would you let your children make their own GCSE choices

[zippitippitoes]

...it never occurrred to me to interfere at all with what mine chose but in this article about happiness it makes it sound like it's normal for parents to choose them?

it's actually about children and mental well being..a bit woolly to be honest

flameboo

My four have picked their own GCSE subjects. We did discuss with them why they wanted one subject over another to allow them to think out loud but the final choice was theirs.

another at flamebo!

I really regret being overly influenced by other people's opinions when I was choosing my A levels. "Do classics - it will impress universities" - I hated it.
"Don't do English, you'll be no good at it" - so much wish I had!
"French? you'll never cope!" - but I might've done...
Too late now
The only one I chose for me was psychology.
I think it's SO important for people to be able to study what they enjoy and have a real interest in.

TooTicky - why is it too late now?

I do not even remember talkinmg to my parents about going to University - just sort of said "oh, by the way Tuition fees need to paid by Novemebr, and can I have lift to Southampton next Friday.." Worked out quite expensive for them.

I will definately be sitting my little genius down to talk about the merits of staying at home for Uni.! in 17 years when its going to be a million times more expensive

Personally I think to expect many young people to choose options based on a future career is probably unrealistic. Some are sorted I'm sure but I think many have no idea what they want to do and why SHOULD they, at 13 or 14! I'd go so far as to say I would be gutted if my DS had a career path mapped out at that age, I would think a plan made at 13 might be quite limiting for him - after all he won't have the life experience and knowledge that he will at say 18 or 19....and if he planned to go into a career like accountancy (for instance, sorry accountants!) when he was 13 I'd think there was something wrong with him, I'd rather he was challenging the establishment at that age than planning on how to get into it!!!!

my humble opinion, obv.

as usual forgot to answer the OP, yes I would let DS make his own choices and would be happy for these to be based on things he simply enjoyed.

I think that it is worth discussing possible career choices with a child prior to them makeing their choices. So if the do have an interest in, say medicine, then you can make sure they don't cut off options.

Having a broard range of subjects is probably a good idea, so thay they don't narrow down their choices at too young an age.

Don't worry about them doing needlework instead of scince....they have to do science

who the hell knows what they want ot be when they're 12 or 13 though

I know nobody interfered with my choices .. I wonder whether I saw that as them not caring though?

I'm surprised how little choice they have at some schools. At our school (Technology College) they all have to do:
Maths, Double Science, English lit, English Lang, RE (GCSE!), "an IT qualification", "a Technology subject"
They also all do non-qualification courses in PE and Guidance.
This leaves them with just one "option" to choose out of GCSE PE, Art, Drama, Music, French, German, History, Geography, and Law

I had a rough idea.

If a kid has no ideas, then better to have a broad brush, rather than, say doing 3 tech based subjects of 3 MFL

juuule - I missed doing the ones I wanted when everybody was doing theirs. I'd maybe feel a little odd doing them now - plus I'd have to pay! (not stingy, just skint!) - I suppose I wish I'd done them, more than wanting to do them now, if you see what I mean. There are other courses I'd do now, given the opportunity.

TooTicky - I see what you mean. You could do them now but would rather use the time to do something else if you were going to do anything. So you wish that you already had those ones under your belt so to speak.

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My school chose my options for O level (because I moved up a year mid year and so had to fit in with which classes had speces), and to a certain extent for A level. I wanted to do Computer Studies but it wasn't seen to be a real A level, and I was given 30 minutes to do a circuit of the school grounds to convince 3 teachers as to why it would be an appropriate A level.

My friend is head of sixth at a local independent school, and he finds that each year a handful of boys deliberately flunk GCSE or AS level Biology in order to derail their parents idea that they are going to be doctors. He then ends up having to deliver the bad news to the parents, since it is so competitive that a resit won't help.

Have to say that whilst I wouldn't chose I would hope that the ds's would seek my advice. I think that I would be upset not to be consulted.

Yup. Plus I'd have the satisfaction of knowing I'd done something more meaningful with those 2 years, and would probably have spent much less time (and money) in the pub. 'Cos me heart would've been in it. (the studying, not the pub!)

Agree Twiglett - I certainly wasn't leaning toward medicine/medical sciences at all at GCSE choosing time and had no clue whatsoever where I'd end up! So I just went for the subjects I liked and it worked out fine in the end. Tbh, how many of us really know what we want to, or what career we'll end up in, even when we hit uni?! I certainly didn't! I just went with the flow! Have done all my life and somehow seem to have come up trumps!

i steer my kids a wee bit towards vocational as in todays environment of everyone having a degree i think it helps!!!
i got a degree from a red brick university - i worked damn hard to get good a levels but my dgree is not worth the paper its written on!

key thing with the sciences is to make sure that thhe kids cover all three at GCSE. And the best way to do this, while keeping options open is by doing a dounble science qualification. I have taught lots of kids who wanted to do something biomedical and then found out that they needed chemistry and had dropped it and taken single science Biology and Chemistry.

Unless a child is totaly comitted to science and does all three as spearate sciences kids are better off doing the double science qualification

My mother didn't have a clue what subjects I took. I remember going to an A'level parents evening with her and telling her we would see the geography teacher next, "You're doing geography?!" she asked. This was in the Upper Sixth!

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I think you need to ask why three sciences? Is he sure he wants to do them all at A level. TBH there is a slight , but very slight advantage in doing 3, if they are 100% sure that is what they want to do. And TBH, if they are good scientists they make up the tiny short fall in no time during A level, when you go over the stuff anyway.

I'm a real dyed in the wool scientist, but would encourage my kids to to dounble science, to give them more breadth of topics studied at GCSE. Who knows that extra subject mught the the one that fires their enthusiasm in the long run.

Yep i'd let him choose.If he wanted my opinion i would give it.But want him to do stuff he is interested in not what i think he should do.