in thinking that DD will get nowhere with these GCSE options...

[PosyPanther]

DD is 13, so, in my opinion still a child, she changes her mind about pretty much everything daily, school shoes, whose her best friend, her favourite colour, you get the picture...

She has just had the first leaflet from school about GCSE option next year and want to pick health and social care (double award)human health and physiology instead of additional science, child development, psychology and sociology. She says she wants to do social work or primary teaching (or win the X factor )

I think she's mad. She's in the top set at school, level 5 across the board at primary school and is working at solid level 7s now. I would much prefer her to take at least two science GCSEs, history and geography instead of psych and sociology and a language with one choice left for whatever she fancies (but I'd prefer a second language or triple science.)

I can't see that having History, geography, french, german, separate science would disadvantage her in applying for ANY degree/career pathway? How do I convince her that some subjects actually are better than others? Her teachers are insisting all GCSEs are equal but I can't see that sociology is as hard as German or Physics? I'm worried she's going to close doors at 13...

CarmenSanDiego - give them a ring on Monday and ask them how many they actually took on and whether they had a first in a pure science degree.
Trust me there are no medical students that couldn't at pass GCSE's and A Levels with the required A* if they were asked to.

There is a whole world out there aside from those on mumsnet.

No not every poor person is happy, nor every rich person, nor those in the comfortable middle.

I was faced with a scenario and said yes they could be happy with their lot.

They could have a brill job based upon their academic acheivments and spend 100 hours a week at work, away from home all the time, stressed and huge commutes to and from work with little quality family time. That could also kill. But hey - at least they had all the materail possesions and big house and fancy cars and mother could be really proud.

Its all just assumptions, you just dont know whats going to happen. Im only showing the other side of the coin.

As someone who has been poor , had a six figure salary and now has a good middle income I think poor but happy is bollocks and patronising. I will do everything in my power to ensure dd makes choices which prevent her from being poor.

I chose to walk away from wealth which did not make me happy but poverty was 100 times worse.

And why would i choose to patronise myself tingle tangle?

I am poor(ish) i mean i get by and im not homeless. I have an amazing dp and wonderful dd. I love my life much to the horror of my mother.

What she cannot see is what makes her happy is different to what makes me happy.

I don't know itsy.

Perhaps our definitions of poor are different. I have been poor with living in temporary housing. I have been poor and unable to eat so I can care for my child. I have been poor and had to spend much of a day hiding from bailiffs. None of that made me happy.

Surely the issue is with the school not your dd who is merely chosing what is being offered.

DS has to take the following as mandatory: Enlish, maths, french, biology, physics, chemistry, rs. He then chose three options from a wide variety, ie, history, geography, art, DT, PE, Latin, Greek, Mandarin, spanish, german and I'm sure there were others. He decided he wanted to do History, latin and art.

DD I believe will have to do the following mandatory subjects: English, Science, RS, French or spanish, DT, PE. Closer to the time and depending on performance a decision is made in liaison with the child and parents about whether science is done as joint award or as separate subjects.

I took Sociology GCSE. It was an enormous waste of time and I wish my mother had made me take History instead. I went to a pretty piss-poor comprehensive (was only allowed to take one MFL, which I am still smarting about) and my Sociology class was made up primarily of people who left school at 16 without 5 A*-Cs.

Interestingly, that specimen GCSE Sociology paper contains many of the same sources that turned up on the paper that I sat in 2001.

I believe that many of the new subjects are a waste of time. I would not encourage my dc's to do sociology, media studies and the like at gcse, because to be frank they are a waste of time,
I took A Levels in English , Maths , Chemistry and History and i felt that this was a good idea as i kept my options open.

LeQueen - some IT departments will not under any circumstances take IT graduates. I worked for one once that just wouldn't. Many had degrees in physics, chemistry, maths or classics.

However, the vast majority of the work didn't need independent thought, the system had been designed that way so that contractors could be brought in and work on a needs to know basis. The program specifications were so detailed that they were virtually Cobol code.

Thankfully, I didn't work in any of those teams.

YANBU those are crap subjects.

As a foreigner who now lives in the UK with a young DD, can I ask a dumb question?

Why exactly does the UK education system want students to do such specialized subjects at GCSE. I mean "health and social care", "human health and physiology", "child development", "psychology" just seem silly things to do .

My DH tells me when he interviews graduates he doesn't even look at the GCSE grades since they don't have any depth. Wouldn't it be better for students just to focussed on fewer and more basic subjects like Math, English, Languages, Science, History, Music etc.

I don't see how by age 16 you will learn anything useful by doing these subjects.

littlepossum, many here would agree heartily.

One thing is that 'vocational' subjects artifically inflate schools' GCSE league tables because they are easier. So lots of ds and dds are pressured to do them and then the school gets an outstanding on the back of that.

Then there's the much more powerful argument that not everyone is suited to academic study, which is true, but 14 seems young to decide this.

I think that's the point, littlepossum. To reach the age group and demographic they have to be so dumbed down as subjects they do not serve much of a useful purpose. They don't train future childcarers well, or carers for the disabled and elderly, or allied health professionals, or anything else much. But they can be taught relatively easily and cheaply in comparatively large groups by people who do not have qualifications in these subjects.

Many of the people who praise these qualifications do not have to try to earn a living with only these as their CV fodder, and it could be argued that we effectively have a two tier system of poor qualifications for poor people and meatier qualifications for middle and upper class people. Or if you like, three: no frills education (NVQs, BTECs, GCSE lower tier etc), standard class education (GSCE higher tier), and business class education (IB middle years programme).

It's not that vocational subjects have anything wrong with them per se, it's that they are often badly taught and examined and do not prepare their students well for the very careers they purport to be underpinning.

Given that most children born in the last ten years could easily live to 100 years of age, people are going to have to work longer. Equally they are going to also have to be in education/training for longer.

I don't therefore see any need to rush into vocational subjects at age 14. In fact I would argue the exact opposite. Students seem to do a dozen or GCSE's at age 16. I would much prefer something far narrower, say English, Math, Science, Modern Lang, Humanities, Art.

Can students do something like that in UK?

Wot Boffinmum said.

And just to reiterate: sociology has been a subject in European universities since Comte lectured in it in 1831. The first chair in Sociology was Hobhouse at the LSE in 1907. English literature was only just getting established as an undergraduate degree around the same time.

Itsy, I find your attitude on this thread offensive. Just because somebody is going to be a binman doesn't mean that they shouldn't have a decent Secondary education in Science, Geography and languages. It is absurd that anyone in an industrialised country like Britain cannot comprehend the world around them because they have been denied a decent all round education at Secondary level.

There is a huge difference between forcing a child into certain choices and guiding them. All universities have their prospectus on line. Even if your DCs don't know what they want to do in life they can still have a look at entry requirements. Again, I see it as the parents responsibility to guide their DC as to what is a good university. Surely with the fees it is our responsibility to encourage our DCs not to waste three years and build up huge amounts of debt. My DDs do often think I know nothing about many things but because I've taken the time to show them examples of why they should choose certain subjects they actually believe me.

I think there's an element of the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate in all this. The idea that if certain groups of people get too much education we will run out of people to mop floors and wipe arses.

I've got bloody loads of poncey O Levels, including Latin & Greek, A levels, a degree, a PGCE...

...when do I get out of the floor-mopping & arse-wiping? I've spent today doing plenty of both

Agree entirely BoffinMum, especially with your post of 16:07.

Spot on, BoffinMum.

The bottom line is that at 13 they are not in a position to make decisions that impact so greatly on their futures. I bet half of the people saying the child should be allowed to choose probably would't leave their 13 year old home alone for a day/evening!

At 13 they are still a child - the parents need to make all kinds of decisons for them -this is just one of them.

Of course it's good to discuss it and sort it out together - but letting a 13 year old choose all 'soft' subjects is madness and actually completely irresponsible.

Having the best education you can & getting the best qualifications you can opens doors -no-one says you have to go through them if you don't want to - but at least they are open to you!

can people please stop mocking my english i think the fact that i'm at uni shows it's normally pretty decent but it's not great and yes i infact got C's in both english lit and lang....sorry but my laptop keyboard is playing up and i think the fact that i was typing that at midnight shows something...o and i've spent most of the week essay writing!!!!

I didn't have a clue what i wanted to do when i was 13 i happened to choose food and nutrition as i loved food tech and my school wouldn't let me do food tech as you could only do it if you were on the lower band...i would have done health and social care but it is 2 GCSEs and i was determined to do both History and Geography
it was through food and nutrition that i decided i wanted to study similar at uni...

whoever it was who said i couldn't have got into a great uni with my grades..yer i know i couldn't have but i'm at uni and i'll hopefully come out with a good Bsc(hons)....the 'high' unis don't do anything like my course so i didn't ever bother going...i did well to get what i did at a level i was ill for most of my 2nd year of college and felt like rubbish in all my exams so i think i did pretty well to get what i did :) and many of my friends got similar grades to me or even below mine and are at uni doing really well...grades arn't everthing you know

o and if 2 people have the same a levels/predicted grades they actually look at your personal statement something which is very important, I had terrible predicted grades but a very good personal statement and reference from college and so got 5 conditional offers with many bringing the grades down for me...

This thread is so depressing. DH and me were so lucky to have people who cared enough about us to inform us about how our options would be perceived. Of course people can get on with out certain subjects - people manage to become millionaires from abject poverty and no formal qualifications - it happens - it is hard and rare but it still happens. People have prejudices, sometimes justified and sometimes not, and that extends to subjects - these people are found in HR departments, interviewers and admissions departments. Obviously it is possible to overcome this - with personality traits or outstanding experience - but it is still something that needs to be overcome.

I think PosyPanther has been very sensible getting her DD to think things through a bit more and longer term. I also think all the talk of her DD not working and doing well at the traditional subjects because the subjects are not her initial choice is quite insulting.

All these people saying their lives were ruined by being forced to do subjects that they did not want - I have to wonder at that. Would they have really have worked hard if they had had their choice. They remind me of all the people who did not work first year of uni nor second but really would by third - then walked away with 3rd or passes.

We want our DC to have options in life - so they can do what they want later on. Having spoken to the parents of the DC who have gotten to decent uni from sink new Academy secondary - we are going to have to move. They did it despite not because of the school - avoiding the lack of aspiration for them and the extremely doggy career advice and exceptionally poor G.C.S.E choices.