Has anyone succeeded in persuading school to change GCSE options offered? And how much does private schooling cost?

My dd's had it then - 2 of her 10 GCSEs are "Mickey Mouse" - Art and Expressive Arts!

A steady stream og girls from her school get into good universities with similar choices, though, so I will continue in my naive belief that she has not blighted her future career at the tender are of 14!

I meant "is Art at GCSE..." I was considered to clever to do any practical courses at school - so I am still unable to type.......!

Is at GCSE really on the blacklist at good universities? That's not what they say at my dd's very high achieving grammar school. Dd is doing, as core subjects, 3 science, 2 English, Maths and Spanish, then History Expressive Arts and Art as options. They don't seem to have a problem getting people into Oxbridge.

The only 'real' subject in that list is triple science.

If she chose this route, and went on to do one science A-level, she would be doing a lot to secure a place on a law degree. Sciences are very highly sought after for law.

Personally, I would be looking around the private schools where your child can be treated as an individual. Aim for fees in the region of £12-14k per year.

hmm. Not a great choice if she doesn't want three sciences or music. But I'd go for the product design too and keep the history. Her other subjects are academic so she's giving herself a very good choice when it comes to A levels.

Coursework for Art is time consuming. But if you enjoy it do it. It teaches them time management and lets face it if a child is academic the other subjects are not hugely taxing at this level.

There is a real trend on these threads to avoid anything hard. What happened to having a challenge and putting your whole self into something because of the satisfaction of achieving at the end.

Rant over

Only 2 choices here if she thinks she wants to do law at university:

1. History and triple science

or

1. History and GCSE product design.

Nothing wrong with a creative GCSE as long as it is not instead of a traditional academic one.

She wouldn't be able to do History A level without the GCSE and although in no way compulsory this is a good one for law.

I knew my son's school were going to introduce BTECs this year as they were slated by OFSTED because they had stuck to traditional GCSEs.
I was dreading my son coming home and wanting to drop an academic subject in favour of "sports management" or something similar.
Sure enough the options book has all kinds of glossy vocational subjects which I would be delighted with if DS was less able.
Anyway , much to my relief the only "soft" subject he is keen on is GCSE in PE.

He has to choose from one of 4 DT subjects though and doesn't want any of them.

realistically then she has a choice of triple science, sociology or product design. ermmm.....dont get how these are mickey mouse subjects.

i would have thought it is for her to weigh up what she would be happiest studying. Arrange to meet with the relevent subject teachers and then talk it through. The important thing is that she is happy with her choice. She might well find product design a bit of light relief. I have heard that coursework for Art is really time consuming

Meant to add - is it worth asking that if she does product design she could still take Art at AS if she wanted to?

Anything from about £6000 to £25000 a year depending on the school....

A lot of students have to compromise in one column. Timetabling is a complete nightmare.

Dd2's school decided not to do columns and allowed all students to pick 4 subjects and a reserve and 99% the got their 4 choices. Sounds great but a few weeks into year 10 we queried why boys and girls were doing GCSE PE together and apparently they didn't have the staff or facilities to do it separately as normal because of the new way of deciding options. Dd2 sick of playing netball and hockey with the boys as they never get the ball! She's quickly losing interest

I wouldn't bother with sociology or product design.

I'd go for triple science plus tutoring.

The choices seem a bit light on Humanities. I would have thought that History would sit better with a law career, rather than Art. I agree that sociology seems the most relevant 5th choice.
What are the thoughts for A Level?

I would go for Porduct Design - or triple science and get her some extra help if she needs it.

£12K/year minimum for private, and it's probably too late to apply for scholarships/bursaries for next year now.

I do agree it's not a great choice of subjects. She could do History and do the product design GCSE if she wants to do something creative instead of Art.

I still think it's not a bad thing to have one soft option. Provided she takes good A levels and achieves A/A*.

I think sociology would fit well with law - an understanding of how people and society function would be a useful skill for that profession.

Or the product design since she enjoys art anyway, though it's less applicable to law it might still be a useful skill to work on.

I'd agree the Work Skills is probably aimed at the less academic, and video/sound editting not relevant to her other interests plus probably more appealing to the less academic pupils, if she's wanting to avoid those subjects in case of disruption.

I'd be interested to see what the options in this column are too. However, I'm guessing she will have 10 or 11 subjects in total, so I don't see the problem in one of them being a 'mickey mouse' option.

I would advise going for the triple science and reassuring her that you will give her any support she needs with it, e.g. tutoring. I would also suggest that she does Art externally. There is so much less faff in distance learning.

She's not interested in doing all of them externally is she???

God I really thought schools had got better at not excluding people from courses they want to do because of logistical reasons but I guess as schools have got bigger it's even harder.

I must say though, a school with poor science and maths teaching would ring alarm bells for me and I would make some appointments to see round some private schools as well.

I doubt very much the school would budge because of timetabling issues

Art or any other subject can be taken out of school, but you would have to organise that yourself and lessons/tuition would have to be out of school time (quite common round here for dance, music and less common modern languages)

My hunch is that the triple science is there so that the more academic take that maybe? As seeker says, if you can list the option 5 subjects some of us may be able to help

If those are the only options in Column 5, then surely there will be lots of non-disruptive children in the non-academic subjects anyway, won't there? I mean, how many are going to be doing triple science or AS music? So they must all be choosing from the same list as you are.

Think through the BTEC options - or as aging says list them on here and get views - it may well be that they are perfectly decent courses, and there is no reason to think that they will all be full of disruptive pupils.

I seriously doubt that the school will move something to another column - that is never as easy as it sounds when you have to balance up teachers and rooms.

You could possibly convince a teacher to let her sit quietly at the back not taking part, but you can see how they'd be unhappy if they have to convince the rest of the class to work while X reads a book/does her homework etc.