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?

@Murmurur , please look at the first response to my thread. That is the "suck it up" I am talking about. Which several posters seem to think was ok.

As for"steadfastly refusing ", my daughter must do Citizenship GCSE - that's what compulsory means. Not every school does that . It blocks a slot.

Having read a pp I wonder if Citizenship is what our school calls Life Skills? My kids have never mentioned democracy and government- they covered the political spectrum in GCSE History when communism and Russia starts appearing in the syllabus. In Life Skills they've talked about life issues like drugs, smoking, sexting etc

Again, I'm not objecting to them doing it at all. I'm objecting to a GCSE slot being blocked.

Hi @bellinisurgeBellini, I haven't RTFT as it looks a bit contentious but recognise you from another board. We're going thru Options now too but funnily enough decided on double science and Citizenship as an option, so kind of the opposite of what your DD wants!! I feel generally the same about RE but when we looked at the syllabus for citizenship, it looked interesting and relevant to a modern education. We were conflicted about triple versus double science but if your DD really wants to do Science at A levels, I can understand that she'd want the stretch of triple. Anyhow hope your DD gets the subjects she wants and I personally think no harm in asking the school what is possible as a solution.

If every school did it I would accept it . There weren't a stream of posts saying "yes, our school does that - it's how it is"

Thanks @AspergersMum

In Life Skills they've talked about life issues like drugs, smoking, sexting etc

These are covered in Citizenship, hence my comment saying that some households may not want to discuss them.

All very worthy and important but "block your GSCE options important?"

Our youngest is in Year 13. I’d not heard of this until this thread, presumably only introduced last year?

I wasn't doubting that some households wouldn't discuss some subjects - just wondering out loud if our school's Life Skills lessons were called Citizenship in other schools.

Having read your other posts OP I would drop Business. It's not required to study it at A-level or degree level and is generally taken by the less academic students. (Academic students would be pushed towards Economics which can also be studied at A-level and beyond without the GCSE)

I think it's great that you are questioning this rather than blindly 'sucking it up' , which clearly some people would do as it's the easy way. Sciences are a far better option, I agree. I don't have any words of wisdom as mine aren't into GCSE phase yet, but hopefully it will work out for her.

The whole point is that IT ISN'T A GCSE SLOT!!!!
Every school has hours on a TT allocated to something called citizenship/phse/life skills. These lessons are compulsory and do not effect GCSE options. Your school has chosen to use the lessons they will study anyway as a chance to get an extra gcse.

@bellinisurge

All very worthy and important but "block your GSCE options important?"

But it isn't "blocking a GCSE". You could say that Business Studies, which is a GCSE that some other mumsnetters think is not worthy, (I have no opinion on this subject) is blocking a GCSE, or even DT.

Basically neither you nor your DD wants this as a GCSE option, but there are other swaps that she can do - business studies or DT.

@DenisetheMenace

Our youngest is in Year 13. I’d not heard of this until this thread, presumably only introduced last year?

Nope. DD took it in 2016.

OP The point that people are making is that all GCSE subjects aren't taught for the same number of hours per fortnight. So if your school dropped Citizen (2 hours per fortnight), that wouldn't be enough for an extra option which is taught 3 or 4 hours a fortnight.

Making a GCSE compulsory is blocking a choice.
I will ask about the hours thing.
Thanks to everyone on here who has been helpful and constructive. I appreciate those posts that were sympathetic

Making a GCSE compulsory is blocking a choice

No it isn't.

Those hours would be spent in citizenship lessons regardless of whether she gets a gcse in it.

Thats like saying compulsory PE blocks a choice; it doesn't.

Ginfordinner

“Nope. DD took it in 2016”

That’s interesting. Still not an option at their old school (in College now).

[quote bellinisurge]@Murmurur , please look at the first response to my thread. That is the "suck it up" I am talking about. Which several posters seem to think was ok.[/quote]
My mistake, it didn't occur to me you were still referring to the first reply you had.

No, your assumption that it blocks a slot is an assumption as has been explained to you over and over. You say there is wiggle room for 10 so why not just do that?

I would argue it's not terribly relevant what everyone else does. You know that some schools make RS compulsory (I didn't know that!), or Latin, or "an art" whether they have the talent or not. Some have to choose their GCSE options at the end of Y8 so they lose a whole year of KS3 curriculum in the rest. Others don't get the opportunity to do triple science at all, or only at considerable cost (my friend's child dropped MFL at the end of Y8 as the only way to do triple science). Most students have some constraint in their choices and I don't think your daughter's is any worse than others. Especially if she can do 10 anyway.

www.gov.uk/national-curriculum/key-stage-3-and-4

During key stage 4 most pupils work towards national qualifications - usually GCSEs.

The compulsory national curriculum subjects are the ‘core’ and ‘foundation’ subjects.

Core subjects are:

English
maths
science

Foundation subjects are:

computing
physical education
citizenship

Schools must also offer at least one subject from each of these areas:

arts
design and technology
humanities
modern foreign languages

So how do schools which don't have it as a compulsory GCSE manage it in their timetable and still have 9 GCSEs?

Our school doesn't make computing and citizenship compulsory at ks4. (That's GCSE right?) they offer qualifications like Computer Science and iMedia but don't make it a requirement

@bellinisurge

We have off timetable days where they do citizenship for a whole day...