GCSEs 2021 - choosing options **Thread title edited by MNHQ**

[brizzledrizzle]

Year 9s will be choosing their GCSEs after xmas, including my youngest. I couldn't find a support thread.

@Karwomannghia I was advised that Grade 5 dance exams carry UCAS points and are GCSE equivalent but was only told in passing so not certain.

Ah ok thanks, maybe he’ll have done g5 by ucas time if he decides to go to uni, always good to have more points when possible!

Probably stating the obvious, but what you can't do is use a dance exam to make up a shortfall in A level grades for an academic course. e.g. To do History and get offered AAA won't help if you get AAB+dance exam.

Thank you,no not obvious to me! How do points help then?

I’ve seen numerous articles that say that a large percentage of jobs our children will be doing don’t currently exist. Think of when you were at school, did you ever envisage there could be a social media technologist? (Or am I just old?)

Whilst it is nice to have goals and ideas about what you like doing, it is also good to stay agile and encourage our DCs to follow their interests and skills as we never know where they are going to go.

Karwomann, I have been Wondering this too. I think that some universities give offers in ‘ABB’ terms, and others accept ucas points?
This is how I have rationalised it in my head anyhow; not sure if it’s true!

Tariff Points. I have done some looking.

www.ucas.com/undergraduate/what-and-where-study/entry-requirements/ucas-tariff-points

In particular, I quote:

The Tariff simply uses a different set of numbers, which some course providers use to describe qualifications and grades in their entry requirements. But only one third of university courses use the Tariff, and most use qualifications and grades.

Just because a qualification is on the Tariff, doesn't mean a course provider will accept it. Therefore, it’s really important to check the entry requirements for the course you’re interested in, don’t just rely on your number of points.

Deadline for choices coming up. Dd has to put third, second and first choices for the 3 options.

Anyone else still on with this or is our school ultra late in gathering preferences?

Deadline was last week for our school, now just the wait to see if first choice allocations have been given in May

At DD's school some people have told 1 subject will definitely not be running as not enough pupils (

Good evening mums,
We have just finished end of KS3 exams today. Onward and forward to the gcse curriculum for core subjects starting tomorrow. How are your year 9’s getting on? It just seems that this year has flown.

DD2 has her exams mid June. She is already 'doing the GCSE curriculum' for Maths, Eng Lang, Science and RE so I will try to get her to focus on them for exams. Then next priority will be other subjects she is continuing. The ones she is dropping probably won't get much of a look in.

She has just been on a field trip to learn skills for Geography which she really enjoyed.

TeenTimesTwo our school does the 2 year gcse so we have a full on curriculum for ks3. That being said the school tries to teach the maths and sciences skills needed at gcse from year 7 onward. The first two years were really hard for tg3 kids but 5hey seem to have finally settled down now. Mine has dropped geography and taken history for gcse although the geography teacher is still trying to convince her to switch as her end of ks3 grade was really good. All th best to yours. Glad she enjoyed the trip.

Ooh fat thumbs apologies for the spelling mistakes

Oh wise mums of mumsnet,

Any tips for summer preparation for year 10 in September? Thanks in advance.

indy Thanks. DD2 had her y9 exams this week - 7 over 3 days, so it will be interesting to see the results. She has had one of the 2 maths papers back already and was a bit disappointed but she did have to do it soon after a 2hr10min English exam so was probably shattered.

Our 'summer preparation for y10' will be:

1. trying to get DD to continue to read over the summer
2. trying to do some 15-20min maths slots in the second half to keep/embed skills. DD was definitely rusty before her exams.

Teen, thanks for the tips. We have unit 1 and 2 maths exam as soon as we are back in September. Also 1 unit each for physics chemistry and biology the second week back. Still waiting for the List of recommended activities for all options. So the summer is definitely not restful. It is so hot here(Not in the UK) I doubt that any work will be accomplished in the holidays. We break up in 2 weeks. What about you?

DD breaks up in 4 weeks, and has 6 weeks off.
I'm certainly not going to try to do any 'new' work, and she has good revision cards now for the subjects where she is on the actual GCSE syllabus, so they don't need doing.
So it's really the maths. She only needs to master the topics already taught and she could pass her GCSE. She doesn't need any new topics (though I expect the school will teach some). Actually I'd be pretty happy with a term or two of consolidation. Like she had in y6.

I was wondering that since options have been chosen and we are almost at the end of year 9 should we ask mumsnet to change the title OP, or should we start a new thread for year 10 in September. I personally would love to continue the GCSE journey with you l9vely mums!

Bit late to this but I have DD1 just finishing yr9. Leafy comp here, she seems to be doing okay but with such little feedback from her or school it’s hard to know.

I think we’ll be doing some maths over the summer as it’s her weakest. She enjoys languages and humanities more.

Definitely up for continuing this thread into yr10.

I think we should do shiny new thread in September.

I'm hoping for a deluge of test results today (but may be optimistic re marking speed). Also hoping that the subjects being continued for GCSE come out OK.

My year 9 teen has had all options for gcse confirmed.

Chose = art, history, computer science and photography

Mandatory = Eng lit, Eng lang, maths, chem, biol, phsyics

So 10 in all. I allowed free reign on choosing optiins as I think its important to do subjects they like and therefore hopefully less of a burden to study for, rather than being forced to take a subject theyre not keen on/less confident in and becomes a chore to knuckle down to study for