School changes reduces GCSE's from 9 to 8.

[LottieJam2]

My daughter chose her GCSE options in good faith based on her future career plans. Half a term in, the school want to get rid of 5 GCSE's which means she can only take 8 instead of the 9 she wanted to take. The school letter says they want to enable children to meet their potential. How is cutting down her GCSE's to 8 going to meet her potential when she wants to, and is capable of achieving 9? Am I missing something, or where can I turn to for help with this?

What year is your DD in OP?

Wit the new GCSEs pupils (unless exceptional) will not cope with 10 subjects due to the increased content.

Ask yourself this, is it better to have 8 good grades or 10 not so good?

My dd is doing 11.5 (RE short course is the .5) I'm really worried it is too many... and hearing how many schools are doing 8/9, I wonder if dd will be at a disadvantage in comparison. There is the possibility of having 11.5 mediocre grades rather than 8 really strong results She seems to be coping OK at the moment but has to work really hard to achieve, it doesn't come easily to her.

DD2 is doing 10 or 11, depends whether they sort out getting an RE teacher in. It's a shame because they teach RE very well - DD1 loved it and did very well in it. But we shall see. DD is very academic though and is doing triple science so some of her peers would be doing 9.

The new spec of GCSE in Food (or catering, can't remember the name!) Has been dropped at my school as the teacher said it was basically now a science paper. There are though vocational equivalent qualifications available that count on league tables for current year 10 i.e. NCFE Vcert

I wonder if Catering has gone as there is no GCSE anymore. The AQA technical award that schools were banking on now isn’t included in progress data so although students could study it and get a qualification there is no value to school data.

Lots of Schools have therefore dropped it like a hot potato.

The GCSE Food prep is definitely nothing like catering and is science based.

8 GCSE’s is low but as only 5-6 GCSE’s will be needed to progress to post 16 courses there are still enough.