EBACC - meaningless or useful?

[Biscuitsneeded]

Please can someone confirm for me that the EBACC is just a piece of Govery? ie. the balanced spread of subjects is desirable but not essential? And they don't actually gain anything by getting the Ebacc combination other than qualification for the one university that has stipulated it as a requirement? DS' school only gives them three options and he has 2 subjects he is burning to do (drama and politics) which means he can't then fit in a humanity AND a language... However, he's in top sets for everything and I foresee a battle when we tell them he can't fulfil the EBACC requirements. Just want to be sure of my facts! Many thanks.

That’s a great combination of subjects showing a broad set of interests blackeyes72. Do not let the school browbeat you into something else!

Dd1 wants to do French, Latin, Music, triple science and further maths, which doesn't leave room for history or geography - which are her worse subjects anyway!!
Ha ha - identical to my DS! I did have a bit of a rum time trying to persuade the school that he really didn't need history or geography given the wide range of subjects he's taking and they backed down eventually. But I did have to become That Parent in order to do so. The backstory is that I was forced into doing subjects I didn't want to do by my school and my parents were completely on the school's side "They must want you to do them for a reason". Forty years later I'm still angry about that and that it meant I couldn't study my chosen course at uni. So I was on my high horse to ensure that my son did what he wanted to do, not what that bloomin' Gove wanted him to do. Stick to your guns - the EBacc is about as useless as a useless thing could be.