AIBU poor GCSE options?

[hornetgirl]

Short story, I invested a lot of time and emotional energy on trying to get DS into a good school. He passed 11+ in a neighboring borough but we didn't get a place as we were too far away. He didn't get into the very super selective grammar in our borough.

Eventually we got offered our 6th choice for secondary school. It is a previously failing school but now an improving academy. I have decided to run with it as we have no other options and have focused on the positives, which there are many (sports/ close to home etc).

I thought I as doing well until I was browsing the website today and realised that the year 8 GCSE options are really poor. There is no option for triple science offered at all! They do not require a modern foreign language as compulsory and the children only get three options for GCSE above the compulsory ones (one of which is PE) . So basically I ended up stuck in doom again.

This time last year I was hoping for at least a school where he could get 10/11 good GCSEs, now he is stuck in a school where he can only do a max of 9 and is extremely limited in his options. He is quite into his science, will he face trouble later in life with A levels and University if he only can choose double science?

So fed up with this whole sodding business :-(

[swingofthings]

DD is a high achiever and her school does offer triple science and computer science. However, she has chosen to study RE (even though she was raised in no religion at all) and PE (even though she isn't particularly good at sports!). She was originally told she could do PE (as she wanted to do it as a 11th GCSE) but actually suggested she took it in Y11 (studying independently).

I was a bit dubious of those choices (over history/geography for instance), but now that she has finished Y12, I can say that they were both excellent choices for high achiever. RE is little about religion, much more about sociology, ethics, debate and DD has learnt so much from this course. I think it is one that is very poorly understood because of its name. I would actually think highly of a school making it a mandatory GCSE. As for PE, again, it is assumed it is all about sport. It isn't. A lot of it is about science and they also learn a lot about leadership. The best achievers in DD school are not the ones involved in high level sports, but those who are good at sciences and those who making fair decisions come to naturally.

The only downfall of RE is that it is almost impossible to get an A* (I think you need to get 100%). All this to say that you shouldn't write these off as 'easy' subjects, they are not.

[redyawn]

If your DS is motivated and bright he'll do well in almost any decent school.

It sounds like you live in the same borough as me. We went through a similar hand-wringing with DD1. In her school, 9 GCSEs are standard, but she was offered Further Maths after school, which she did, so she ended up with 10 GCSEs - and all 8s and 9s , I might add.

[Malbecfan]

Zombie thread

[LadyPenelope68]

The compulsory GCSE'S you mentioned are fairly standard in most schools, and he may not have had much more choice even if he had gone to a different school.

Not doing Triple Science is not the tragedy you seem to think it is, and even if his school did Triple, that does not mean he would be able to do it, you don't get a choice in most schools, it goes on ability. It does not stop you studying science st A Level either, many students go on to study Sciences at A Level without having done Triple.

I think you need to change your "woe is me" attitude and stop being so dramatic about it. Totally ridiculous attitude, I agree with your husband.

[Idonotsetanalarmformyteen]

My ds is at a high performing comprehensive, it gets some of the best results in our county. It does offer triple science but you can only do one MFL for GCSE (although it offers three languages). If you do triple science you get 9 GCSEs, if not you get 8. There are also options for ale mathmiticians to do Statistics GCSE and they also offer a couple of other subjects as after school options. MFL is not compulsory but about half the year are doing either French or Spanish. Most kids won't do science degrees so there's no real need to do triple science unless you think you will. I think your ds will probably already know where his interests and talents lie, I certainly knew from what is now year 7 that there was no way I would do science A levels. At my school sciences were taught separately and you only needed to do one. I suspect most did two or three but not me, I just did chemistry.

I did 8 GCSEs at a grammar school and it's enough, we're not longer in the era of doing about 14 GCSEs because they were so easy. I don't think many private schools do that many anymore either.

[Idonotsetanalarmformyteen]

able mathematicians