How important is range of subjects when choosing a secondary school?

[solittletime]

Would welcome advice especially from parents whose children have done gcses.

Would you choose a new school with what looks like great and established management, but that can only offer the main subjects ( but probably do them well)
Or an established school that is struggling but has a wider choice of options?

My child is averagely bright, no learning difficulties.

Would a new school with less range be problematic when choosing to move to A levels at a more established school at a later date?

Just can't see that far ahead myself!!

Anyone around?

I would value a school where there were a range of language options, and the opportunity for children to study drama, music, design and technology. Even if OFSTED had pointed out areas where the school was struggling, that wouldn't necessarily put me off - I'd simply be wanting to know what the school was doing to address the problems.

My children would be dreadfully unhappy with a school that didn't offer music. Ds had to move to a school without drama for various reasons relating to SEN but its having the music department that has kept him motivated and in school.

What do you mean by main subjects?

There is not a huge choice at GCSE anyway..... they have to do maths, English X2, science x2. That leaves around 3 subjects to choose but many schools will insist/encourage one of these three to be a foreign language and another a humanity so that the child achieves the EBAC.

Personally, I would want my child to have the option to do at least one creative subject - art, drama, music etc.

we had no choice.

there is a local school that we are in the catchment of.

it is oversubscribed every year, as are all reasonably accessible schools in the area.

If your child is currently in Y6, the range of subjects on offer may have reduced by the time your child reaches Y8/Y9 and chooses GCSE options.

In both the schools my children attend, certain non-core subjects previously offered at GCSE have been dropped due to funding issues, staffing issues or not having enough candidates. Other local schools are having similar issues.

With creative & practical subjects, just because a school is offering that subject now is no guarantee that it will still be available in three years time.

If you want to think as far as application to sixth form, look at the sixth form prospectus on school websites to find out which GCSEs are required for which A-level subjects. Generally they ask for GCSE subjects which are offered everywhere.

If your child is currently in Y6, the range of subjects on offer may have reduced by the time your child reaches Y8/Y9 and chooses GCSE options.

Have to agree with this. What they do now can be VERY different to what they do in 3 years' time - there are no guarantees. My son wanted to do computing - when he joined the school, they did the ECDL in years 1 to 3 and then GCSE for years 4-5 and to A level. When he was in year 3, they stopped it all, so he was 2/3rds way through the ECDL and it counted for nothing. Now he's in year 5 and they've just started GCSE computer science, so he's missed out because for some weird reason they didn't "do" computing for 2 years. (Rumour was that they did it to get rid of the useless computing teacher - by dropping it from their curriculum, they could make him redundant!).

I think all DD cares about is maths, but I think she'll need to do art as well if she wants to become a photographer.

My first priority when choosing a school is whether core subjects are well taught. If a school isn’t delivering on those, don’t go there.

Thank you for the replies! Just seen on the new school's website that music and computing are on the curriculum now. This would be the very first year for the school so our dc would be in the first year 7 ever.
Can't make up my mind if that is a good or bad thing.
But agree that possibly getting core subjects right is the priority.

It’s not just for sixth form is it though? Dd did photography and graphic design at gcse and I had no idea in Yr6 that she would want to head down that route. I guess if it hadn’t been an option she would have done other stuff but she’s now planning a degree and career in that direction.

Depends why they’re struggling, weather the struggling school had got a grip on the issues and how limited the range of subjects is.

If they’re just offering music and computing now, it doesn’t seem like they are even offering the main subjects.

@pacer142 good computing teachers are very very hard to find. If they are good at IT, they don’t want to be teachers because they can earn double or triple in business. People who are already trained teachers generally don’t know much about IT.

rafals Sorry I mean on top of traditional subjects ( English, maths, history, geography, science, french, pe, re, art)
They have now added computing and music.
I guess that makes it a pretty good range now especially for a school that has just opened?

The other school does have a few more but has been " requires improvement " Ofsted for a long time now with currently no permanent headteacher. However it's the local school and 10 minute walk and it would make life so much easier on so many levels !

I don’t like the idea of being the first year group going into a new school. There are no senior children to look up to. Drama and Music will be poor because there are no older children who improve a choir, orchestra or a play. It’s just younger children. Sport would also be limited. It also means there is no interaction with older children or leadership from older children. In a sense it’s a nude school. The body is present but it doesn’t have any clothes!

You do not need Photography GCSE to do A level Photography. DD has A* in A level
Photography without the GCSE. Art GCSE is fine for Art based A levels. I therefore think you don’t need a huge array of GCSEs. What you need are ones that qualify the pupil for a variety of A levels. So History helps with Politics, Maths with Economics. Lots of A level subjects don’t need the matching GCSE. Eg. Psychology, Economics, Computer Science, Politics, Photography, Business Studies, Textiles, Philosophy, Classical Civilisation etc.

When looking at subjects, the Ebacc ones are vital plus RE, Art, Music, Drama, PE, Computing, plus a choice of languages. Others are nice to have but the best advice is to do a broad portfolio of subjects at GCSE because children don’t need to specialise early.

I'd have more of a problem with just having the one cohort to be honest. How can it afford to be fully staffed, and therefore able to offer a good range of subjects, and after school clubs with 20% of the funding? Plus always being the oldest.

No tech and no drama isn't great. And only one MFL :(

Rumour was that they did it to get rid of the useless computing teacher - by dropping it from their curriculum, they could make him redundant

The reason ECDL was dropped is that half way through the year the DfE suddenly withdrew it from the performance tables so schools stopped running it

The reason most schools were doing it in the first place was because it was an easy way to manipulate the performance figures. The fact that schools dropped it just because it no longer counts sort of proves the point.

I agree with those saying things will likely change before your dc get there anyway. Both Government changes (I have a dd currently doing the new GCSEs) and also staff leaving and not being replaced (ds had done one year of German when his German teacher left and wasn't replaced for example), or, alternatively, new staff being employed and subjects added.