Yr 8 going into Yr9 and options aahhhh

[BabyG2004]

My DD is choosing her options. She has to take Maths, English and 2 science (triple will be an option in Yr10 if promising enough). She is also choosing History, Pschology and PE but she is stuck on choosing between Geography and Photography as her last choice. A MFL is not a requirement and she has chosen not to carry on with French.
What are people’s thoughts please? The teachers have said she could achieve good grades in both History & Geography but she is aware that it will be a lot of essay writing. Is Photography and PE too many ‘fluffy subjects’? Thanks

My daughters PE GCSE is 5 lessons a week, four in the classroom theory based and one practical. Very heavy subject on written work.

BabyG2004 I would say it depends on your daughter's abilities and future plans.

Unless she has a career in photography planned I would go for Geography as it keeps more options open. And as long as she has the ability to do the written work.

Options like photography often involve lots of coursework and can be time consuming.

What do school think?

How academic is she?
How sporty is she?
How artistic is she?

PE has I believe a lot of science in it. It is also a nice active GCSE that will possibly help her mental health which is not to be underestimated.

Photography is I am guessing similar to Art. Art tends to be reported as a time-eater. So if she has perfectionist tendencies this might not be the best option as she could lose hours to her portfolio. On the other hand, going out and about taking photos could also be viewed as relaxing and good for mental health.

The good thing about both of these subjects is I am presuming they will still have coursework / controlled assessments? This will lighten the load a bit when it comes to the final GCSE exams which I think is not to be underestimated.

(I think it is too young to be picking options. I am glad my y8 doesn't need to select GCSEs until Feb y9.)

Normally on these threads I say that parents should let children choose the subjects they are interested in. But that assumes that the school puts sufficient constraints on the choices that they can't really go wrong and are required to choose enough facilitating subjects. If she chose Photography, she would potentially only have 5 core, academic subjects that open doors (english, maths, 2 science, history) and 3 that are not (photography, PE, psychology). Though English may be 2 GCSEs? It's not a great ratio though. Depending on your daughter's aptitudes, I would be pushing strongly for either French or Geography instead of one of the others.

Also, my daughter is doing GCSE Art. It takes more time than all the rest put together. Photography is probably similar. Only for the very keen!

I am so glad I’m not in school does does three year GCSEs (and OFQUAL will be releasing new rules to stop schools doing this) and really feel for you.
My advice would be to let your DD pick-the grades matter but not the subject per se when it comes to options. If she is happy in what she is doing, she is more likely to succeed.
I would also check exactly what exam boards, each subject follows and then visit their websites and triple check you know how each qualification will be assessed and what it covers.

My DS chose options in Yr 8 for Yr 9. I liked it actually. I think it is good for them at that age to have a bit of control over which subjects they do. He was very glad to see the back of Latin and Music, and more motivated to work on the others. But he had to do triple science, a language, and a humanity and will do 11 GCSEs altogether, so not losing much.

DD2 has had a 'mini options'. But that is basically picking which creative arts to do/drop and which techs to do/drop plus ability to pick a second MFL.
I think this is fine, but I wouldn't have wanted her to be 'picking options' this year.
If DD1 had had to pick in y8 it is quite possible she would have dropped French - she ended up doing 2 MFLs for GCSE. she would only have been 12 - too young for such decisions I think.

Thank you all, she is good academically, predicted to gain 7’s, very sporty and achieved a great exam score on her written paper for yr 8, she enjoys taking photos but is she good at it? Not too sure.
Think she is verging on choosing Geography over photography. Wish she enjoyed French but she is adamant that she doesn’t like it.
This is so hard for them, who knows what they want to do yet .

GCSEs in year 9? They don’t start until year 10 in my daughters school is that not standard?

OFQUAL will be releasing new rules to stop schools doing this

Can you link to a source for this? If true it would affect many schools (especially grammars in this area).

Photography is an Art subject which she does not have on her list. Personally I think Psychology is the one that should go. The core subjects plus an art, PE and 2 humanities looks like a broad curriculum and an excellent range of GCSEs but History and Geography are the ones to go for, not Psychology. Psychology A level is often studied without the GCSE. If she’s bright, there is every need to have a wide spread of GCSE and a creative subject has a place in this.

This isn't Ofqual, but interesting read:
www.tes.com/news/exclusive-exam-board-leaders-criticise-three-year-gcse-courses

And you don't need A-level Psychology to study it at degree level. You need Maths and Sciences.

The schools are not really teaching a 3 year GCSE though, or at least my son's school isn't. For example, in English they are not yet studying the texts they will do for GCSE. Same for drama. Maths, Languages are all clearly cumulative, so they don't teach any differently in Year 9. Same for science I would think, pretty much. Maybe for subjects like History it might work like a 3 year GCSE? I'm happy that he's got a bit more control over his study this year.

History and geography is a big ask of evenbtop set kids. Sheer amount of course material is huge.

I would agree that doing 2 out of psychology, PE and photography is probably more sensible for keeping future doors open and that photography is probably the least relevant to a lot of future plans. Could she do something outside school? Our local cinema does kids photography courses and sessions.

OFQUAL will be releasing new rules to stop schools doing this

Can you link to a source for this? If true it would affect many schools (especially grammars in this area).

OFQUAL won’t release anything until they make a final decision but the new 9-1 GCSEs were designed to be two year courses only with students only being allowed to cover that time period. They realise schools are still bending the rules and will be coming up with strategies to stop that.

I have taught in two Grammars and neither did three year qualifications (exception being Triple Science at the time) so it won’t be a huge deal to revert back and give pupils a wider exposure to subjects for longer.

Photography is very time-consuming, and the science element of PE is often underestimated. You don't need to study Psychology at either gcse or A level to pursue it at uni.

They can specify coursework has to be done in 2 years before the exam, but most schools would do.that anyway.
They can't possibly stop schools doing it if they want to.

DC's school does a 1 year option where they do one GCSE in year 9, then I think it's 2 3year options and 1 2year option which they start in year 10 after not doing it in year 9.
They also do RE in the summer of year 10.

Not desperately keen myself (dd1 got 16 GCSEs overall, although because she was top set she did 2 extra maths) but apparently more parents like it than otherwise.