GCSE Options - academic child picking multiple creative options

[RedSkyLastNight]

DD is in Y8, but at her school they have a 3 year KS4, so she has to pick GCSE options next term. We haven't yet seen the Options blocks, but based on older DC

She will have to take 10 subjects.
Maths, English Lang, English Lit are compulsory
She has the choice of 2 or 3 Science GCSEs. DD hates Science and wants to do 2.

That leaves her with 5 subjects to choose. DD wants to pick GCSE Art, GCSE Music and BTEC Performing Arts. She is in the fortunate position of being genuinely good at everything and likely to get good marks in whatever she takes, however I feel that taking 3 creative subjects might be a creative subject too far for an academic child that has aspirations of going to University.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Will universities consider a students with more creative GCSE subjects, less favourably than one with fewer? Are there any other negatives (I did think she might struggle to pick 2 facilitating subjects as A Levels based on her GCSE choices as she hates maths and science).

My gut feeling is to dissuade her from one of the creative subjects (and tbh I'm slightly hoping the Option blocks may mean she has to) but is this just me being snobby and biased against creative subjects or is there a genuine reason to be wary (my strengths are all in maths and science; I'm not remotely creative and no idea where DD gets it from!)?

Too much coursework to do any of it justice TBH

If she doesn't want to do sciences or languages then I think history and geography are the only other options for facilitating A levels assuming Eng lit already. History is very information heavy and even if you were able to take it without a GCSE I think it would be a big challenge without being able to build on knowledge. You probably want to look at university courses as someone already suggested to work out whether she really needs two facilitating A levels, as these are mainly to keep options open if undecided, but for the sort of things your DD wants to do it may not matter.

So... if she's pretty sure she will want to do Eng. Lit at university

Then it's not a great collection of GCSEs, because selective universities will tend to favour students with two essay based A Levels.

The standard ticket for humanities degrees is two out of English, History and a language, with some variation around the third. To do English, Art and Music at A Level is a huge amount of work (even assuming appropriate instrumental skills) and high grades are difficult to get, and if it came down to "which of the one-grade misses will we admit" you are less likely to make the cut.

As others have said, this is why three year GCSEs are shite. They force children to make decisions with fairly serious implications six years ahead of when the chickens will come home to roost.

History is very information heavy and even if you were able to take it without a GCSE I think it would be a big challenge without being able to build on knowledge.

That's not completely true, and doing A Level History without the GCSE is regarded as one of the cases where it's relatively straightforward to do; the periods studied are usually completely different to those at GCSE. However, a lot of schools are reluctant to let you do it, and the loss of AS half way through is going to exacerbate that, there's the problem of predicted grades, and a three year GCSE means that it's three years since you did some history rather than two when you start Y12.

Encouraging children who are looking to go to university to drop all essay-based subjects at 13 seems crazy.

She can't be really 'sure' age 13 what she wants to study at university.

She hasn't done GXCSE courses yet.
She hasn't started A levels yet.

She may think she knows, but a good % will change their mind between 13 and 18.

So the aim should be to choose GCSEs that she is capable of, will enjoy, and don't rule out too many options at this stage.

That's not completely true, and doing A Level History without the GCSE is regarded as one of the cases where it's relatively straightforward to do; the periods studied are usually completely different to those at GCSE.

I think it depends where you go. One sixth form near us has changed their A level syllabus to more closely match what the majority of schools nearby are studying because they found children coming from other schools into the sixth form were struggling compared to children who'd already studied similar periods at that school at GCSE. Most sixth forms near us (well the four that we've visited) have huge crossover with GCSE subjects that DD is doing. It probably also depends on your child, I know my DD would suffer massively with confidence if she went into a class feeling everyone else had more background than her, but others would take it in their stride.

The other thing about history is that it is quite technique based with source questions et. And these skills are gained at GCSE and honed and developed during A level

One of my DC is doing both a performance and a portfolio GCSE, and that took some fairly careful thought because of the demands on time. It's working out fine though.

I'd have actively put her off three.

RS is always a good choice to support an application to read English at university, if she really can't abide the prospect of history.

It sounds like dissuading the BTEC would be a good idea and using that option to include Geog/Hist/MFL/triple science. Check if the teacher for Spanish at GCSE will change. This may well be the case. If she is able across the board, then I agree with you that she is limiting herself with her choices.

The OP has already said her Dd will be doing at least 1 humanity. From what I gather her options will look like this

Maths
English x 2
Double Science
History or Geography (if she’s not doing a language then she will have to take Hist, Geog or Comp Science for P8 & Op hasn’t mentioned CS)
1 other as yet unchosen subject
Art
Music
(This is your standard 9 GCSE’s that most schools offer)
Then Btec Perf Arts on top.

My only reservation would be the extra workload of the Perf Arts. As a 10th subject it will most likely be disregarded if the Dd is applying to a more academic uni.

The other thing about history is that it is quite technique based with source questions et. And these skills are gained at GCSE and honed and developed during A level

It's also one of the A levels with the lowest proportion of A* and As.

Absolutely agree that my main focus now is making sure that DD doesn't inadvertently shut off options by her choice of subjects.

I'm very conscious that DD may well not continue with creative subjects beyond GCSE - although she does well at them, I'm not sure she is for example a really talented artist or musician who will go on to great things. (Her cousin for example at age 13 is Grade 7 on one instrument and Grade 6 on another and spends a lot of her spare time composing - I can't see anything like that sort of commitment/ability from DD)

Her current 6th form (of course she could move) pretty much won't let DC take A Level without the corresponding GCSE (there are a few exceptions e.g. I seem to remember Business Studies is one) so she needs to pick enough choices to give her some options! She is quite keen on History and Philosophy - and English, History and Philosophy I think would work ok as an A Level combination (and universities would be fine with) but this doesn't give her much of a Plan B.

Thank you for all the comments and opinions, there have been some interesting ones and they've given me a few things to think about. She doesn't have to choose until March (and we may find the Option Blocks clarify choices) so a bit of time for more thinking and discussion before then!

That’s right Everard , and in my experience of two dc doing history it tends to dominate any A level workload so in general I would think it would be difficult to jump in at A level without GCSE

OP - you will probably find that because of the progress 8 buckets the options will be organised in a way that children have to choose at least 1 option out of a language, history, geography or computer science. Schools that make EBacc compulsory will also insist on a language but I think you’ve already said yours doesn’t.

Creative subjects are no less academic or accepted by universities. I did 11 GCSEs, which included a good chunk of creative choices and then went on to study English Lit and Lang at a great uni. It never did me any harm at all and I actually loved the work I was doing, which really helped lessen the stress.

Yes, she has to choose at least one of history or geography.

When EBacc was introduced, her school made a big thing about how taking an MFL was not appropriate for every child, and so they were not going to insist upon it, and if this meant Ofsted frowned upon them, then so be it.

In fact DC who need additional support (in a variety of things) don't take a MFL even in KS3 at her school as the time timetabled for MFL is used to provide the additional support. This also has the knock on effect of the MFL classes being smaller for those who do take it (I think DD has 24 in her class as opposed to around 30 in everything else).

She is undecided about Spanish -she quite likes the subject (and was excited by the idea of a Language exchange after reading Trebizon :) ) but unfortunately she dislikes her current teacher and says the classes are rowdy (we have been to the school about this). As she's with the same group of students (+ the ones not in MFL due to having additional support) for other lessons where the problem doesn't seem to occur I can only assume this is down the teacher's classroom management. I have of course stressed that she can't pick a subject based on liking or not liking the current teacher but it is giving her a negative opinion of the subject.

Actually we've just got her report and Spanish was one of her best subjects ... Some hard thinking to be done over the next few months!

I seriously doubt many universities do much, if any, analysis of gcse subjects beyond maths, English and any which might be specifically relevant to the uni course. They might consider grades - on that, for an 'academic' child the artsy ones may be less reliable.

That’s right Everard , and in my experience of two dc doing history it tends to dominate any A level workload so in general I would think it would be difficult to jump in at A level without GCSE

Useful to know, DD is planning history and we are a bit scared of this!

Similar at DS school except MFL is compulsory for most. He is in y9 doing art and photography plus all the usual core stuff. It's actually really working well having some subjects with course work as the rest of his subjects are focused on memorising facts, equations, PEA sentences etc.

The creative stuff makes school a hell of a lot more interesting. The new GCSEs are pretty joyless.

Though he didnt get a choice about science, the school decided for the students if they will take it as 2 or 3 GCSEs.

DS1 is in Year 9 and his school does the 3 year GCSE as well. At the start of Year 8 he was adamant that he wanted to pick Geography, History, French and Spanish (they all worked with the options units). He is quite academic as well but has a very definite career goal in mind for which 2 languages would be useful. He had a horrific year last year with no French teacher for the whole year so decided against that.

We had a long chat with teachers at their options evening who said that in the long run taking a wide variety of subjects is much better than taking all of one particular type. He completely changed his mind and is now doing Spanish, Geography, Media Studies and PE as well as all the core subjects. Non of which will particularly help with his chosen career but at the end of the day he's only 13 and I think he would have been totally overwhelmed doing the subjects he initially chosen. Im hoping with a wide variety of subjects he can do really well in the ones that matter the most...if that makes sense at all?

So I would encourage your DD to do a language and a humanity and then let her chose what she wants from the other 2.

The other thing to think about, in terms of a school forcing pupils into 3 year GCSE courses, is your role as a parent to ensure that your child has a broad and balanced education for as long as possible.

In a school offering what used to be the almost universal norm of a 2 year GCSE course, all pupils get a mix of creative subjects, STEM subjects, languages, humanities, PE at least until the final term of Year 9.

If in your child's school the situation is now that the final year in which your child is guaranteed a broad and balanced curriculum is Y8, when a child is just 13, then IMO you must, as a parent, influence the GCSE courses that they choose to keep their education broad for as long as possible.

So taking 2 English, Maths and double science (all 3 sciences but 2 GCSEs) as a given, then you should be looking for the remaining 5 to include 1 STEM subject (a further Science, a DT subject or Computing), 1 language, 1 humanity (either the government's preferred History / Geography, or a full RE GCSE) and 1 creative subject. Then the 5th can be a second of any of the above - a creative subject if that is what your child prefers.

Hopefully, the school will force this type of selection using their option blocks, but if they already narrow education through a 3 year GCSE course, then I am not sure they will necessarily have broad education, rather than narrow exam success, as a focus.

I would have a look at the past couple of years of results in the three arts subjects. At our school this year, there were plenty of grade 8 and 9 in music and drama, but none at all in art or DT (lots of overlap between students across all of those). In the neighbouring school, it’s the other way round. That’s been consistently the case (on old style grades) for some years.

Drama has the added wild card of group work. In some schools they will affectively stream the children in class and so they wouldn't put a potential 8/9 child in a group with a potential 4/5 child to minimise the effect of the group work but it doesn't always work out like this.