Subject search

[mumzy22]

Hello Mums,
Pls can you advise...
I'm trying to search online for all Secondary Schools (State/Independent) in the Surrey area that offer specific subjects in their curriculum and as a GCSE eg Mandarin, Design Technology...
How can I apply these filters to an advanced search pls?
I can't find this option on the Gov.uk website or on 'The Good Schools Guide'.
There must be a simpler and quicker way than going through each schools website, right?
Thanks for any tips...

I'm not sure that you would even get this information on their websites. Our school tended to change GCSE options every couple of years for subjects like graphics & photography. Their GCSE results info would show GCSEs in subjects such as Polish, Russian, Urdu, but these would only be taken by students who spoke the languages at home. A 100% pass rate is fairly meaningless if only one student sat the exam and self studied.

Yes agree, you would be unable to do this for independent sector as schools change their options every year and any specialist language is taken by native speakers. There isn't enough time in the GCSE/National curriculum to fit in anything "different".
Most private schools publish their results on their websites.

& if they don't publish their results, they're not very proud of them!

Thank you so much. That makes complete sense! Never considered those points. So I guess I just need to do my “homework” thoroughly and contact schools directly...?

It's on their websites - if you are looking for the future it may change but if you are looking for a year 9 or 10 place now you can find out if there is space. It's worth remembering that universities look for 9 or 10 top grades so dc tend to choose subjects they will do well in, ie my dd chose geography over DT because she was better at the skills needed for a good grade in geography than DT (she enjoyed both).

Sorry to clarify above it's 9 or 10 GCSE grades - I think uni's consider the top 8 grades but I may be corrected.

Really appreciate your advice. Many Thanks

Which year is your DC in? Dominic Cummings may have scrapped all arts, MFLs & humanities by the point your DC takes their GCSES.

OP, this subject is being covered on the Secondary Education / SW London Girls independent thread at the moment. Yes unis look at top 8 GCSEs as they don't discriminate against state sector applicants where many schools offer only 8 gcse options.

Dominic Cummings may have scrapped all arts, MFLs & humanities by the point your DC takes their GCSES.

It's also probably a reasonable assumption that most schools will offer DT but hardly any will offer Mandarin.