into a normal week.

Schools do vary in the amount of choice they give, but you cant guarantee thst this will stay the same over time.
At my DD's school beyond the core english, maths & science they got 4 choices. One had to be a mfl, history or geography but completely free choice for remaing 3.
At a relatives faith school english, maths & science were compulsory + RE. They then had to take their mfl and either history or geography. They only had one free choice. It was the same number of gcses, but less flexibility.

For GCSEs, schools are trying to get their students at least 8 GCSEs that fit into the Progress 8/Attainment 8 buckets.

For a school to have 8 subjects counting at Progress 8 they must have
English Language
English Literature
Mathematics
2x Sciences (At its base this is "combined science which covers Biology, Chemistry and Physics which is worth 2 GCSEs)
1 subject from - Another science (including Computer Science), History, Geography, or a language
2x other qualifying subjects at GCSE or Level 1/2 BTEC

Progress 8 is the stick that OFSTED beat schools with.
As a previous poster mentioned, it's changing, but we don't quite know how yet.

No exams are compulsory but almost all will do maths, English language and combined or triple science. Most will also do English literature unless SEN or EAL makes that inaccessible.

Some schools give a choice of combined or triple science. Some will decide which children do triple (usually top set).

All students will do PE and PHSE but not as exam subjects.

Some schools will have another compulsory subject e.g. RS or occasionally citizenship.

Lots of schools will make a humanity (history or geography) or MFL compulsory.

The number of exam entries (not only GCSE but also vocational) will vary 8 or 9 is most common with 10 for triple science, home MFL, further maths. (Level 2).

The compare school performance .gov site lists subjects entered so you can work out which subjects are taken by most/ all students. The number of exam entries is also published. Combined science is one exam entry/2 GCSE grades. Lots of schools also publish on their website KS4 choices information.

All will be subject to change. Performance measures are changing. Staff joining or leaving will affect subject on offer. A new head or academy chain may make changes.

This is what must be taught though, not necessarily what schools must enter students for, eg many schools cover citizenship etc in their tutor periods but don’t enter the GCSE