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...

Things are changing . My friends employee has just had her university offer cancelled at the last minute because the uni had suddenly decided to look at her gcses results.
My niece had to take anm extra maths test because her gcse maths was not good enough. We were told that because so many are getting high results at a level the university are having to go farther and farther back to differenciate between candiates.
Employers are doing he same. Friends DD applied on line d

Sorry had a problem
Friends daughter got turned down for a job despite a 1st with honours because get a level results weren't good enough

YABU she should do the subjects that she enjoys. Those are all very good GCSE options btw, and she can do a whole manner of professions with them, social work, nursing, Allied Health Professions, Psychology. My dh parents forced his sister to read Law to become a barrister, and his sister was called to the BAR. She hated it, her heart wasent in it at all, she now wants to work with children.

By forcing your dd to do the subjects that you want she might not bother to study for them, not enjoy them and may end up resenting you for making her do them. Let her choose the subjects that she enjoys, better to do well at them than to fail the ones you forced her to do.

Another teacher...

a) YANBU - not all GCSEs are equal. Traditional academic options are almost invariably better options, for anyone planning on rigorous A Levels & a worthwhile degree.

b) As an earlier poster said, it tends not to be teachers encouraging bright students to do GCSE Whateverology - it's The Management bean-counting for the league tables. I had to teach a chunk of BTEC Work Skills to my A/A* English group last week. NOT my choice & most certainly not a good use of their time!

What ravenAK said.

Another teacher.

Think you do need to be abit heavy handed about this actually. At this stage parents know best. Eternally grateful to my father who prevented me doing Home Economics as one of my A Levels. I ended up at a City law firm for a while (and therefore earned enough to buy the lovely house I am now sitting in ) no way on gods earth would they have let me in with a Home Ec A level.

I am a University Lecturer in Education and run a degree course aimed at students who want to be primary teachers (amongst others). Here's the Boff view of events.

"She has just had the first leaflet from school about GCSE option next year and want to pick health and social care (double award)"

May be a double award but she would be seen as effectively following a non-academic route by some university admissions people. So really wortrh half an award.

"human health and physiology instead of additional science"

Always best to take single or double science where possible.

"child development"

For teenage mothers in referral units IMO

"psychology and sociology"

Not generally well taught at this level IME

"She says she wants to do social work or primary teaching (or win the X factor hmm)"

It is very competitive to apply for teaching courses and she needs to be aiming for 10 good GCSEs in traditional subjects.

"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.)"

She is completely mad. You are right.

"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..."

She is doing. You are going to have to break the news to her that for her chosen careers, her teachers are giving her very bad advice.

BTW GCSE results are circled in red on the admissions forms a lot of the time. We really do look at them. Really really really.

I haven't read the whole thread but I think YABU and an academic snob.

These days the kind of courses your dd wants to do open more doors imo. And yes, her higher educational choices will be influenced by her A levels anyway. She sounds sensible to me......

Noooooooooooo!!

The kids that arrive with these qualifications know little of consequence and find undergraduate stuff a total nightmare. They are a poor preparation for university work and a great many careers. They are very disappointing courses, waste of an opportunity.

'"child development"

For teenage mothers in referral units IMO '

Boffinmum - it's a shame people in your position think it's acceptable to have such a prejudiced view of people you don't even know

Ah, but twas a teenage mother myself ....

Teenage mothers in referral units very fobbed off educationally.

boffin - if someone had all their other subjects as academic but then chose double media studies, would you view that, be honest!

I think they would get away with that, if they could explain a genuine interest in media studies and got very good grades in everything.

It's quite possible to have a successful career (one you enjoy and are well-paid for) which was not preempted by qualifications in 'traditional' subjects. Actually, I'd say my vocationally trained friends have (mostly!) got a better deal than those who did everything traditionally, got a 2:1 at a good uni and then went from temping job to temping job to temping job.....This does not include my friends who became doctors or lawyers but tbh if she's not thinking she wants to do that now then it probably will not be her choice for a career.

I think you have more doors open to you if you have a degree and a bit of work experience gained during uni holidays, compared to just A Levels.

For now, anyway. Might change with £9000 a year fees - then it might be possible to train on the job for things with potential employers once again. At the moment this is hard to do.

thanks boffin, he seems to be putting his head down ( I was against it but as it was DSS was overruled)

Posy - I think you have handled this well and your daughter's current choices sound much better than the ones she originally said. Best to keep her options open by mainly going for academic subjects coupled with one in her area of interest as an extra one.

At A level and beyond, Sociology and Psychology are hard. The same is true of many social science/humanities subjects.

At GCSE, they're a complete piece of piss and I'd be horrified if my kids wanted to study them. And frankly, geography and history and RE are in the same league, it's just that they're somehow exempt from the criticism because they're seen as 'traditional'. In reality, they require very similar 'human science' skills. The psychs will claim they're 'proper' scientists but we all know different

The reason for this is that to do well with discursive, critical subjects, you need to engage higher order thinking skills, provide analytical rigour, understand how to gather information within particular disciplinary models. So it is almost impossible to do these things at a lower level where the emphasis is on easily-digestible techniques.

I think the problem with things like Health and Social Care is nothing to do with the subjects themselves being a problem; but instead to do with the 'tick box' approach to oversimplified learning involved.

So the biases about subjects may be flawed, but they're there for good reasons: that some subjects maintain intellectual standards, and others are designed for people who are thought not to need higher order learning skills. Wrongly, IMHO.

Here's a specimen Sociology paper.

store.aqa.org.uk/qual/newgcse/pdf/AQA-41901-W-SQP.PDF

Now I've never studied Sociology, but I reckon I could ace that paper, given reasonable numeracy & reading comprehension skills.

I'm not suggesting that Sociology, as a discipline, is lacking in value - but I can't see that paper as a worthwhile GCSE option for a student currently attaining level 7s.

She could pass it now - better uses of the next two years.

Childcare was so popular at my all girls school that you had to have a reference eg from your babysitting job to get on the course. I couldn't see what the attraction was and did Latin instead.

Glad you are sorted with your DD.

YANBU, I would think it best to stick with traditional subjects.

Also at 13, you don't convince her, you tell her, she's not doing the soft options. I would fill out the form for her and take it in. Talk to the school if need be.

Hopefully she'll thank you for it later. Nobody knows at 13 exactly what they want to do. She may change her mind and then it'll be too late.

^ sorry I haven't read the entire thread..... apologies it seems to have been sorted already.

GCSE subjects are very important and a lot of Unis are looking at the subjects taken and results first and are screening applications on GCSE's. For instance one we looked at are asking for 15 points and over A and A* = 2, B = 1 and C = 0.

18 points are looked at first . Btech whilse school say are equivalent to 4 A* at GCSE are given 2 points.

This is for a top subject though but still GCSE's are becoming more important, I think.