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

Yes and it is kind of self-fulfilling as well

• German is less popular so let’s drop it in favour of Spanish
• We don't need German teachers
• There are no jobs for German teachers so I better brush up my Spanish
• I can't learn German so I can't become a German teacher (admittedly that one is still working through!)

DS1 (year 6) is keen to learn German. @clary Luckily our first choice secondary school offers it (as well as French, Spanish, and home MFL).

@ItalianParent we are currently doing the rounds of open evenings with DS1 and to be honest I've been approaching them more to see the 'vibe'/atmosphere of the school...for things like what subjects are available I've had much better luck going on the school website and finding the 'curriculum' section.

Much like pp's have said it looks like 9 GCSEs are standard (unless studying triple science or home MFL), plus a handful of DC do additional maths/statistics GCSE on top.

Your question about how many the school can force children to take may change as you go along. We've just been through the process and my DD is now in year 10 and I used to think she'd be 'forced' to take certain things but it's completely been my DD driving it and it become more about what extras are they permitted to take/what swaps are allowed, most students are excited by the options and want to take as many as possible. At her school the options on offer have changed each year she's been at the school which is why I think you've struggled to get a clear answer when visiting. It also depended on streaming so my DD in the top sets had a very fixed path with only free choice. Other pathways ranged from a mix of core GCSE's and vocational subjects, to fully vocational/SEN support classes. We later found that even on the most fixed route some of her friends had negotiated a different choice if they had a good reason. We're at an very large state academy though which may have more options than most. They all take RE as part of a compulsory health/ethics/relationship type programme that isn't a GCSE but fills some of their timetable, along with compulsory PE

On the subject of RE OP

Each school can pick the syllabus they want to teach, there can be huge differences.

All schools have to teach about at least 2 religions / faiths. So in an RC school they will usually teach RC religion and one other maybe Judaism.

Non faith schools normally teach a broader curriculum looking at a larger number of religions / faiths and then look at ethical and philosophical views of events.

So the class might look at poverty and food banks in the UK, what do people of various faiths do to alleviate poverty. Sikh temples feed people a hot meal. A lot of food banks are run by churches, do they require any attendance at a religious service to get food? What are the ethical considerations?

OP On the subject of the number of GCSEs, until now schools have been assessed on 'progress 8 and achievement 8'.

These are a grade the school can get for each pupil who passes GCSEs in 8 subjects, but they have to include English (Language and literature) maths, science, a language, and a humanity and then any other subjects.

Because of this schools have had quite strict rules about what subjects their students take.

That is being abolished so two things will potentially happen, a larger range of subject options become available so if you child is really good at art subjects they may opt for art, photography and textiles.

The other thing that I think will happen is that other qualifications will be taught. These are equivalent to GCSE but are usually more practical subjects, things like child care which I don't think is available for GCSE but is as a Level 2 qualification.

Progress 8 will change, but not be completely abolished (I think). It will have a "breadth" bucket instead of the EBACC bucket though, which may encourage a broader range of subjects as you say @sashh.

I also read an announcement that in the future there will be vocational GCSEs, so childcare, construction etc. will no longer be Technical Awards but GCSEs, presumably with the same 9-1 grading as academic GCSEs, which I like. (The different grading for current vocational subjects just encourages snobbery IMO. A practical subject can be very rigorous indeed, both in the theoretical framework required and in practical work - just look at music.)

Yeh I saw that story, Tbh my old school used to offer child dev but maybe it was a Btec not a GCSE (I thought it was a GCSE but not checked). Interesting though. We will see.

@SoftIce you are conflating ebacc and Progress 8 there somewhat – progress 8 does not have to include a humanity and an MFL, that's the ebacc – which schools are no longer going to be judged on, so insistence on it (already fading IME) may disappear.

For Progress 8 Eng and maths count double (so it's not really about 8 GCSEs as I understand it) and yes, the Ebacc "bucket" currently exists but subjects outside it also count.

Aaargh sorry too late to edit it was @sashh that conflated ebacc and P8 apols

No worries. There used to be a GCSE in Home Economics: Child Development, but it became a technical award (after Gove, I think - I think in NI the GCSE still exists). GCSE ICT was abolished as well (IGCSE still exists) and also became a technical award. (I love computer science and programming skills are my daily bread and butter but I privately think IT probably was and is more useful to a much larger group of children.) GCSE Engineering already exists.

It is a bit confusing to me as to what was until now "worthy" of being a GCSE and what wasn't. I don't think GCSE music is any less vocational (albeit for a vanishing species, the aspiring classical musician) than construction or IT, tbh. Surely construction can be at least as complex as engineering. Child development could be just as rigorous as psychology, but with a practical application. And so on.

I will own my error.

I'm not sure about vocational GCSEs. They tried vocational A Levels, before that you had GNVQs.

I also think for people my age that is going back to the O Level / CSE split. CSEs were supposed to be in more practical subjects. Some were e.g. my school taught CSE typing but then they started offering CSEs in maths and physics, hardly practical subjects.

yes I agree; it's tricky not to make a distinction between the value of certain subjects but it is not helpful. The students do it too sadly – recall a year 11 saying to me in disdain (about herself) "oh miss I'm not in the science GCSE exam, I'm Btec!"

It's important that the alternative quals are accepted by unis and colleges as equivalent to the more well known ones but it is a hard struggle.

A lot of it ultimately comes back to the social status of subjects and the endless, unhelpful idea of "academic" and "vocational".

So if a subject has low social status teachers who specialise in it will be keen it is a GCSE but teachers of the high status subjects will be keen to gate keep theirs.

I think it does explain why music is a GCSE. Even in today's world where the Proms are doing tributes to Dolly Parton (no offence intended to the great Dolly) classical music is high status.

I saw business studies described in an academic paper as "acceptably academic but vaguely vocational"!

Yes and let's not start on PE GCSE and PE A level – accepted by many very popular universities as a science subject, and yet frequently decried on MN and elsewhere (I know bc DS took it) as some kind of easy, non-academic A level.

Grrr an A-level is an A-level!

A colleague told me the Food Tech one got deleted some years back. As if cooking isn't a noble and important thing. And difficult to do well.

The PE academic syllabus is basically applied and practical Human Biology and is a perfectly respectable science subject with a surface veneer that makes it feel accessible to kids who are more alienated by the learning environment where the more traditional sciences are taught. You can learn stuff just as effectively in the sports building as you can in the science block.

I did A level home economics in 1977. It was hard. We had about 11.5 hours of exams - a practical planning one, a practical (I cooked 7 dishes in 3 hours), a 3 hour general paper and a 3 hour food and nutrition paper. To get a grade B in an A level in 1977 was quite an achievement.

@clary when DD was choosing her GCSE options all the pupils were given a little booklet describing the syllabus. The GCSE one started with "If you dislike essay writing PE is not for you". I think people who were good at PE thought it would be an easy option and mainly practical. There was as much theory as actual sport.

Not everyone has to be "academic". A builder or acarer is just as vital to modern society as a lawyer or doctor.

Food Tech GCSE definitely exists (Food & Nutrition), but there is also a BTEC in Food and Hospitality. It may be that some schools only offer the latter. (OTOH, we only offer the GCSE.)

We are busy looking at schools at the moment - some offer the choice of BTEC Sport or GCSE PE. I did GCSE PE a million years ago and there was lots of human biology involved.

I agree that the first few questions in that business exam paper are not challenging; but then the F maths paper last year for AQA began with the question Write down the next number in the sequence: 1, 4, 7, 10. That's fairly straightforward (and rightly so as there need to be questions a L1 candidate can answer).

I am not an expert on that business award (are there really schools where a third of students take it? Not any school I know of but obvs that is a limited number) but I do think that the notion of “academic” subjects is unhelpful.

For one student, French GCSE may be a breeze. Another may find PE a real struggle.

I think sports is only really worth doing as a GCSE. I don't think the lower qualification opens any doors and is likely to be seen as a filler or soft choice of last resort.

For university? Maybe not
For a job or course that needs five L2 qualifications... yes it will.

Comprehensive schools need to cater for everyone, not just the top children

I know, I was referring to the demise of the Food A level.