DD (yr 10) wants to swap subjects. Do I let her or refuse?

[TheLogLady]

She doesn't want to do art any more (which she is good at) as she isn't enjoying it (and she thinks she's not good enough)

but she's not sure what to swap to.

I think se shouldn't because

she is good at art. her teacher thinks she is good.

it's a whole term to catch up with something else

she doesn't passionately want to do something else

i'm not sure about swapping just because - i think she needs to stick with what she originaly wanted

But:

Will she be miserable?

Any idea why she's not enjoying it?

If she wants to swap, she should do it now. My ds wanted to swap just after the Xmas of Yr10 but it was too late.

Art is extremely time consuming in terms of the coursework, from what I understand.

Maybe you should have a word with her art teacher and ask her to give her some encouragement/guidance on anything she's finding too hard.

thinks it's more work than she was expecting and she doesn't think she's good enough. despite her teacher actually writing us a letter last week to tell us she was doing well will dig more later though.

Better to catch up 1 term now in another subject than spend the next 5 terms on a subject she isn't enjoying, specially one with a lot of coursework. But try to check with her and the teacher first to see if its just a sudden jump in the standards from last year and its typical to have a bit of a blip.

would it be OK to phone or email the art teacher do you think?

i've told DD she needs to speak to her tutor tomorrow and decide what she would rather doinstead.

i think it would be easier to lether change if she really wanted to do something specific rather than maybe classics or maybe environmental science or maybe something else.

DD did this with art, I can't remember how far into the academic year she did it. She changed to ICT. She organised it all by herself with my support, through her tutor. hth

She did well in the ICT gcse.m

I'd let her. Art GCSE has a lot of coursework.

Would she be interested in graphics, as there's still an element of art in there?

At my DCs school there can be no changing courses after the end of September except for medical reasons. So your DD might not be allowed to change to something else it depends on the schools policy.

Art is a bit of a shock to the system and once she gets on top of the course she might find the workload more manageable.

I think you might struggle to find another course she can swap too at this stage and would suggest you speak to the school about her options before doing anything else. Certainly where I work there is no chance of a change after HT unless there are very strong mitigating circumstances such as illness/injury or a change in personal circumstances.

i am hoping it is too late. think catching up would be really hard.

If she isn#t enjoying it I would let her change, There is a lot of course work with Art and the exam is 10 hours long, Taken over 2 days.

My dd is loving GCSE Art, but it is her second heaviest subject - I think it would be awful if you didn't enjoy it. I would talk to her year tutot quickly to see if she can change - or even (dare I say?) just drop it. How many is she doing?

dd1 (Yr 9) swapped a subject last month.

I was happy for her to swap, depending on:

• what she wanted to swap it for
• her understanding that this was the only time she'd be swapping
• the new subject teacher's confidence that she would catch up
• the school's ability to re-jig her timetable

It has all gone very well, by the way