Options the school has made it so difficult

[vimtolover]

Hi There, I am new to Mumsnet and this is my first post, so i hope I do okay. I am currently 19 weeks and 2days with my first, but I have 2 step sons and one of them is about to choose his options.

My worry is that the school bumph on all of it is sooooo complicated, and I have a fairly decent understanding of the new Bac and other education stuff, but to choose what he is allowed to do had totally baffled me.

He will take, English, English Lit, Maths, History, Geography, French, ....okay thats the simple bit:

Now he can take combined science which is 1 GCSE or he can take individual sciences but I think that means taking all 3, and he is not allowed to do just Physics and Biology for example!

Then he can do GCSE in PE, IN ART and Design, and then......

IT, he can do IT but its compulsory anyway, so I think he can either do that or take a DIDA which is a certifcate which equates to 2 GCSEs,

sorry I am rambling because i have made it sound simpler than they have, but I still dont understand how many subjects he has to pick, and whether he can pick any in any order as the school has broken them into 2 different sets of lessons.

Sorry really confused, can anyone explain?

Thanks

separate science is better than combined

what does he want to take?

He is not that clear on what he does and doesnt want to do. In fact he cried the other day when I tried to get him to understand it was important that he had an opinion.
He wants to be a dentist, but only because me and his dad keep telling him he will be loaded! ha ha.
Thats why he thinks seperate science is better, but the teachers on the last parents evening didnt sound too hopeful with him.
He is average to below on some subjests. Hate I.T, too but I dont know what he is learning so I dont know what he cant do....etc...partly because he doesnt communicate and paetly becasue I am not his mum and dont get to actually go to parents evening

Separate sciences better than combined if he is achieving a strong level 6 as a minimum, otherwise he will struggle. Although DIDA is listed as 2 GCSEs many colleges only count it as 1 for entry purposes. As far as the other choices go you need to check the literature given/ask the school as many places vary (for example where I work students choose 5 including French or German but our other local secondary gives pupils 6 choices without the language, and the neighbouring town's school only gives students 4 choices.
Is there not an options evening? If not arrange to call into school and speak to teachers and follow their guidance on his ability/potential as well as asking him his opinion. If he has no strong career plans yet then the most important thing is that he has a range of topics and chooses the ones he is most likely to do well in.

I would be very surprised if combined science wasn't 2 GCSEs. Do check, it is very unusual for any but the very bottom students to only get one science GCSE (and even then teachers try to get them to do OCR National, BTec, or GCSE Core Science and GCSE Additional Science).

There is a school evening about options in March, I was just trying to understand some of it before then because its so different from when we chose our subjects. They have really complicated it.
As for the science debate combined versus seperate, i totally agree that we dont like the sound of combined Science, but we just werent sure if he could cope with all 3, 2 yes, but 3 not sure. it seems all or nothing (combined).
This thread has proved something to me though, no one does seem to have a clear answer on this so no wonder its hard for parents to understand, and the kids cant explain it either.
Why cant they just say choose 11 or 12 subjects, these are compulsory, this is the list you can choose from?.
I find it very annoying. I know we have chosen the 5 needed for the new bac, and i dont mind that becasue he would do those anyway, but its where to go from here.....

with the science thing, he'd be doing all three sciences with either option, just not in as much depth for single or double. Imagine it as level 1 in P, C and B added together gets you 1 GCSE in Science; do level 2 in all three as well, and that becomes 2 GCSEs in Science; do level 3 in all subjects as well which becomes GCSEs in the seperate subjects.

it is confusing when "single science" is actually all three subjects, and is different to "single sciences" (AKA triple science, or physics, chemistry and biology as seperate subjects).

Thanks, so bearing in mind we do want him to do seperate subject sciences, can he do 2 and not all 3? It looks as if its all 3 or just the combined thing.
Ideally we want him to do 2. Biology and Physics.

I just cant work out if he can do that.

Why would he do biology and physics? There's virtually no curriculum overlap. Much better to do chem/bio or chem/phys.

It's very unusual to do 2 separate science GCSEs - most insist you take single award, dual award or the 3 sciences separately. It's also very unusual to have just 1 GCSE or 3 GCSEs for science.

Are they presented in blocks on an options sheet? From what you say from the 2 different sets of lessons I suspect they have and they split the year into 2 for timetabling purposes. Generally taking the single

It's better, if he's much weaker in one science than the others, to take the separate sciences because then it doesn't bring his grade down. For example if he got and A in Physics and an A in Biology but a D in Chemistry with the 3 separate sciences he'd have A, A, D. With the dual they'd average it down and he'd probably end up with something like BC.

He'd need chemistry A-level for dentistry anyway I'd imagine!

I know you're not his mum as the school see it but can you call them up and ask them to explain the options system to you?

Unfortunately you are asking questions that we can't answer, you need to ask the school! It is possible to do separate sciences but most schools don't offer that, they normally offer either the combined or the triple science options, we don't know what your school offers so can't advise!

Vimto he will not be able to do just Biology and Physics. Doing the 2 GCSE Science route will mean he will study all 3 Sciences but not the additional modules he would need to get 3 GCSE. By doing the 2 Sciene route he could still pick up say Biology and Physics at A level. If he isn't a good level 6 then I would go with the 2 GCSE or Double Science route. If the school offers BTEC Science avoid it like the plague if he wants to do A level Sciences as he will not be able to.

All your replies are great, thanks for all the info, I am starting to get an insight into the double science thing too. I genuinely believe in the 3 individual science routes, rather than the combined stuff, and as for a BTEC yeh, agree not really any point in that.
He likes Biology and seems okay at Physics but the chemistry teacher was worried about his progress.
So i was looking for a compromise.

I think he shoud aim to do the 3, but it depends whether he is on track to do be a good level 6 which I am not sure about. I will check though, and it does say that in the notes.

The school definitely get 10/10 for the most complicated set of notes about options though. Once I understand it I may make some suggestions of how they could re-write them, Its the way of education people sometimes, I work in something similar and they love to comlicate stuff, and use acronyms all the time. Makes me so annoyed.

To answer your query about why the school don't just list the subject that are optional, and ask students to pick a certain number from it - it's to do with timetabling. My son wanted to do btec business studies and GCSE drama, but because they were both in the same option block, he couldn't. Those 2 lessons go on at the same time.