To think that there are no actual 'choices' for year 9 options GCSE's?

[gluteustothemaximus]

I don't get it.

Maybe someone can enlighten me.

Such a massive deal is being made of options, choosing options, going to meetings about options, pre-meetings about options evening, how it is the most important time in a child's life at school.

DS has no choices for 7 of the GCSE's. He has to take Maths, English, English Language, Triple Science, RS.

Then he gets to 'choose' History or Geography.

Then he gets to 'choose' a MFL of Spanish or French.

Then he gets to 'choose' one more out of all his favourite subjects. Art, DT, Music, Business Studies, PE. He loves all of these, but can only choose one.

AIBU in thinking, that there are no actual choices but one?

I took GCSES in 1994 and other than being able to do double science instead of all 3, our options were the same.

The most important part of this, as far as a school is concerned, it to maximise the students grades therefore getting onto the A Levels the students want and then the Degree, if that's the route taken.

Persuade the kid who can't act to study DT instead or the one with no artistic ability (I was sure I was Picasso reborn) to study Latin.

In most cases it has no effect at all on anything. Sometimes a little guiidance is necessary. Sometimes schools will see if they can be flexible ie. get a student onto double humanities or double MFL.

And I couldn't tell you what I got in most of my GCSEs, I don't think anyone has ever asked since I was about 20.

I posted too soon.

GCSE's are extremely important. The discussions and meetings help reinforce that and most children do like the idea of some aspect of choice and feel and act more maturely towards them as a result.

It's much better than the awful Scottish "nationals" bollocks that we have instead of gcse...

Have just checked the other secondary school, and options are pretty much the same, with double science compulsory, RS compulsory, and 3 option blocks.

One has to be geo/his, one has to be MFL. Only difference here is triple science, so taking ten GCSE's instead of 9.

I think the new three year GCSE's will be more important for university entry if they are harder as it will allow them to distinguish the really top students.

I also wonder if your school is a private/grammar. The choices look very familiar, except at my child's grammar, they do RE as compulsory and not in a block, and so get two choices from the arty/music/drama end. It's 11 in total which is really a lot.

Ultimately these schools are trying to offer their more academic students more academic choices later on for A levels and then at uni. If your child is both academic and very good at art/drama/music this can be an issue.

Have this meeting at school next week, and at this stage I feel entirely clueless!

Apologies for the derail, but can I ask someone who knows what the implications are for taking a Science subject at A level if the child takes double rather than triple science? (assuming that is a choice!)

My DD chose her options in yr8 to start in yr9. They do all the usual ones then she chose History, wanted to do Geography but cant do both. The other option were the languages but she didn't want to do one so was left with a choice of Photography, Business Studies, PE or Citizenship. She chose photography. The other options are 3 one yr courses that they can do in each year 9,10 & 11. These include Art, drama, music, DT, languages etc... so they can do 3 more choices, some are GCSE, some not.

So she did a Geography and ecology fouindation course for her 1yr course in yr9, it wasn't a GCSE. In yr10 she is currently doing Citizenship which is a GCSE, and in yr11 she want to do 1yr Triple Science... but I don't think she is in a high enough set to do that so will have to choose a different option.

We're in Scotland so the detail is different, but we still go through the process of making choices. My 13 year old has just done this and it was a lot less restrictive. He will have to drop another two subjects at the end of next year, leaving 7 for exams at the same stage as GCSE, more or less.

He had to do:

Maths
English (we don't have separate lang and lit here)
One modern language (French or Spanish)
One science
One of Geography/History/Modern Studiies
One "Arts" subject - music, art, drama, graphic design, home ec
One "technology" subject - business studies, computing, physics, engineering

And then he had a couple of free choices too, so he's doing two sciences and two of the technology subjects. PE and RE is a couple of lessons a week for everyone but taking it to exam level isn't compulsory.

Having a scientifically-minded child who is considering medicine or something similar like biomedical science we looked at doing all three sciences, but we know several people who have got into med school with just biology/chemistry. Very, very few people here do all three sciences and there's not much of an uptake for a Religious Studies exam course either.

Brit

You can go on to do science A level with only double science GCSE, but the step up will be greater. That is not so much of an issue if there are a number of pupils doing A level only having done double (eg in a school that doesn't offer triple), but more of an issue if the rest of the class has done triple.
My view is that if seriously considering a science at A level think very hard before not doing triple science.

Yes, it's a grammar school. But looking at the comprehensive, it's the same there too.

I would have loved to do photography!

It's pretty much the same choices at dd's school (for the top 40% anyway) introduced this year because of the Progress/ Attainment 8 measure. I imagine the majority of schools will sooner or later do the same sort of options tbh because of the weighting applied to subjects considered superior. Lower achieving students in dd's school get more choices as they don't have to choose a language or humanity which annoys dd as she is into Music and Art but can only choose one of those.

Can you give him support to pursue art and music outside of school as extracurricular activities?

Its also limited by progress 8.

Bucket 1and 2 Maths and Eng ( double weighted)
Bucket 3,4,5. sciences, humanities and MFL
Bucket 6,7,8. Open group - Arts snd vocational but can count extras from 345.

So buckets 3,4,5 have to be definitely filled. So it reduces choice.

It will be interesting to see how the medua reports these scores. I am not sure even I understand it.

Dd has piano lessons besides school music lessons but at A level she would have chosen Art, Music, Maths and French. Being unable to study both Art and Music at GCSE is going to have implications later for her and others in the same situation.

TeenAndTween - thank you, that's very helpful.

DD is a bit ambivalent about Science generally but at this stage really doesn't have any clue about a future career or what she might want to take for A levels. I'll discuss this with her teachers but it's a tough call, as I think triple will be a stretch but I wouldn't want her to rule that pathway out - I'm not sure as yet whether her set are expected to take it. Anyway, thanks for the advice - all will become clearer soon, I'm sure.

Brit better to have AA for double science than BBC for triple.

Tinker - but double science counts as two buckets (3 & 4) so bucket 5 can be filled by either a language OR a humanity - n need for both.

What's triple science? We only did single or double when I was at school. At least we did at my school.

We had to do
Maths
English (which gave us 3 GCSEs - language, literature and speakining and listening)
Science -single or double depending on which set you were in
French

Then one choice from history, geography or RE.

One choice from cookery, textiles, Woodwork, possibly some other technology based subject.

And one/two free choice/s (depending on if you single or double science) from the 2 groups above plus German (only available if you were in top set French and had started German in year 9) there were slight rules about which subject your 'free' choice could be though which was to do with timetabling I think. So you couldn't do history, geography and RE because the lessons clashed.

Hmm pe was an option in there somewhere too.

It made a total of 11 GCSEs and even if you didn't pick re or pe you had to do lessons in them, but only once per week not twice.

school gov here - blame the govt, it is all to do with 'baskets' of subjects, and maths and english are double weighted. then if you dont have enough kids opting for enough ebacc subjects you get marked down. we are a very creative school and trying very hard to keep the music, drama, dance, art, photography options open to all, plus the vocational subjects inc animal studies - very popular, rural area and school farm on site. horrible juggling act going on.

Double science is a course where students sit 6 exam papers in total covering biology, chemistry & physics & get a double grade eg BB which is worth 2 GCSE's.

Triple science is where the student gets separate grades in biology, chemistry & physics so is worth 3 GCSE's.

Teen - good point. Will add to discussion notes!

Buckets? This is a whole new world...

Meant to say triple candidates sit 9 exam papers in total.