Pressure on daughter

[Kara742]

My 14 year old daughter is in yesr 10 at school and has recently received her predicted grades for gcse. She is taking English language, English literature, maths, further maths, Latin, classics, triple science, food/nutrition, drama, pe, Greek, philosophy and is predicted an A or A* in all of these except Greek (B) which is excellent and I have told her how proud I am. The problem is that now she has seen what she is predicted she has been panicking about the tests and seems continuesoy stressed and worried. It doesn't help that recently she had to miss a few weeks if school because if a burst and infected appendix... How can I get her to stop panicking so much?

top Sixth form colleges in my area require gcse in subject such as hisotry or geography when taking those subjects. So parents should check that before dropping both subjects.

In any case in both schools my kids attend they had to do either.

I'm sorry, I should of mentioned that children who are predicted A in maths are put in a separate group so she is currently studying for maths gcse which she will take later this year and then will study for further maths to take the gcse next year. I would like to point out again that she already has a French gcse which is a mfl and I have been repeatedly told that philosophy (which is philosophy and ethics as I also should of mentioned) is a humanity. Although she may have an odd range she isn't totally sure what she wants to do though her main choices are a vet, doctor, actress (she has been in a few small things but nothing huge) or biologist. The philosophy and Greek were purely for her personal interests and I am encouraging her to speak to her teachers about dropping them. Also history and geography are not necessary, although I did encourage her to choose them she did a lot* of personal research and decided against it. I think I answered all questions and thanks to everyone who gave helpful answers.

drama and pe rather than history or geography will not count in her favour for the vet schools (insanely competitive) and the med schools (just highly competitive)

Talkin If 11 is the standard for good uni entrance I wonder how all the indies around here get their candidates into uni, the majority RG / Oxbridge with 10? and why they stick quite so rigidly to their guns in not allowing more to so more than 10? I know you work in a uni. Is there something they don't know? Seriously, not being challenging. Just interested

I don't work in a Uni. I'm a beancounter.

11 leaves options open.
Lots of selective / private schools do not do the 'fluffy' ones so only do 10.
But what was 8 is now 10 or 11 : all the private school kids I meet are doing 10 or 11, often more ....
and remember the seismic changes in the curriculum in the last three years - modular to linear .... retakes limited etc etc
a good friend who IS an admissions tutor for an RG says their poor software had a hissyfit with all the updates this year.
next year will be worse
and the following year (the first year of all linear for 20 years) even more so

not doing Geography or History leaves a gap in OP's DDs knowledge that Greek cannot fill. Simple as that.

What is a beancounter?

Accountant
but DH works with schools a lot so reading up on curriculum changes and exam requirements is CPD for the business.

DS and DD both at very academic (top 10) independent schools who recommend 9, 10 if you want to (and only if they believe it is really necessary and won't just add pressure and take time away form extra curricular).

What is more important is number of As, or sometimes As too. We found a lot of universities for courses like medicine narrowed down applicants by filtering out anyone without a certain number of As, especially with private school applicants. Much better your DC does say 9 or 10 but is able to get a good number (e.g. 6 or 7) A grades, than doing 14 but not having enough time to dedicate to each subject and so getting As and the odd Bs rather than As.

DC both did 9 GCSEs and it hasn't limited them whatsoever, IMO it was a big advantage as they had time to do extracurricular things, work experience, socialise and enjoy their teenage years. DS is now at medical school and DD is at Bristol.

What Dalmatian says. My dd is at a high archiving state school, and they say the same. Aim for 9 or 10 A*/As.

A state school that knows what it's talking about? Who knew!

my kids who are at top grammar schools do each:
11 - boys school
and
11.5 - girls school

I wish they did 10 :)
each had 2 subjects of free choice
each chosen music (their hobbiy out of school)
one art and the other psychology

compulsory were in both schools:
maths
eng
eng lit
MFL (Latin isn't MFL - no idea who came up with that definition at your dd's school)
history or geography
RE (full course for s, 0.5 for dd)
biology
chemistry
physics
Citisenship - 0.5 course for my dd
IT - for my dd

Latin isn't MFL

GCSE Latin is now in the list of qualifications that make up the somewhat moribund English Bacc (here). It's possible that was the intended meaning.

Kara 742 When my older DD was considering her GCSE options one of the factors in her choice was to have a spread of subjects that would make her application for the most selective Science courses competitive (successfully so, she is now reading Natural Sciences). They like to see breadth as well as depth She did the prescribed ones Maths Sciences English Lang and Lit and History Geography French German and Resistant Materials Technology (they advise one subject that is not academic, and yes, it taught her to wire a plug ) She wishes she had done Religion and Ethics as to her utter horror she has been required to write essays on ethics as part of her course and her German helped get her an internship this summer.

They also as others have said emphasised the need for a string of A*s in academic subjects to get into the most competitive courses, at least 7 for Oxbridge / Medicine .

TalkinPeace You don't have to convince me about the importance of History, I have a BA and MA, currently studying for a PhD. but since she has started her courses in Year 9 she can only pare down, not build and the obvious ones to go to reduce her stress levels are the subjects that in the context of her ability and ambition add absolutely nothing, especially the coursework heavy ones. However I am guessing that there will be a school inspired arms race going on to be studying the most subjects without due respect for the quality of the spread of subjects or the greater importance of A*s than the sheer numbers of subjects sat.

friday16 thanks, that is what I meant

Kara's daughter will be doing enough and is obviously very bright so should be fine. The general suggestions of what the state grammars and academic private schools recommend usually 10, sometimes 9 GCSEs - 11 perhaps all done at a single sitting which shows perhaps more staying power than knocking them off early bit by bit and including a language and perhaps one of history or geography or both is probably wise.

You used to have have a language to get to university and it probably lingers on in the minds of some that most children at good schools do a language. As Kara as said her daughter already has passed a language GCSE.

Whilst there are many good reasons to do Latin gcse wanting to study medicine isn't one of them. There are probably as many technical terms derived from Greek as Latin, but prior knowledge of either isn't likely to be much of an advantage.

The ethics module in RS and statistics are definitely of more use for medicine.

Latin used to be a requirement though so more senior doctors might be impressed if you have A latin because that is their tradition than A something else.

Although some medical schools asked for Latin until, much more recently, it has been possible to study medicine without it since at least the 1930s, when the London teaching hospitals made it optional at school cert (forerunner of O level).

It still impresses.... A lot harder than travel and tourism GCSE.

A lot harder than travel and tourism GCSE.

Evidence would be nice. For example, Latin typically has 30% of candidates getting A, while Leisure and Tourism has around 1% getting A. Now that's obviously because of differences between the candidate pools, but presumably you have some evidence to show it's harder.

Latin hasn't been needed to study medicine for many decades so most senior doctors won't have studied it.

You do need to have a good understanding of ethics and stats (to critically appraise research evidence) though so those are of more use.

If someone enjoyed Latin and wanted to do it for that reason I wouldn't put them off it, but the view that it's useful for medicine is outdated and I wouldn't want someone wasting their precious options because of this.

OP, speaking as a mother of a DD in yr 11, pressure steps up many, many notches in the second year of GCSE. Particularly subjects like art where the assessment include a portfolio of work are particularly hard as the students have to work hard to not fall behind.

There will be lots of controlled assessments, tests, mock exams, revision - your DD will have to be very organised to ensure that she keeps all her plates spinning! More subjects = more balls.

Just bear in mind that if she is under pressure now, she will be under a hundred times more pressure in yr 11. Be prepared.

Good luck!

Mixing my metaphors - I meant 'more subjects = more plates'!

Prickle, I am not liking the sound of Y11