Tell me about Citizenship GCSE. Which is apparently compulsory at my DD's school. She doesn't want to do it.

[bellinisurge]

As it says in the subject, Citizenship GCSE has now been deemed compulsory at my DD's school. She would prefer to do Triple Science but doesn't want to lose a free space in her GSCE options to do it. She deliberately didn't go to a faith school (despite being in a feeder primary) to avoid having RE GCSE forced on her.
Any suggestions?

I really wouldn't worry abiut triple science.
It wasn't an option at my school but I was still comfortably able to go on to do 3 science a levels and an oxbridge science degree.

If she is interested, she could do something in her own time science related?

The citizenship is likely to be because its an easy grade. It's a pain, especially if it hasn't been apparent earlier, but won't hinder her in the long run.

I think you should discuss with the school to check they won't make an exception, but it's best to manage your dds expectations and encourage her to see the positives.

"You have been unnecessarily rude to posters who have given that advice."
The opening response to my post was literally"suck it up". Which I strongly objected to. With a few other posters saying I was out of order to object to it
Very weird.

@Puzzler333 , yes, I am trying to get her to focus on the positive of an easier GCSE.

[quote bellinisurge]@Puzzler333 , yes, I am trying to get her to focus on the positive of an easier GCSE.
[/quote]
I wasn't suggesting you weren't, just FYI .

My main point was to reassure that triple science shouldn't close doors at all if this is the avenue she wants to pursue for a level and beyond.

It would be good policy if Citizenship was a compulsory GCSE nationally and I also would subscribe to the "suck it up" approach partially as it is also about building grit and not only about doing the subject you like, especially at GCSE. Good training for life afterwards and a bit of civic education not a bad thing at all.

@Coronateachingagain , I work in an area which requires "Citizenship " knowledge so DD isn't short of exposure to it.
As for "suck it up" , is that genuinely how you respond to an adult who has a question about a subject they don't know anything about and who asks about it on a parenting forum? In the secondary education topic ?
What a strange thing

Just on the double vs triple science thing - this is obviously a long time ago, but I did double science at my local comp where it was that or single science for those that really struggled. Then instead of going to the sixth form where everyone else went, I ended up in a school where triple was the norm. I did phys & chem A levels and the first couple of terms making up the difference was bloody hard. Wouldn't recommend.

(It worked out in the end - I got my 11 GCSEs with lots of variety inc music, geography, DT, and am science educated to PhD. But if you're going to do A levels after double GCSE, pick a sixth form where that's the norm!)

It would annoy me, too, having a valuable GCSE option space used up like this, when only 9 are on offer.

If I'm honest, the ideology behind this choice would annoy me, too. Yes, there are communities that are becoming increasingly alienated whose young this is most likely aimed at, (cf the Life In Britain citizenship test....), but I bet their local comps aren't making it compulsory!

I'm not opposed to the concept of 'Citizenship' as a class, but it should be one lesson a week, not examined. We did a thing called PAL in that way, back in the 70s at my grammar school, Preparation for Adult Life. But we didn't have to 'ditch physics', as it were, to do it!

@Miljea thing is, DD's school has a high proportion of students from non- UK backgrounds, dd is a dual national like me. I also wondered if it was some heavy handed nonsense.

DS went to a non faith academy, that was run by a MAT with a faith ethos. So although it wasn't a designated religious school, RE was compulsory at GCSE which DS didn't mind, he found it interesting. They also made PE compulsory though at GCSE which meant he couldn't do Business and Hospitality and Catering together - he wanted to be a chef at the time and do both subjects. I queried the PE aspect because they were doing the statutory practical lesson anyway, it was just the theory part added on for the GCSE firstly they told me it was a legal requirement, and when I pointed out that the GCSE itself was not, just the practical lesson, they said I was wrong and the DFE had changed it recently. Which I knew they were lying about. I then found out the truth - as a school in special measures, they had a good PE teacher who got more passes than some other subjects so they thought it would be a good way to improve their Ofsted rating if they had a cohort with good grades in one subject.

DS didn't do GCSE PE. It was the lying and trying to take me for a fool that made me complain rather than anything else, I might not have taken it further if they had been honest from the start (although I would have questioned their half-baked plan, I would have told DS to suck it up and do night classes at college).

My problem is blocking out the option of doing another academically more meaningful GCSE.

Thing is she wouldn't have the option to add another GCSE. If she's being taught the legally required citizenship for say 2 hours a week, those 2 hours still need to be taught whether or not she takes the GCSE, just like PE. So there would be no timetable space freed up for another subject anyway.

Like @TeenPlusTwenties has explained to you multiple times. Every other teenager has to face these choices. Your dd isn't being hard done to. Nor will her school be able to accommodate her wish for no citizenship but extra French.

[sighs and repeats herself] I'm not objecting to them having citizenship classes. Repeating myself on this getting tedious .

But can you not see that having to have the classes anyway means it wouldn't free up time for another option?

I haven't seen a swathe of posters saying "yes, my school does Citizenship GCSE". Had I seen that, I would say "Oh, ok"

Eg from a 25hr a week TT
5 maths
5 English
4 science
3 option 1
3 option 2
3 option 3
2 PE
2 citizenship

Those 2 hours of citizenship she will still have to attend. Not doing the GCSE doesn't mean there is time for another option.

We do it as GCSE. The students have to have it on their curriculum legally, so makes sense to get a qualification.

But is it compulsory?

Yes, the citizenship lessons and GCSE are compulsory. It doesn't take time from anywhere else, they'd still have to do the lessons.

You are the second poster to say this. I wonder how other schools manage to do it without making it a compulsory GCSE

@bellinisurge

I haven't seen a swathe of posters saying "yes, my school does Citizenship GCSE". Had I seen that, I would say "Oh, ok"

It was compulsory at DD's school. She took her GCSEs in 2016.

I think the questions you need to ask are:

1. What content does Citizenship cover?
2. How many hours per fortnight does it take up?
3. What can your DD do to make sure she can take triple science?

Also, while you may cover Citizenship issues in your house, I suspect they won't be covered in many households. Given your point about non UK households it could be that some of the topics covered in Citizenship may not be considered suitable for discussion in some homes.

I also think that managing your daughter's expectations is a good idea.

Happy to receive posts saying "it's compulsory for us too". I just haven't seen those.
I am already having the "make the best of it" conversations with dd. Just because I'm asking on here doesn't mean I'm having the same conversation with her.

I don't see how taking citizenship would mean she can't do triple science if the school offer triple?

Legally every school will be covering citizenship content. Not all will make it a GCSE but many will.

And I don't understand how you don't see that blocking off a GSCE option means she doesn't get to fill that spot with a subject she wants to do.

[quote bellinisurge]@Coronateachingagain , I work in an area which requires "Citizenship " knowledge so DD isn't short of exposure to it.
As for "suck it up" , is that genuinely how you respond to an adult who has a question about a subject they don't know anything about and who asks about it on a parenting forum? In the secondary education topic ?
What a strange thing [/quote]
That's an inappropriate response to @Coronateachingagain 's perfectly civilised, adult-to-adult post.

If your OP had been simply about citizenship in isolation then you might have got different responses. For all your patronising sighing about repeating yourself, you've steadfastly ignored any challenge of your central assumption in your OP that it's depriving your DD of another option. And that is surely highly relevant to whether this is a problem or not.

It's not compulsory here. Schools used to force kids to do 0.5 GCSE RE but that was before they reformed GCSEs. My dd did Combined Science then A-level Biology.She's predicted an A so not taking triple hasn't hurt her A-level chances.