GCSE options - any regrets in hindsight?

[Mrshighandmighty]

To those whose DCs are in sixth form or beyond - do they have any regrets looking back on their choices three years ago ... benefit of hindsight etcetc...

Art's a lot of work and one suffers if they are not keen. Triple science took up an option that could have been better used elsewhere.

DS1 did 11 GCSEs all academic apart from PE which was a mistake, though not important.
DS1 also chose one BTEC , kind of forced as he did not want to do D&T. He found it boring and undemanding and in hindsight wishes he hadn't .

My experience would advise against asking two languages at GCSE (unless you're thinking about doing languages at A level and beyond of course)

Taking not asking!

DD regrets not doing History at GCSE, as she's now thinking of Law, and History would have been a good one to have apparently. I'm not sure what she'd have dropped though - maybe Geography - but she did very well in that and is currently doing it at A level, so it's hard to know.

Not a regret, but doing both art and textiles was a huge amount of work. If I'd have known I'd have built a studio extension instead of losing my lounge fro two years!!

DD1 regretted Art and I've only just recovered.

DD2 regretted Dance but that was more because she ended up doing it in one year instead of two and the choreography bit turned into a nightmarish rush.

DS is in year 11 and I wish he was doing fewer GCSEs - he's doing 11 plus an ICT thing that's equivalent to a GCSE so 12 effectively. Its just too many and we seem to be in a constant state of controlled assessment pile up. It isn't any particular subject - he could just do with ditching something!

Agree triple science wasn't worth it but luckily it didn't take up another option. ds1 dropped Spanish at Christmas of Y11 after the mock. (French is compulsory so he still had MFL) He didn't do particularly well and we figured 13 gcse's was far too many as it was, he didn't need a 14th

BlueStringPudding - history is good for Law? DS has just chosen geography - it won't matter that much will it?

ICT - both DS thought they would enjoy it, both ended up being bored in the lesson. Only positive was that as its all controlled coursework with no final exam it was one less subject to revise for & as it finished in Jan, gave them free periods to do homework/revise/work on Res Mat project.

Double GCSE science, DS1 did this as it was all they offered at the school (who knows why), but then had no trouble in taking 2 sciences through to A2 level.

Excellent question OP.

Could I hijack slightly and ask what people think about Drama for a DD who loves it and gets good grades but has no interest in acting in the future.

She is going for a lot of heavy academic subjects so would drama give a bit of balance? It's that or media.

DD regrets taking the double science option rather than the triple award, she feels the triple award would've been more useful.

Drama is great for confidence in speaking and can help literacy too. In terms of GCSE my daughter loved it as light relief. However, the exam production took a lot of work and rehearsals - watch the likely timing of that with other exams and assessments which your child has chosen. Pure luck and my daughters was perfect timing, but if that work ha come at a pressure point for other subjects, it might have been a different story.

In terms of regrets, my daughter decided in the middle of year 10 she wanted to go to a competitive art college. I suddenly worried that she hadnt taken GCSE art. It seemed like a hopeless case to me but she got in on the strength of a personal portfolio put together in her own time off her own initiative and an interview where she, I assume, managed to convince them she was a good bet.

I totally agree that GCSE drama is great for building confidence in speaking and presentation. It also supports and complements English with the study of plots and characters.

No big regrets here with GCSE choices. However, ds took GCSE Geography which he found quite dull (a mixture of teaching and syllabus I think) which completely put him off choosing it at A level. He now says he should have done A level Geog instead of Politics.

Drama is really time consuming, and the group work assessment component can put a lot of pressure on at time when the focus should be on exam prep for the core subjects.

I would go for media over Drama, as the work is completed as you go along and then an exam during normal exam 'season', rather than with one large assessment at the end, just before exams start.

LynetteScavo - I think History is supposed to be a good base subject for Law, but I don't think it's a requirement anywhere.

Hello, I'm in uni now I and got average grades(7) in triple science gcse. I hated doing those subjects biology chem and physics because in triple science there was so much unecessary content that was needed to be learnt that actually created so much stress for me that i couldnt focus on my other 9 gcses like english, maths,geography , french, Computer science, religious studies etc. I did average(6-7) pass(4-5) in some of them however i didn't get a single (8) which made me feel those grades weren't good enough. I ended up doing A-levels too which was a massive mistake as it was like million times harder than triple science gcse. I should have done a btec in sciences or idk like applied science which gives access to high education then got into uni instead of doing a foundation year and getting in. But I am here now and I hope have enough courage to forget about the past and stay in uni.

Dd regretted French. She felt she ought to do a language but it was her weakest subject (6 instead of 7/8/9) combined with auditory processing issues in the speaking test. She wishes she’d taken Geography instead where she had previously scored the highest mark in her year group.

Less academic dd. Geography was an issue ad the schools seem to be able to pick their own case studies so they didn't seem to be covered in the revision guides. Also as a patent I found it very hard to identify what information was key and what wasn't.

Drama. Is different from eng lit. Eng lit you study the text and talk about it. Drama you discuss everything Except the text - staging, costumes, pace, lighting etc.

dd regretted taking DT (Product Design) and wished she had done Photography instead.
However DT was the subject she wanted to take the most at the time and it was her choice.
PS she was able to take Photography at a later stage, so it wasn't a major problem in the long term.

No regrets, saw it as a means to an end. Ds1 knew what he wanted to do at uni since year 10, that never changed and he had a wide enough range of subjects to cover most A level choices. He chose subjects he liked and that he was good at. Same for A levels and he has just finished his first year at uni.

Ds2 is the same, chose subjects he liked and was good at. Neither took drama but I would have been worried if they did due to the group element. Many parents have complained on here that someone else in the group is going to significantly lower the group grade and then their child's grade due to not caring.

Both children knew that the end goal is the highest grades at the end. The highest grades lead to usually higher A level grades which leads to choice when it comes to university courses. 50% go to uni so even if they didn't go they would still have stellar grades.

Wow zombie thread or what! But still relevant I guess.
I'm surprised as those who say triple science was a regret. My daughter took it simply because she liked science )she would do it at A level if you were allowed five subjects). She's going in to art so not needed but she loves science.
There's such a broad spectrum that I think the kids should do what they really like, and inevitably will end up doing several they don't.

Can I give the opposite of a regret? Very bright DC1 wanted to do Food & Nutrition GCSE and we parents were a little uncertain it was a good option for him, but didn't interfere. Absolutely no regrets about that - it was brilliant - he learnt a lot of relatively complex skills, that will serve him well for the rest of his life (and he got a 9 in the end too).

We did come close to regretting computer science. It's a great subject, but difficult to get good teachers for. DS had at least 3 different teachers in 2 years, and lots of supply in between. The school finally got a great teacher at Christmas in Year 11 who had their work cut out to finish the curriculum before the exams. But it was 2020, so we never truly found out whether it was enough preparation - DS got a decent Centre Assessed Grade which we were happy with.

My dd hated Spanish and indeed all languages with a vengeance. She wished she’d never taken it.

Also Art, endless hours of working and not producing much even though she’d spent hours on it.

So relieved to have those 2 finished with.