GCSE options hell

[Unusualusernames]

Please don't flame me but AIBU to let my 13 year old daughter choose her own options even though they might limit her.

She's academic but also really good at PE. She says she wants to chose PE, media studies, geography and french.

My mum's a retired careers adviser and says media studies is useless but I know my daughter would find it really fun.

At 14 my mum basically imposed her choices on me and I ended up choosing subjects I wasn't necessarily great at.

75% of me thinks it's better to let her just do whatever she wants, even if PE and media studies aren't highly regarded. Then 25% of me feels bad for not being one of these tiger mums who ensures her child is a success academically. I'd feel bad if it meant it really limited her university choices (if she wants to go to uni , I wouldn't force her)

Please help

When I was your daughter's age, we were encouraged to 'spread our bets' and pick as wide a range of subjects as we could manage.

If it encourages her to stay in school and she enjoys the subjects, why not?

We are in Scotland where we only do 7 NAT5s then drop 2 subjects and do 5 HIGHERS. ds currently has no intention of a sports related career, he has no idea what career he would like, but choose (by himself) English, Maths, Physics, Chemistry, French, Modern Studies and PE.

He chose the subjects he preferred, enjoys maths and science, the only one he didn't originally want to do was French, but columns dictated he had to take a MFL, he could have taken Geography instead of PE, but wanted something for fun personal development. 1/7 or 2/9 subjects just for personal interest is absolutely fine, but don't expect them to be very easy to pass, ds, if he studies hard is targeted for NAT5 A's in all of his subjects except for PE! PE is much harder to turn around than any other subject due to the physical assessment marks.

I think you are a bit unreasonable. There is a difference between bring a tiger mum and guiding your child to allow her to have some options if she come to change her mind. What she plans to do with this options? My son is choosing his GCSEs too. I told him think what he wanted to do in the future and chose things that allowed him to progress in that direction and we talked about what type of careers his subjects choices could lead him to. He still in the process of choosing but I am quite happy with what he is veering towards.

When it got to A Levels my DH was completely against DD choosing Drama as one of her subjects, especially as she had not done it at GCSE. But we talked him round - it turned out to be a really good option as it gave her public confidence, developed her speaking voice, gave her more diverse writing and creative skills as in writing for the stage, creating plays for her group of A level students. She also studied the history of drama and theatre and they were taken to see many productions. At the end of the two years she got an A, as did another student (who went on to be a professional actor). Her other A Level subjects were English and History. She went on to read Politics at university and got a good degree.
I would say let your daughter do the GCSE subjects she has chosen herself; she will enjoy them.

Let her choose what she enjoys; If you force them to take a subject they don't enjoy/finds boring or difficult they will remind you of it for the next 2 years......

You have to let your child choose their own options- you can offer advice and talk things through with them but ultimately it has to be their choice. Yeah media studies and PE might be considered easier options by some, but who cares. They'll be learning communication skills in media studies and lots of transferable skills to use pretty much any career. If she enjoys PE then why not- lots of careers options in sports and physiology but even if she's not going down that route it doesn't matter. I honestly have never been asked in any interview for uni or work what subjects I did at GCSE as everyone has to take maths English science etc so only the grades were important. Has anyone else? The only situation Where subject would be important is if they want to do science at a level they need to make sure they chooses the right science gcse that allows them to go on to do that

Afaik the only gcse DD was asked about in any of her uni interviews (at all 5 choices) was German - which she'd only taken because a language was mandatory at her school and she'd hated it. She nearly didn't manage to do the oral - totally froze on the first attempt, but fortunately her teacher, who knew she was doing Drama, advised her to act as if she was someone who could speak German. (I think the uni was just trying to drum up interest in their 'engineering with a language' offerings, it was completely irrelevant to what she wanted to do and to the offer they made. It just pissed her off)

I think there is far too much emphasis put on choosing the 'right' options at that age. Unless she has an idea of a career path which needs certain subjects, let her do what she enjoys. There is enough unnecessary pressure put on GCSE students as it is.
I would have been horrified if my parents had tried to tell me what options to take. I picked what I liked-two foreign languages, art, drama, biology and history. I guess we had to pick more back then!

I did media studies and sociology (amongst others) and now don't admit to it as I know they're both cringe easy piss take choices. That said I will let my children choose their options. I will just try to guide them away from my mistakes!

The syllabus and rigour of the subjects has changed since you took them.

"Only thing I would say is try to limit the coursework subjects. DD did drama, art and music - life was hell for a while... but it was her choice."

I agree, one of mine did that selection, absolutely the right choice for the child and they did well in all three and took 2 on to A level and degree. Also if they do have a clue what they want to do eventually, bear it in mind. Unlike DC's friend, DC of two doctors and outstandingly good at English and adamant they didn't want to do science A levels. At the end of lower 6th said child announced "actually I want to do medicine!" Luckily they were extremely bright and managed to do chemistry A level (the essential one) in one year and read medicine.

Let her choose what she wants. At this level they don't allow kids to limit themselves too much, and I actually think they should all have at least one slightly frivolous-seeming option. My O-level choices were all utterly worthy, serious and improving, and looking back I'd have loved to have done something like Art or Music or cookery just for light relief.

I 'allowed' both mine not to study a language (in reality it wasn't much of a choice) because neither of them made much headway at languages, and I suspect DS in particular may have dyslexic type difficulties anyway.

My O-level choices were all utterly worthy, serious and improving, and looking back I'd have loved to have done something like Art or Music or cookery just for light relief.

Come to think, back in the day my school would only let us do 8 O levels - so as I wanted to do 3 sciences it was exactly the same subjects as the OPs DD but without the debated extra two.

KT1213. Goodness me someone has a lot to say for themselves. Are you aware what the GCSE PE curriculum includes. It's not just one for the thick kids and actually has a lot of science,physiology and other theory in it.
OP, my DS has just started GCSE's and having very limited choices once the compulsory ones he had to choose from PE, Drama/Media/Art etc. As he is not creative he went for PE. Going by his homework I think Media or Art might be more enjoyable! Feel sorry for them. They don't know what they want to do next!

Media studies has been far more beneficial to me than some of my "more academic" subjects!

I currently work for a large international company in a job I love. I use those skills every day.

katy123 wow you're a delight aren't you?
Gcse Pe is more than playing sport with courses on lesson planning, leadership and academic learning including physiology. These skills are highly transferable as well as the well known benefits of playing sports.
My daughter and her close group of friends have all taken pe as an option and are predicted level 8 and 9s.
Ifbyou look at the new course structure you will see the benefits of taking this course as well as the btec some schools also offer.
I can't comment on media studies as I am not aware of the course contents.
Op doing something she enjoys will take the pressure off, my very academic daughter has taken pe and food studies. These give her life skills which are highly transferable and has helped her manage with the amount of exams she has (3 just for geography!). Remember other than the core subjects all gcse's do is to get her into college so for uni it's the college results that matter.

@dill is your daughters the AQA PE exam, the content sounds very different to my dd? No lesson planning, leadership in her. It's heavy on sports psychology, anatomy, really heavy, full bone muscle, heart, lungs structure and their workings Antagonists chains, stabilisers etc, she also has to know some of the Latin names. Fitt and smart model, social and cultural differences, disadvantage and advantages, beta blockers and blood works, diabetic and the effects, nutrition, mental health etc etc, this is about a third of the content and that doesn't include the sport.

A friends daughter is taking PE, same borough different school and the content is very different and doesn't include any of the above.