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

@ErrolTheDragon haha I checked after and realised my error in my defence I posted afterwards that I was wrong!

PE is heavy on science and heavy on time commitment due to the sports requirement. Not an easy option at all. My DSD did media and loved it, was great for his Art/Music degree he ended up doing.

Let her choose. She's going to have to do the work after all.

No worrie, Rachel - and a useful learning point to people with kids at gcse stage that anything they read on social media re uni should always be checked on uni websites. Quite a lot of us carry out of date or slightly misremembered information I think.

Does an academic girl want to spend hours marking time with the kids who are too thick to be doing anything else? (Her academic friends won't be taking PE, for sure!)

Just to underline the fact that PE is not an easy option. Chill your jets.

I teach Media GCSE (among other things) and it is much more academic than it used to be. It also develops critical thinking in a way that many other GCSEs don't.
Although check whether it's the BTec or the GCSE there is a difference there.

In my school many of the high flyers study PE.

PE even a subject????
Does an academic girl want to spend hours marking time with the kids who are too thick to be doing anything else? (Her academic friends won't be taking PE, for sure!)

DS was keen to do PE. There are plenty of strong academic children in the class, many who play to a high level. It's not as hard as say physics but it has a lot of physiology. It also gets them moving as general PE/games takes a hit in the timetable in years 10&11.

x-post DS is not at LanguageAsA school as far as I know

As long as she is doing the core subjects including some science and a language I think that's absolutely fine.

Media Studies gets a bad rap imo and people are snobby about it.

We live in a digital age, communication is faster and faster, people are hooked into media 24/7. It is a growing industry.

I’m a secondary school teacher and I’ve been part of careers lessons. There are enough lawyers for 10 years, we don’t need any new ones. But as it is perceived as ‘academic’ then people continue to apply for it. And don’t get me started on criminology which has about 10 jobs per year.

But media has lots and lots of jobs, everywhere 24/7. But it is looked down upon🤷🏼‍♀️

@katy1213 - how rude and ill informed you are. Why not keep quiet if you don’t know what you’re talking about?

I did Media Studies, Drama, English and Music at A level and it hasn't held me back in life!

Wow I don't think any of those subjects are lighweight. I would inagine media uses English skills and PE biology so all good.

Lightweight subjects l thought that shit had been put to bed years ago.

Lightweight PE includes study of physiognomy, Media Studies has lots of jobs, Art has a substantial written element and includes significant problem solving, DT is a Stem subject including Textiles, and again has significant problem solving, maths and evaluative thinking, Drama includes study of Ancient Greece.....l could go on.

Agree belgianWhistles! Bit of a critical thinking approach to the media would do most people know harm at all!

I took media studies for GCSE and people told me that it was useless. Now 10 years after finishing senior school I can honestly say that the knowledge and skills I gained while studying this subject have benefited me greatly. You learn IT, digital art, informative writing, develop your creative skills, how to produce many different types of media, how to tell fact from fiction, identify lies in the media etc etc.

Of course you should let her choose what she wants to do. She is presumably doing English, Maths, at least two science, plus Geography and a Language. From an "academic" point if view it doesn't really matter what the other two GCSEs are. About the only future subject she is ruling herself out of is History, or most second languages (though even then I think you should probably be allowed to do A-level History if you wanted..).

I'm an Admissions tutor at Oxford. I would have no concerns about that set of GCSEs at all. The same would be true for pretty much all my colleagues I think.

Does she have a goal? As long as her options get her there, that’s all that matters.

If she doesn’t have a goal then keeping it as wide as possible is good advice.

But there have to be fun options. School has to be enjoyable too.

Academic PE is NOT a soft subject. It has a strong academic component (hence the name).
Media studies may be a non starter though - I know many universities do not count it as an A level, but as an GCSE option may be fine. However assuming she is doing the usual maths and English and science exams then let her choose her own options. And art GCSE has ALOT of work - again not an easy option by any stretch

Top tier universities with competitive courses will pay much more attention to GCSEs than lower tier universities. So if you check the entry requirements for Medicine at Oxbridge, they may request certain subjects are studied at GCSE.

I do wish people wouldn't make baseless claims. No Oxford course specifies any GCSE subjects, only A-levels eg medicine at Oxford requires chemistry and one of Physics/Maths/Biology.

In my opinion she’s studying 2 “fun” subjects and a language, an odd mix of subjects so if she’s aiming for the very top she might be limiting her options slightly. I would swap PE or media for another academic subject if that’s the case.

Definitely no need. Oxbridge or not. I promise. It isn't an odd mix of subjects at all.

@Rachelfromfriends1 and @ErrolTheDragon To be fair, the Russell Group have only just scrapped the "facilitating list" of preferred subjects. My DC (at uni now) were advised to chose GCSEs that would allow them to pick 4 A-level "facilitating subjects" they enjoyed and were good at. UCL still requires a language at GCSE or you have to take an extra language course alongside your degree. As an aside, when I was picking subjects, there were still some universities that required Latin to study medicine or veterinary science and I'm not that old

@Unusualusernames Your DD's choices sound fine but it is worth looking at potential A-level options (and course requirements at uni if your DD has any idea what she wants to do). The advice my DC were given was to make sure that they weren't limiting their A-level options, particularly if they didn't plan on taking core subjects at A-level eg at their school they could choose media studies or English lit GCSE but at A-level you could only do English if you had English lang and English lit GCSE whereas you could do media studies without media studies GCSE.

How many others is she doing? DH did a media degree and calls it a waste of a student loan and he worked in the film industry for more than a decade after graduating. He's subsequently done a second degree and masters. At GCSE as long as she has a good range over all I wouldn't work too much. Media and PE A levels as a combination would be more limiting though.

Do people really think the three or four options you take at gcse have any impact on anything ??

How rude!! PE is really more sport science these days and the fitness and leisure industry is booming, so not a bad choice at all. Sport teaches children a lot of life skills too and can be really valuable. Team work, resilience, goal setting, self motivation etc. I know my daughter certainly found participating in sport helped when she was sitting her GCSE's as a way to switch off. She didn't do GCSE but is doing it at A level now. Its definitely not an easy option.

@runoutofnamechanges your doc's school let children take media studies instead of eng lit? Wow.

The fact that your mum is a retired careers advisor probably explains why she thinks media studies is a waste of time. It was once regarded as a ‘Mickey Mouse’ subject, probably as recently as ten years ago. It definitely no longer is. Pretty much every business now will use social media or have someone responsible for marketing / PR for example. Knowing how the media works is really important for young people today. It works well in combination with history / politics / English / business studies for this reason.

My advice (as an ex deputy head fwiw) is to carry on as you are: let her choose the subjects that she enjoys. Let her interests and strengths shape her path in life, not what other people think is valuable.

Also, individual GCSE subjects matter very little in the long run on CVs. Unless she has a very defined career path in mind (something like medicine being the most obvious one) she’s better off studying subjects she enjoys and where she is more likely to get good marks. I think you are being a very sensible, supportive mum.