Why do the amount of GCSE schools allow differ from so widely

[Grrrrrsnarl]

My ds has just chosen his options
The school is above average but on reading other posts on here they are not being offered the same amount of GCSE exams as others.

They take
english literature, language, maths, double science. Which are 5 GCSE (compulsory)

Then 1 gcse in humanities (out of mfl, history or geography) ,. 1 sport (either core pe, sport ocr. Or drama btec)

The 3 options which are a mixture of GCSE or btec courses

So a maximum of 9 GCSE are on offer + a btec drama / sport option

My son who is on course to achieve B grades is doing 8 GCSE and 1 btec and 1 core pe

Is this normal, posts on here are saying 11 GCSE ( my friends dd is doing 11)

Is the school going for quality over quantity? Can't work out why they are so different

No she's still at her vocational school (Year 11 now!) I was referring to her other school before she went there. Most kids of her academic calibre would be expected to be applying for 3/4 A levels then uni

I'm currently teaching a vocational 6th form course - I teach Level 3 BTEC Extended Diploma in Performing Arts, in partnership with a theatre. It's a fabulous course and has attracted students who are passionately interested in the performing arts. In our area there's not much and so the options for those who are really desperate to make it are few and far between. Without exception, the students in my Year 12 group are "academic enough" to be doing A Levels. One girl came to me from an independent school with a string of As & A*s at GCSE. They're not selling out. It's a shame that so many people still see BTECs as a Mickey Mouse alternative for the not-very-bright.

Alexander

Aw, I understand now, I forgot yours was clever
I've seen similar happen from my brief teaching experience.
My friend teaches Childcare, and Social Care, both vocational, we both qualified together.
She told numerous stories how girls with high grade GCSE's were put off those subjects, even when they wanted to take them.
Hairdressing and Beauty Therapy were similar.
Why would you take A levels and try for academic courses at Uni, if it wasn't what you wanted.
I do think it's unfair when schools pressurise children into doing what makes the school look good.
Fair enough make all the information available and explain they are capable of taking A levels etc, but don't pressure them.

I think that's the type of course Ds is heading towards Evil (sadly his new school don't do drama). Also sadly we may have to end up paying fees as the local btec Extended Diploma courses are dance based not drama based.

Oh that IS a shame. Where are you based? Prob too far to come to me :(

Glad it's going well, Evil!

As I have a dancer and a musician, we're not in need of your talents at the moment....but I have been wondering how you have been getting on!

Got to get through the hurdle of gcse English first though (top set maths predicted grade 8, bottom set English predicted Grade 2!)

(The musician, btw, has academic GCSEs and is doing academic A-levels...but dreams of studying jazz performance. Trying to keep all the balls in the air, both the 'expected' ones of academic qualifications and the 'dream' ones of music qualifications and experience, is really quite tough)

There are a couple nearby butvthey are not particularly good whereas the dance ones are a similar type set up to what you describe. mostly respected dance schools running the course.

Dd's school runs the drama btec but it isn't state funded (the dance diploma has DaDa funding)

Hi Can't

I know we've talked about this before, but I'm sort of glad a lot of the angst has been taken away from dd. It's made her choices so much easier.
have you looked at the course offered from Uni of Manchester combined with the RNCM. It's great but only for the academics, your ds would be fine though.

Too classical, and too much academic music. His 'academic backup' is Modern History, not the academic side of Music (strange child).

He does a certain amount of what he calls' the dark side' - county orchestra, that type of thing - but it is jazz that he loves.

Thanks can’t - it’s going brilliantly. Kids are fantastic and the sheer number of experiences they are getting on a daily basis is just great - the theatre are amazing with them. They’ll be watching their 10th production at the theatre since September on Thursday. All free to them - that makes it worth it by itself!

Aw, just a thought. It's going to be very difficult for him to make the choice.

How much would you persuade a child into taking a subject?
I'd never force or push and dd is stubborn anyway, but i'm looking at Drama as her other options are Art or Citizenship, no humanities as she dropped them last year.
She has said definitely no, but think this is more of a clash of personalities with the teacher and dd attitude tbh.
She'll be doing plenty of it for her Degree and beyond, it's sort of half of what she wants to do , that's why I can't understand why she won't consider it.

Anyway, girls of this age are naturals at Drama, it should be compulsory

DD - the dancer - is oddly awful at Drama, couldn't drop it fast enough and is about as unobtrusive about the house as a teenager can be. All angst and drama is reserved for her dances - she excels at really, really, really angst-ridden gloom shown through the medium of dance!

On the Drama GCSE question - is it a bit like DD not doing Dance GCSE, in that exactly what is studied in the GCSE doesn't match with the way that she will eventually access the subject? So while it has the same 'title / subject matter' as a thing she will one day do a lot of, it doesn't cover the right things, in the right way, for her to be interested in it / see it as valuable at the moment?

I think you've knocked the nail on the head there.
i've looked at the content and it's a bit dry tbh. I'm sure it's very good as a whole subject though.

They might get slightly better grades by studying 8 (of which 2 are English) but at what cost

What cost indeed? I did 8 GCSEs (and 3 A levels) and got an Oxbridge offer. And my GCSEs weren't that amazing, either, certainly not all As (there weren't A*s in my day) and I even had a C amongst them, gasp! I went to a state grammar school. I ended up failing the Oxbridge entrance exam but that had nothing to do with having done 8 GCSEs.

DS is doing 8 and his comprehensive is one of the highest performing schools in the county (according to league tables).

I don't know how the current "harder" GCSEs compare with the original ones that replaced O levels, but suspect they on a par. And everyone back then appears to have done 8 or 9. The only reason it got to silly numbers was because they were easier. I did Italian GCSE some years after the rest of my GCSEs and it was much easier than the German GCSE I'd done at school.

I think the issue is not the number, but a restricted range.

So if a child can choose, say, 3 out of the 8 pretty much freely - so English x 2, maths, Science x 2, but then select 3 more without restriction from the full range of Art / Design / humanities / languages / PE / Music / Childcare / IT / Drama etc etc, then I don't have too much of a problem.

However, when schools mandate that for even those 3 options, 1 must be history or geography (and no, you can't study both), one must be German or French (and no, you can't study both) and the last one can only be chosen from a shortlist of 3, or worse, for able students HAS to be a third Science GCSE, then that's an issue.

I'm a bit older than you - last few years of O-levels - but in my day it was normal to do c. 9-10 O-levels if you did them (obviously there was still the O-level / CSE split).

It was fairly free choice after the mandatory 2x English, 1x Maths though:

1,2 or 3 Sciences
1 or 2 out of a list of 4 languages
Usually at least 1 out of History, Geography and RE
Art, DT-type subjects (Home Ec etc), Electronics, Music.
I don't remember options such as PE and Drama, just because I didn't do either of them, but I suspect they existed.

Then you could do more of some things - Add Maths, AO French - which was how I ended up with 12, 3 taken early at different points. 4 A-levels (including Further Maths) , 2 S-levels.