Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Education

Join the discussion on our Education forum.

Original poster

GCSE options help!!!!!!!

64 replies

morehelpneeded123 · 10/02/2014 22:17

My DD is choosing her GCSE's. she is very acedemically able but really struggles with languages (but at her school its compulsory to do atleast 1 MFL)

she currently wants to do

English Lit
English Lang
Maths
Triple award science
Geography
Food
French or German (undecided on which one)
and then Either History or Drama

i want her to do history as we have been told by her teacher that she can easily get an A* but she wants to do drama more. history teachers face fell when she said she was only considering as he though it would be a definate.

What should i do?

(she will probably end up with a B or C in whichever language she takes)

OP posts:
Dromedary · 13/02/2014 22:49

History, and send her to drama club after school.

craggyhollow · 13/02/2014 22:51

History.

Dd is doing 10
Eng x 2,maths,Spanish, RE (compulsory), triple science, history, art

Dd2 will love cookery and want to do food but I will not let her

Perfectly possible to do Leiths etc, no need to waste a gcse doing it

NonnoMum · 13/02/2014 22:55

If you've got half a brain, you can read your history and form your own opinions...

But when would you get the chance to hang out creating, presenting and producing plays for free ever again?

morethanpotatoprints · 13/02/2014 22:55

Hello OP

Could she not do drama outside school and do exam equivalent level to GCSE?
Maybe join a drama group/school?

Mandy2003 · 13/02/2014 23:01

When DS was choosing we discovered that Catering was much better (ie more relevant) than Food Tech which he was warned against as it is a lot of work. Would she consider doing drama out of school, Stagecoach or similar? At least she'd be sure of working with a committed group then.

Dromedary · 13/02/2014 23:04

Nonno - join any amateur theatre or operatics society.

NonnoMum · 13/02/2014 23:05

Not free though, is it? But libraries are...

Nocomet · 13/02/2014 23:12

point blank refuse to do MFL, that's what me and my class did, but we had far fewer options and refused to risk Cs with our awful MFL dept. We all sent off for uni prospectuses and proved non of us need it.

Else drop geography - it's dull and very hardwork (according to DD1)
or
Drop food - it's annoying and expensive (according to various MNers)

Dromedary · 13/02/2014 23:19

Nonno - my DC is a member of an amateur operatics society. It costs 10 for the year, and she had about a zillion amazing rehearsals and a week long show with them. You'd not get that in GCSE drama classes!

ErrolTheDragon · 13/02/2014 23:28

My DD had a somewhat similar set of choices last year (electronics and comp sci instead of food, RS rather than history which she hated).

She had to do an MFL which isn't her strong point - went for German - there may be something in what a couple of posters said about it suiting mathematical/scientific minds better. It's also probably more relevant for for an engineer/science career.

She chose drama rather than the RS. The school apparently tried to persuade her to do the academic option but she had her reasoning ready - that it would help her confidence and presentation skills. We fully agreed with her on that. She doesn't really have time for an out-of-school drama club and I don't think it would really be the same thing.

Original poster
morehelpneeded123 · 14/02/2014 07:47

Nocomet

how can we point blank refuse without her gettting kicked out. if this is an option im very interessted

OP posts:
sesquipedalian · 14/02/2014 08:22

Hi.
My dd insisted on doing both drama and media studies at GCSE, much to my chagrin, and eventually admitted she had made a mistake. She didn't do history GCSE but did take history A level, and eventually read history at uni (and got a first). All I'm saying really is that not taking a history GCSE is not going to ruin her life, and she already has a humanities subject.

LauraBridges · 14/02/2014 16:58

My son was just talking about those doing drama GCSE at his school and saying it was a massive load of effort for a GCSE which is nothing like as well regarded as many others (and quite a few of his friends who are doing it don't like the volume of work).

ApocalypticBlackHorseman · 14/02/2014 17:00

I would say either do food or drama but not both, I reckon that one non-academic subject is OK but not two.

bruffin · 14/02/2014 17:04

DD is doing drama gcse, it isnt seem to be a lot of work compared to her other subjects really. She is doing a twilight photography which is a lot more time consuming.
She loves her drama, its her fun subject, although it sounds like the teacher has to put up with a few drama queens in the class.

bruffin · 14/02/2014 17:05

doesn't not isn't

TalkinPeace · 14/02/2014 17:36

have just finished DSs options

decided not to do any of the tech courses as there is much too much writing about waffle and not nearly enough "doing"

MFL is compulsory for all except set 5

opting out of RE has made the spread more interesting

craggyhollow · 14/02/2014 17:55

RE is a good one if you are interested in ethics and philosophy

There seems to be a lot if debating

Dd1 really enjoys it

Mandy2003 · 14/02/2014 19:12

DS wanted to do RE because of the philosophy and ethics elements but school wanted him to do triple science so he can't do RE Sad

Mandy2003 · 14/02/2014 19:16

Oh, luckily MFL isn't compulsory so he's just doing Latin which he loves. They did do a Spanish / French pre-GCSE in Year 9 though.

ErrolTheDragon · 14/02/2014 19:59

One factor to consider in relation to the drama is that of necessity there's group work in a way which doesn't really apply to other GCSE subjects. Which is fine if you've got classmates who want to do well but could be a problem otherwise - they need to be able to work out pieces, do rehearsals etc etc. We were pretty confident that DDs pals seem on the ball and the school gets decent results - but otherwise it might have given us more pause for thought.

LauraBridges · 15/02/2014 08:07

Talk's comment on the writing etc elements in the software subjects was our view and what my sons are saying about their friends doing things like drama. The PE teacher was very keen one of mine did PE GCSE (which i was surprised their school offered at all!) as he's... well not wanting to showing off but the best at games in the year I suspect.

However he has done music GCSE (30% playing which with 2 grade 7s or 8s for my boys is pretty easy) instead (as the one lighter option) as he's a music scholar and that's worked very well. They were saying last night that it's the one of the easier GCSE with no homework at all (which for my children is a key issue - of course parents on this thread probably have more normal keener children than I have) which leaves time for the other homeworks for the 9 academic subjects.

The other question is whether employer prejudices might mean a future employer sees a child's CV with cooking and woodwork and that kind of GCSE on it and think - ah low IQ, state school, uninformed parents because they will remember in their day the clever boys did English and the not so clever woodwork , however unfair that might be. In other words will some choices sully your CV?

Buggedoff · 15/02/2014 09:29

Dd1 is going to do English Lit, English Lang, maths, 0.5 RE, triple science, MFL (probably French) as compulsory subjects. She has to choose 3 subjects. She is picking art, drama and history.

She is also exceptionally weak at languages, but the school will not budge on this. Her other options were Spanish, Latin, Computer studies, DT and music (all of which she's weak at) and geography (which she's ok at but not interested in).

I'm quite happy with her choices. I know some people may say that drama is a weak subject, but all her other subjects are strong, and it is nice to do something that is enjoyable. I suspect she will go on to do art for A'Level and possibly degree. I think for her dropping the language would be preferable but it's not possible.

craggyhollow · 15/02/2014 12:22

Spanish is easier than French according to the head of MFL at dds school. Fwiw my dd is doing the same as yours minus drama and full RE

TalkinPeace · 15/02/2014 14:36

Laurabridges
I suspect employers will not look much beyond the double english, double maths, triple science, history, mfl
as I'd hope they would be alert enough to realise that even academic kids need a break sometimes

FWIW DS is probably going for music and astronomy as his extras as he flatly refuses to do geography Angry

Swipe left for the next trending thread