GCSE choices

[Nikky1331]

My DD is trying to choose her GCSEs, she is thinking of doing 10 (7 compulsory and 3 choices). For the three choice GCSEs, she is sure about two of them, History and RE. She would also like to do Further Maths, but I am not sure if this is a "full" GCSE. I know it counts as GCSE, but there is only one lesson in two weeks (less than other subjects), and also in most web-pages seems highlighted that this is an "optional" course. Basically, is it enough to do 9 GCSE + Further Maths as the 10th? Or is it better to do 10 GCSEs + and Further Maths as the 11th? She is high achieving, but I wouldn't want her to be unnecessarily overloaded.

My DC's school does Further Maths as an extra (so it would be GCSE 11) and it's only offered to children in Set 1. They basically go through the normal Maths GCSE in quicker time than other sets and then cover the Further Maths syllabus.
As many schools only offer 9 GCSEs I don't think it will matter if your DD takes Further Maths as a 10th or 11th GCSE. It probably depends on whether she has another subject she is keen to take.

At DD’s school the top set of Maths (and this is a grammar so many are very capable) are invited / expected to do further Maths and they do an accelerated programme. By now (she is Y11) they have completed the GCSE programme by a few weeks before end of Christmas and now focus solely on the further Maths. It gives them a bit less revision time than the regular class but only by a few weeks. It isn’t seen as a separate programme at her school,

I get the impression that now so much extended content is in the regular GCSE it has also taken out the kudos of any extension qualification. I did the old GCSE many moons ago and really don’t recognise the modern syllabus.

I am told (don’t know how accurate this is!) that it is rare for someone to do further maths if they don’t hope to do it for A level but DD is doing it as she just happens to be in the relevant accelerated programme class and likes the teacher. She is heading for three Arts subjects at A level.

@RedskyAtnight

My DC's school does Further Maths as an extra (so it would be GCSE 11) and it's only offered to children in Set 1. They basically go through the normal Maths GCSE in quicker time than other sets and then cover the Further Maths syllabus. As many schools only offer 9 GCSEs I don't think it will matter if your DD takes Further Maths as a 10th or 11th GCSE. It probably depends on whether she has another subject she is keen to take.

Thanks so much! This is very helpful. Let's see... :-)

@RedskyAtnight @PettsWoodParadise
Thanks so much! Very helpful! She is planning to do Maths A level. I am not too familiar with the GSCE system, I did Matura system many years ago (about 13-14 GCSE and A levels until 18 years old). I feel 9 plus Further Maths as the 10th may be a short cut and worried if this will have an impact when applying for universities or jobs!!

Op it won't matter at all for future jobs or uni places if she does nine plus FM. Nine is plenty fir any future plans.

Seems odd tho that one of her options only has one lesson a fortnight. If she chose a different subject, presumably it would have more like four-five a fortnight? So if she does FM, what does she do the rest of the time? I would check with school. Do her seven compulsories include MFL? If not then she might want to consider it (tho it is NOT needed for uni!)

I went to a low aspiring comp that did 8 GCSEs (for the most able) and got to a decent univesrsity but that was aaaaaooons ago. The least able did Maths, English, Science and one other subject. I was able to do full physics and full chemistry but not triple or combined science like now. This was a school that had 210 in a year group and 30 went onto sixth form! 15 of us made it to University.

DD started off with 10 GCSEs plus further maths but ended up dropping Engineering as too problematic under lockdown conditions so now she has 9 plus Further maths. Having Further maths gives her a feeling that she hasn’t ‘really’ dropped down a subject. She has a few classmates who are doing an extra language (Latin etc) in lunchtime or after school lessons so some are doing 11 but it is the exception rather than the rule.

What other options does she have?

Our school call it Additional Maths at GCSE and further maths at A level but I think we are talking about the same thing. They do ten subjects with Ad maths as the 11th. Only top 2 sets offered it and it’s a few lessons added on at the end of the regular gcse course as they get through that quite rapidly. If she’s planning on taking maths A level, I’d highly recommend she does the extra gcse. It won’t matter that it’s the 10th subject. What’s more important is that she chooses the ‘right’ subjects for A levels and gets the best grades possible.

Oh just to add most teens at ours do 10 subjects; 11 with additional maths if in top sets, but some also do 9 subjects. This year a few are doing 8. It’s a selective indie if that makes a difference.

Rolling back a bit, does she even have the option to do 10 + FM?

Where are you in the choosing process? Have you had full info on how it works yet?

I'm going to take a punt and guess you did GCSEs not O levels. Your exam load in summer of y11 will have been way lower than your DD will have.
At a rough estimate for you:
3 maths, 2 Eng lang, 2 Eng Lit, 6 science, 2 MFL, 3 History, 2 RE, 2 FM
I make that 22 exams over 4 or 5 weeks. That is getting on for 1 a day.

DD is at a girl's grammar and she only did 9 GCSEs including a further maths qualification.

If your DD wants to do Maths A Level then I would definitely do the further qualification as there is a big jump between GCSE and A Level.

@clary @PettsWoodParadise @Ellmau @NotDonna @whiteroseredrose Thanks all for your help! She will do Further Maths A-level. It seems that it is fine if FM is the 10th GCSE.
@clary yes I thought it was too little to have one lesson / period in 2 weeks. I will talk to the school at some point next week to find out. If she did another subject, she would have between 4-6 lessons per fortnight. Yes, other subjects are:
Eng lang Eng lit, MFL (Spanish), Maths, Physics, Biology, Chemistry; and choices so far are History, RE and Further Maths.

@TeenPlusTwenties Many thanks for your help! I did Matura system (not in the UK). I suspect we were probably overloaded with work. I haven't spoken to the school yet, but will do next week. Yes, it seems the workload has increased and 9 GCSEs plus FM would probably be a lot anyway. The courses she will do are: Eng lang Eng lit, MFL (Spanish), Maths, Physics, Biology, Chemistry; and choices so far are History, RE and Further Maths. I'd happy if she did Classical Civilisation or Latin, but she doesn't want to...I will see what the school says.

My DD did Further Maths as her 11th GCSE last year. Top set at selective indy. No way did she want to do A level - top set were expected to take it. They self-taught most of the syllabus, with only a few lessons on the trickier elements. I would have thought the timetable outlined would be perfectly adequate.

She's got a full set of full-on academic GCSEs there.
Don't her to do push Latin / Classical Civilisation unless she is keen.

Dad is at a grammar that clearly aims to get it's students to uni. They all do 9 gcses. I guess it is quality (grades) not quantity that counts.

And yes definitely do additional maths GCSE if she wants to do A level Maths.

@Seeline @chillied Thank you so much! @TeenPlusTwenties she is not keen to do either of these two subjects :-)

Agree with Teen that that's a pretty full on set of 9GCSEs before you even consider others. At DC's school, everyone does 10 (+top set take FM) but they insist at least one of the 10 is a less heavily academic subject, so if your DD does want an 11th GCSE, I'd suggest not picking anything "heavy". History and RE particularly (you probably know this) are both very heavy in content and involve a lot of writing.

Those 9 sound great - don’t push her to do art/music/DT as a 10th thinking it’ll give her a break - it won’t unless she absolutely loves it! Those subjects are still heavy and often time consuming. She’s better off doing the subjects she wants as you’ve listed and to have some fun extra curricula stuff!

That sounds like a nice rounded set, and as she's interested in FM A level I would do FM GCSE, I think.

To do FM at A level she needs to be in the 8/9 at gcse btw. It’s hard.

Thanks @RedskyAtnight @NotDonna @Ellmau! :-) I will talk to the school at some point, but it was very useful to have suggestions from all of you who are more familiar with the GCSE system! It looks like it may be 10 (including further maths) after all, as the only additional subject she would consider taking would be Classical Civilisation, and that's pretty heavy.