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 remember thinking that when I 'chose' my GCSEs. We had to do English Lang and Lit, Maths and double Science, a language, a humanity, a technology and two 'options'. But not all subjects could be taken as options. And some subjects could only be taken as options. And some subjects could not both be taken as there would be clashes... In the end you had very little real choice. A Level choices weren't much different either- I can't remember which subjects clashed but some did so if you were taking one you couldn't do the other.

Alex- Yes of course it can. I was stating the facts as to just show how it was counted.

Theres still a limited choice as to what we had as kids.

I teach Science the triple in the new 9-1 will be hard. Well as are all of the new specs. So much content down from A-Level. 1

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/285990/P8_factsheet.pdf

Progress 8 & it's buckets.

Newt - as of 2016 single combined science GCSE no longer exists.

A whole new world indeed. Grades 9-1
and progress 8 scores where the average is zero and below - 0.5 will not be good.

It's brought some very different results to the league tables in my area tinker where sought after schools have actually find out with a low score reflecting the fact that they take bight kids but perhaps don't stretch them.

Yes I suppose in that way its not just the 5 A-C anymore -now all students and all subjects count which is fair.

Ours seem to have a bit more choice

Option one has to be between geography and history

Options 2,3 and 4 are relativly free choice...a few rules like no more than one tech subject, no more than two humanities (though ds1 did 3) or two art subjects

Ds1(selective) school was brilliant for gcse choices. They had to do English, maths, seperate sciences but chose 5 subjects plus a back up from a long list and the school worked the timetable around their choices.

Ds2 had a choice of double/triple science and the rest of his choices were in blocks decided by which science choice he made. Both took the subjects they wanted.

Dd chooses next year, I have no idea how it's going to work for her.

When dd was putting her wish list forward we made a list of non negotiable & compromises.

Non negotiable was music & French - without those two options she would have changed school. RS was next on her priorities. Beyond that she realised that not everyone could do all their choices due to time tabling.

Thanks for the explanations about triple science. I'd guessed it meant 3 gcses at the end but couldn't work out why double wasn't enough.

Getting rid of single award science is a bit shit if you're not any good at science isn't it?

back in the day I had to do English and Maths, then had four options - I chose French, German, History and Music, so did no science beyond Y8 equivalent.

DD3 (currently Y10) had double English, Maths, double Science, a humanities, and a language as compulsory (as well as non-examined PE and RE), which left her with two "free choice" options. Triple science was only offered to selected students, and has a compulsory after school session each week - think there are 30 students doing it now.

Just to chime in, as someone who works for a university, we don't give a shit about EBacc. It's purely an invention of Michael Gove and it functions as nothing more than a school "performance" indicator that is used to force students into subjects they are unsuited for at the expense of perfectly valuable subjects like Drama.

BarbarianMum

I assume they did double science and then took a level. Dunno. I fucking hated science but was pretty much told I had to do double award as I was "clever"

That is truly shit newt - both for you and for anyone at your school who wanted to do science A levels. Double science - A level is a pretty big jump.

I just Googled. Apparently triple science wasn't introduced until 2006/7
As I already had 2 dc by then that would explain why my school didn't offer it.

As I have friends who went on from school to study science in varyious degrees at university I shall assume it wasn't an issue at the time.

X post. That would explain it - and also why it was introduced (unless double was equivalent to three singles).

unless double was equivalent to three singles
Goodness only knows.

I'm not looking forward to guiding ds1 through all this next year

I thought schools had to offer triple science (at least to the more able) by law! What happened at your school to those wanting to study physics, chemistry and biology at A level?

I have double award science, three science a levels and two science degrees. It's not an issue at all.

There's a catch up period at the start of a level if you have a mixed class of double and triple science students but it genuinely doesn't make any different to the final grades they get.

Barbarian, as I understand it, triple science is not harder than double science. It's just more, at the same level.

At the (selective) school DD1 went to, they were allowed to study a science at A level if they received A or above for the exams for that particular science. Interestingly they actually found they had a larger uptake of sciences at A level, when they gave students the option of doing double or triple science, rather than making them all do triple science.

I think people are getting confused with how science GCSEs usually work.

"double science" cover two thirds of the "triple science" gcse course. The exams are exactly the same, they just miss the final module of chemistry, biology and physics. They get two GCSEs. Each gcse is made up of physics, chemistry and biology papers to give an overall grade.

"Triple science" is almost always short for doing a full gcse each of biology, chemistry and physics. They can get different grades for the different subjects.

I don't think triple science is harder than double, I thought it covered a third less of each subject area - hence making the jump to A level harder. Hardcore you must be very talented. I found the jump from 3 O levels to 3 A levels in science hard enough (and I did go on to a science degree), I certainly wouldn't have fancied it from a double science base.