GCSE Options - French v Dance

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DD has already selected her options but is now having second thoughts about doing French. She is doing well in assessments but says that she finds it difficult. Her concern is that she will struggle with workload for GCSE and it will become very time consuming taking away from other subjects.

Her teacher and students in the years above have been saying how tough the new exam is. There is an option for her to take GCSE dance and as she takes dance outside school this might make sense. My concern is that Dance is seen as a softer option, although I do not know much about the exam other than it’s some performance and some exam based. I also think what she is saying about the extra work she would need to put in to do well in French taking up too much time makes sense.

All advice and insights greatly appreciated. TIA

I don't know much about Dance, but if she's concerned about workload she should make sure she knows how much rehearsal time will be involved in putting together assessed performances. I'd also want to know how much they have to rely on other students to put together ensemble performances, because that involves co-ordinating with the work ethic and aspirations of other members of the group, which can be stressful.

My DD is doing German and hasn't found it particularly easier or harder than other solidly academic options. So if she's doing well in assessments, French may not be as bad as she fears.

My DD gave up GCSE Dance at the start of Y11. She did lots of dance outside school, and found the standard of dance at GCSE really low, plus the cohort was pretty much all girls looking for an easy option. Around 2/3 of the class did no dance except in the lessons, and didn’t understand even basic dance moves.
And there was quite a lot of bitchiness - I think a better teacher would’ve stamped down on it.
So overall a pretty negative experience on what DD thought would be her fun GCSE.

It all depends.

How clever is she - what are you hoping/expecting?
What other options is she taking?
How much written work is there for dance and will she find this easy / hard?
How much performance work for dance is there, especially stuff that requires scheduling with others?
Is the dance loads of stuff that she doesn't do e.g. she does ballet and GCSE is all hip hop and contemporary?
What is she hoping to do after GCSEs / what are her general interests?

Thanks for your replies

Teen
I wish I had the answers to some of these questions. She has not decided what she wants to do and this is part of the issue. She has chosen options to keep things broad. Ability wise I would say she is average but very capable in some subjects but will have to work hard to do well in Maths and Science. We have not had any predicted grades yet but I think maybe B/6 in most things if she really works for it.

Her current subject choices are

Maths
English
Science
RE
History
French
PE
Business

She has experience of all types of dance and has done a lot of performing although this is not necessarily something she wants to do as a career. I think the exam is 30% performance, 30% choreography and 40% written. My concern would be around this part and whether she is organised enough.

Mmm. Personally I'd go for Dance from what you have said.

The other subjects are all quite 'solid' ones, I know PE has quite a lot of Science. Having the Dance will reduce the workload in summer of y11 as well.

Thanks Teen
I was thinking that PE and Dance would both be seen as soft options but I know there is a lot more involved. Lots of her friends seem to be doing all very academic subjects so hard not to compare and worry. I am pretty sure my parents had no idea what subjects I was doing and just let me get on with it

PE and Dance together are not great - I know they're not completely easy subjects, but they aren't as academically rigorous as other subjects. One is fine, not both

Learning French to a decent standard is something that she will be able to use for the rest of her life, sometimes in rather unusual ways. Dance GCSE, especially as she already does it outside school, will not

Let her choose the subject she likes most

Olennas Maybe not as academically rigorous, but the OPs DD is, she thinks, a grade 6 student not an 8/9 one. It might be better to do a couple of slightly less rigorous ones, to free up revision effort to support the core subjects. That would be my thinking anyway.

One thing that perhaps could be considered is that any injury might impact both PE and Dance.

I personally wouldn’t advise dance if she dances outside of school. Chances are she’s at a higher level than GCSE already (Grade 4/5/Inter Foundation?) it’s also not a great subject to take as well as PE.

Ds school has dropped gcse dance as an option completely & they are a specialist performing arts school.

@Teen I hadn’t considered injuries that is a big worry if it could impact on two subjects.

@Alexander She is currently doing Grade 6 by but most of the girls at her dance school take GCSE dance and seem to enjoy it. Again I am not sure exactly what’s involved in the syllabus but I think they enjoy the choreography as working through dance exam grades is pretty rigid. Also working with other people and teachers outside of the dance school just gives another dimension to the subject.

I think I am going to speak to her French teacher to see what he has to say about it. She is adamant that she will struggle with French GCSE but her results are good so I need to get to the bottom of this.

Thank you all for your comments it has given me a lot to think about.