Year 9 options - drama or second language?

[clary]

DD is bright and able. She has always enjoyed being in plays and singing on stage but never talked much about drama lessons at school.

Until recently she was all up for picking up a second language at GCSE (she would cope no problem academically). But now she is saying she wants to do drama. I am wary on two counts (or maybe three - hmm yes, three!)

1. will it be full of muppets picking what they think is an easy option, and will she like group work with a bunch of peeps she doesn't know or like much (she can be solitary tho she has a nice small group of pals)

2. will it look a bit duff on her future UCAS form (other choices are French, music, geography)

3. I am a bit sad as a teacher of MFL and (kind of) triple linguist that none of my DC will even be dual linguists (DS1 is in yr 11 and DS2 is stuck on PE so won't fit in 2 languages I doubt). That's my issue, I do see, but I am a bit concerned that she is shutting a door - if you are going to use languages meaningfully (she wants to do A level French) surely 2 is better than 1?? Could she take up drama at A level without the GCSe or is that potty?

Thanks for reading my essay!

Ladies thank you so much for your very very helpful responses :)

jimams Compulsory subjects are just the usual ones, maths, English and science. She will be doing triple science.

She wants at the moment to go to music college but I have asked her to write down all that she wants to do to help us decide.

She is v pro drama all of a sudden (or so it seems to me). Not anti language, just no space for it. I'm no geographer but even I feel a humanity is important.

That does make sense about A* in anything better than B in German - a colleague who knows a bit about this told me the same thing.

My days MI that's very impressive by DD1! My DD has done nothing like that. Maybe I should suggest it!

Interesting about picking up a language at uni - not unusual with Russian even in my day (many many years ago) hmm or Italian as well. German perhaps less common. Pretty sure she won't do languages at uni anyway but I am also certain that she won't be able to do German A level without German GCSE - even with my fabulous support. I guess I just love German (my degree) and am a bit sad - I do see tho, that this is really really not about me :)

teenandtween I am worried too about her having to work with peeps she doesn't know. We maybe need to talk about that some more.

truly I don't think it is for duffers - I am just worried that the duffers will think so IYSWIM. She can certainly do drama and music - there are no option boxes. Lol re Les Mis - she is in it next month and her best clarinet playing mate is in the orchestra! That's a point actually re conflict with music and drama - I will ask about that at parents' eve.

Thanks again and sorry for another essay - it is just helping me think it though :)

I read recently that drama degree students have the best employability out of any graduates. Apparantly the course gives them a lot of confidence which transfers to been good in interviews. Employers value people who can stand up, do presentations, etc.

Not suggesting she does a degree in it but I can see how a gcse would be useful!

Interestingly dds MFL teacher said to her at options evening that she does think there's a benefit to only concentrating on one mfl at gcse. Not sure if you'd agree with that, sounds like you don't. I don't think she was saying dd isn't capable of doing two. She's lvl 7s in German and 6a in French so I think considered capable of doing both if she wants but her teacher seemed to think she should choose.

She sounds as if she may well end up doing very similar GCSE's to ds2. His compulsories include triple science & a MFL which doesn't leave a huge amount of room for others. Originally we thought he had 4 options so he was going to do drama music geography then ICT or RS or Latin. That went down to 3 for the current year 8's due to the new GCSE's & so he's settled on drama music & RS.

I think it's fine - doing triple sciences etc means he has enough academic subjects - and he'll definitely end up doing something performance related so he may as well enjoy some of his GCSE's. Seems a bit daft plodding through 10 academic GCSE's when he absolutely knows what he wants to do & knows what he enjoys.

if there is a possibility that she will want to do languages at university or even at A level,then I would plump for the 2nd language.Otherwise I think she shoulg with what she enjoys.drama shows a different skill set.i do am dram and employers have always looked upon that favourably, and told me so.

Don't worry about future UCAS because they rarely look at the actual GCSE's you did! What I would say is that my dd took drama instead of a second language and hates it! It's a lot of work along with music as well because in drama there's no exam so its all coursework! Its also very subjective and quite a simple way of writing which irritates dd! I would say convince her to go for a second language, dd wishes she had!

I did drama at both GCSE and A-Level and much, much preferred A-Level. There was a lot less jumping through hoops with coursework (lorimeed mentions the simple way of writing; this is compounded by the almost robotic way you had to get in certain points - of course this was just one exam board, and it's probably changed now.) Also, the group work could be a bit of a problem at times, but for the actual marked performance, the class was broadly split into those were likely to mess around and those who weren't.
Conversely, A-Level (where several people took it not having taken it at GCSE, and as far as I remember, did well) was so much better - a lot more freedom (especially with the written element) and loads more enjoyable.