GCSE Selections

[fairyjay]

We have received the selection options for my ds, and it seems that the number of GCSE's he will take is 9. I'm a bit out of touch (!!) - I thought it was normal to take 10. The selection is general - not geared to him or his ability.

Can anyone help?

How many sciences is he doing?

Double or triple?

Is he doing french &/or maths early?

9 is the norm where I work.

Unless he is a dyed in the wool scientist I would recomend double science over triple (I am a science teacher btw)

He's doing the sciences separately, and not taking anything early.

They have to do sciences, maths and English, and the school like them to do French + 3 others, although there is the option to leave French and do 4 others - which is probably our preference.

He would like to do Art, but wouldn't be able to if he did DT.

I don't want to push, but he's pretty capable, and I don't want him to get away with anything less than he's capable of

He's fairly strong on science to be honest, although for the past couple of years he's been talking about architecture - hence the interest in art!

If 9 is the norm then I'm happy, it's just that whilst his school is brilliant across the board, they don't necessarily push the kids academically.

I just want to hit a happy medium - and as a typical boy - he does sometimes need a bit of pushing!

At our school most pupils do up to 9 GCSEs: double science, double English, Maths, RE; plus 3 options - some of which may not be GCSE. There are also a couple of things they can do extra-curric - such as IT and music. (They also all do PE and Guidance - non-GCSE.)

Each school has different systems, if he can't do the subjects he wants to phone up and make an appointment to discuss it with his form tutor or the person in charge of yr9 options.

A lot of GCSE courses have a heavy coursework requirement these days, which boys in particular often struggle with. As long as he's able to get a good balance of subjects I wouldn't push for him to do extra ones.

But for architecture I would have thought DT (or graphics?) and art would both be very useful. Is there no way?

There is a meeting in early June when all of this will be discussed, so we'll take the opportunity of seeing if there is any flexibility.

Thank you all for your help