Media Studies

[ihearttc]

DS1 is currently at the end of Year 9. His school do 3 year GCSE courses so he picked all his option subjects at the end of Year 8 so has been doing them all this year. In addition to English, Maths, Science he also picked Spanish, Geography, PE and Media Studies (all GCSE's). They are doing EBACC.

We just got a letter yesterday saying they are changing GCSE Media Studies to Pearson Creative Media Production BTEC. Im really cross because he is enjoying the course and it seems crazy changing half way through the course.

The course is currently taught by 2 Specialist Media Teachers and A-Level Media is still being offered next year so Im totally confused as to why they have done this. We can't change course now as they've started GCSE work in the other lessons and we live in the middle of nowhere so I can't get him to another High School.

I must admit I don't know a huge amount about BTEC's but after some googling it seems to suggest they are slightly more vocational courses aimed at the children who maybe less suited to exams etc. DS was predicted an 8 (well as much as they can predict nearly 2 years ahead). The classes are mostly made up of his Top english set so I doubt it's to do with the ability of the cohort.

I will of course be speaking to the school but just wondered if anyone had any experience of this and what if anything I need to be concerned about.

At the moment after reading the course content it seems to be around the actual production of Media which DS isn't so interested in...it's more the analysis of how and why that he was enjoying. He wants to be a Sports Journalist if thats relevant.

People with more experience will be along in a bit.
But

• Doing 1 BTEC isn't going to impact anyone's view of his academic ability
• The top grade, Distinction* in a BTEC is hard to achieve and so should be well respected
• The coursework element means fewer final exams which will mean more revision time available for his other subjects, and also fewer exams leading to less stress come Summer of y11

There will be a good reason behind their switch, no idea what, presumably stuff they have come up against with the year or 2 above.

Thank you that’s really helpful. I think the first point I’d basically what I was concerned about so that’s good to know.

Media GCSE or BTec won’t impact on his career goal. He needs a huge amount of luck and the only person I know doing this job has a degree in History!

Thank you! I know it’s hugely aspirational...it’s either that or a pilot!! Nothing like aiming high ;-)

Very annoying! Schools are in dire financial circumstances. Could it be that they need to merge the BTEC and GCSE classes to save cash?

There is no BTEC class currently...it’s simply GCSE Media Studies which they are changing into Creative Media Production for some reason.

Personally I think 'doing' is more useful than 'learning about' if that's his dream job. It will give him the skills to start making his own stuff, which is what he's going to need to do to get noticed in today's weird media times.

I do get that it seems weird that they're switching midway through and you should definitely find out what's going on, but I don't necessarily think it's a negative.

I can't get over how awful the communication is from some schools.

Our school did something similar a few years back, it decided not all ICT sets would do the ICT GCSE and some would do ECDL instead. In the letter telling us about the change they also explained why.

Surely it would have made sense for the school to explain, if only to stop having to deal with 20 sets of parents asking for their own explanations?

I done B-Tec Instead of A-Levels, well I was doing A levels predicted A and 2B’s, but thought I could not achieve it and against my teachers advice I changed to BTec. I gained Distinctions and Merits and was accepted for university course that were requiring ABB & BBB- and for the record it was sooooooooo much more work!!!