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...

Agree, Amicissima -- and every career in the medical or paramedical field also has a professional licensing association, which can be found on the web. Professional association websites show suggested avenues to the sort of qualifications that will lead to professional licensing, without which practicing and earning money in a lot of fields will be difficult.

The government would be making a very foolish and short term choice (which is sadly highly likely) if they decided to no longer employ health promotion professionals. Prevention is a great deal more cost effective than treatment, for example by far the most cost effective intervention in the Health Service is to get someone to stop smoking rather than to pay for the cost of all the downstream affects. Just because many people don't understand the value of the roles that they denigrate as "non jobs" does not mean that they are not valuable. It just means that the person making the judgment is ignorant.

I am not a health promotion expert, but I do have a masters in Public Health, from St George's which I believe was referenced earlier in this thread. The idea for their non traditional course came partly from the realisation that the narrow academic based selection criteria used traditionally in medicine was having some significant negative side effects.

One of the most worrying was that some doctors were coming out of training with very very poor personal skills and a very blinkered outlook, and it was felt that the total focus on narrow scientific academic success during and leading up to training was part of the problem. Having worked with some of these professionals further down the line I seriously wondered how they got onto their courses, let alone through them (my role involved amongst other things investigating allegations of serious professional misconduct, but as I was a health service manager I know that many people would have considered that my post was a total waste of money, probably based entirely on my job title).

Many of the courses that people love to denigrate have been in existence in one form or another for a significant period of time and have very good pedigrees, strong ties to industry and high success rates for employment amongst graduates (due to the strong ties to industry). They were just offered in the main by polytechnics.

Sometimes I think that some people think that their university degrees have somehow been downgraded by the polys becoming universities and feel the need to pour bile on them to feel better about that (for what it's worth I think that it probably wasn't the best idea, because vocational courses should be valued in their own right, not just because they come from the University of Westminster rather than London Polytechnic as an example).

My dh did his masters in IT at South Bank, and walked out with a qualification which was very attractive to employers in the field because they knew who he had been taught by (most of his lecturers were not academics but people from industry who taught on the side) and because he had been taught what was at the time the newest programming language (not offered by the traditional courses). The designers of his course were very very much intending for it to be vocational, and as that's what he wanted it and it delivered he was very pleased.

Maybe his CV wouldn't have appealed to MrQueen or his cronies, but thankfully there are many many employers out there that have fewer prejudices and more awareness of what non traditional courses can offer to employers.

What's emerging here is a battle between those who generalise, and those who have inspiring individual circumstance to cite.

Individual attainments are encouraging, but are not a guide for a 13 year-old.

The snide digs at LeQueen's "cronies" and "prejudices" are far from the point: what matters is what applies generally, which LeQ, and others, many of them teachers, I notice, have tried to say.

'Poor kids of today. I am so glad I am not of my daughter's generation. The whole qualification and degree system has been so discredited that my dd, despite being a bright girl, has said SOD IT and is not going to uni, but is joining the RAF at 18.'

Thats what I did. I joined the RAF at 18 and was in their making money, getting a mortgage and gaining experience. Then came out and did the degree I wanted to do at 21. Its much better as I did the subject I really wanted but didnt have to live in a crappy student place. I think its a good way to do it as when you are a few years older you really think of what you would love to do.

Nooka's point is a very valid one here. It's a pity that perfectly fine polytechnics got converted into universities in the first place -- I think this only reinforced the notion that a qualification from a poly, or anything that can be described as 'technical' is innately inferior, while something more 'academic' is considered superior, and only a degree has any kind of cache. I think the polys were guilty of feeling themselves to be the cinderellas of the education world though, just by virtue of not granting degrees or being called a 'university'.

Everybody bought into the snobbery -- and I do think there's snobbery, as well as inferiority/superiority complexes in the education system and among those participating in it at all levels. Hence the insistence that one course is just as good as another by some on this thread when it's plain that some are more equal than others. I don't see employers setting a cut-off of a 2:1 for instance, or other criteria for discriminating among candidates for a particular job as snobbery. There simply has to be a cutoff somewhere, and apparently there are no other tools available, or the willingness to avail of other yardsticks is not there in the case of some, and since a distinction must be made among candidates, that's fair enough if it works.

In Ireland, the Regional Technical Colleges (later Institutes of Technology) were set up in the late 60s and early 70s to fill a huge gap that then existed between basic secondary school and university education, and offer courses in engineering, science, business/accounting and languages, with a technical or applied rather than an academic focus. The distinction between ITs and universities has been maintained and the integrity of each approach and each qualification has been retained.

WRT medicine -- Irish secondary education described here(Wiki) Note unfluffy subjects. The Central Applications Office system that assigns students to courses in third level institutions does so purely on the basis of performance in the Leaving Cert exam. Back in the 80s when I was applying, students who expected to do extremely well would apply for every course that required a high grade in higher maths and science subjects, and the result was a lot of doctors who should have been architects or vets or engineers. Efforts have been made recently to ascertain individual suitability for medicine before allowing students to embark on their studies.

Why would I have any sour grapes? I am very academically inclined and studied traditional subjects right through, whilst my degree is in International Politics which may raise some eyebrows I suppose it is from a traditional well respected university and the course is well respected. All my family went to university (including one of my grandmothers, which most people woudl have to agree is unusual).

I have taken jobs which have made a real difference to individuals (often very vulnerable ones) and I am very proud of doing so. I was pretty well paid too, no complaints there. Now I work in the private sector and don't think it is any more "real" than my previous job. I've seen a few threads all about how wonderful MrMcQueen is and how his opinions are far more important than any mere plebs and I just find it incredibly irritating.

We don't live in a one size fits all world. There are many things to do of value and we shouldn't try and shoehorn our children into predefined roles.

I totally agree that we should encourage them to keep their horizons broad, but that's another story (although I agree originally what this thread was about, but the OP's dd has decided on a perfectly sensible bunch of GCSEs now).

Apologies: LeQueen

nooka
Prevention is a great deal more cost effective than treatment, for example by far the most cost effective intervention in the Health Service is to get someone to stop smoking rather than to pay for the cost of all the downstream affects.

Yes very much so- but one of the most effective ways of stopping and discouraging behavior is to make it expensive. Measuring the effectiveness of campaigns and public information incentives is often difficult and mered in politics ie if people have paid for a campaign they dislike being told its effectiveness is negligible. Some of the most effective eating campaigns in recent years such as changes to school dinners have not started as government initiatives anyway.

That said clearly it is not a non job if someone is willing to pay a person to do it.

mathanxiety
and I do think there's snobbery, as well as inferiority/superiority complexes in the education system and among those participating in it at all levels. Hence the insistence that one course is just as good as another by some on this thread when it's plain that some are more equal than others.

Yes the snobbery and prejudice are the problems and denying it exists does not make it disappear. Of course not all the courses at the more traditional universities are better or higher regarded in their sectors. As long as potential students are aware of it there is no problem - they can then make informed judgments.

Another teacher here to say that her choices are dreadful!! Please don't do it!!

Haven't read whole thread but skiming through can see some accusations of 'snobbery' about the crappy less traditional subject. Yes, it may be true but the snobbery exists for a reason and even it is wrong the perception is that some subjects aren't as good so your daughter needs to 'play the game' and make sure that her cv is as good a possible. Traditional subjects keep her options open, sociology etc will narrow them,

You could hire a HR staff, either. Or farm it out to a search company that's better equipped to keep up with trends in education, employee personality and education profiles, etc., than the average CEO has time to do.

Of course she shouldn't. Those are the GCSEs for those as thick as a plank at the worst type of state schools. ho on the web site of any good private school or state grammar and look at the GCSE grades.

Here are what I think are the GCSE subjects that my daugher's old school North London Collegiate do

www.nlcs.org.uk/uploads/1/Subject_and_unit_codes_GCSE_2011.pdf

"At GCSE, everyone takes five core examinations in Maths, English and Science and then has up to five additional choices from a broad range of Languages, Humanities and Creative or Technological subjects. "

And they do rather well ("2010 over 96% of all results were graded at A or A. 22 students obtained 9 or 10 straight A grades".)

If you look at the subjects every will do maths, English lang, English lit and then at least 2 sciences. SO ensure your daughter does those and then add in some others which I would suggest ought to include a foreign language such as French and History and Geography. That should enougb but add something like music if she likes that or art if she prefers that.

I get CVs all the time, far far far too many and I'mn ot even recruiting but as said above employers have very little time and loads of applicants so don't disadvantage yourself. Also how could a state school let such a bright girl make silly choices. That would never have happened in the days when she would have been creamed off into a grammar school at age 11.

Very interesting debates here with many trains of thought.

Are our youngsters really given accurate, sensible advice when choosing GCSE options or are they pushed towards subjects they may like and be good at, but serve no real practical purpose, just for league table exercises, etc ?

In other words, is the average career officer in a comprehensive school giving good honest sensible advice?

I'm not happy that subjects that my son (Y11) is doing for GCSE's and predicted A* for in the summer, are all timetabled against each other for A Level purposes. The school knew this would happen in advance as they only intended offering one A Level class in these subjects as opposed to five classes for Maths and English. We are not all Mathematicians, given that an A Grade is the minimum said school will take as an A Level student. I feel it's pretty short sighted advice to push a teenager towards certain subjects and then drop them to suit themselves with no thought about ruining teenager's career aspirations.

Slightly off thread I know, but parents are not mindreaders, and would like to know that advice given by careers staff is accurate. Is it a good idea to just go with the heart and do as you think best as this age? I'd like teenagers to follow their dreams if they know what they want to do, and not get caught up in soft subjects, worthless uni's, etc. Very sad. Our young people don't seem to be valued that much as the future generation. Very sad indeed.

You can look it all up on the web or read about it. From doing it myself, I know that it's possible for even a foreign parent to push a child through a school system you knew nothing about initially and steer her into an excellent university.

Its nigh on impossible to steer a child through a school which promises a '6th form course for all students who want it' and then move goal posts to timetable certain subjects together and worse still, know it was going to happen in advance.

Parents can only do so much. I've spent hours this last week investigating and researching colleges at the very last minute before application deadlines are reached, owing to the sheer incompetence of a selective comprehensive.

So picking a good school is crucial and mothers perhaps should think about career choices which ensure they can pay school fees so they don't have these issues. Anyway as I said above it takes about 2 seconds to look on web sites of good schools and see what GCSEs will be good (and of course some careers don't really need any GCSEs very much at all so if you're going into those then that's fine).

Also not always wise to let teenagers go where they think they want to go without some advice. Also put them in a school where 100% go to great universities and they will follow that herd. Put them in a school whre most people fail and they will follow their peers to the dole or the call centre.

Xenia, not EVERY person can have a job where they can earn enough to pay private school fees - there aren't enough to go around. You can get a perfectly adequate education without private school, although I agree that the attainment levels of potential schools schould be considered - the local school I should have gone to is shockingly bad with a small number of pupils taking highers historically.

Xenia - with all the best will and careers in the world, people's circumstances change due to bereavement, ill health, many factors. It is most patronisingly rude to say picking a good school is crucial. Most of us might agree with that, but North London Collegiate fees are not easy to find.

I was in fact talking about a top class comprehensive - over 1500 applications for 240 places, many applicants to Oxbridge, over 97% 5 A* - C results at GCSE and nobody leaving to go on the dole. It is a high achieving school and funnily enough I happened to trust them to look after my son's interests without changing goal posts.

There are good schools in private and state sector but out in the wide world employers however wrong they are to think it, do regard the core subjects mentioned above as indicating excellence and GCSEs which are of the type those kinds of schools don't do or not many do as worse. So it behoves the comprehensives to help parents realise that that is so and indeed teenagers and their parents can easily get on line and realise XYZ GCSE is regarded as easy and has a bad reputation and perhaps avoid it (even if in reality GCSE finger painting is harder than GCSE French or whatever).