Doing additional GCSEs early - anyone here with experience of this?

[stuckinaGSCEloop]

I keep having a recurring argument with DH about DD who is in Y9 and has to choose her GSCE options this year.

Her school has a max limit of 10 GCSEs and she's already looking likely to do one outside of school at the end of Y9 because her school don't offer it as a language and she's already quite fluent.

He thinks she should take another optional subject early because she would probably be able to do it comfortably and because he thinks it'll "stand out on her CV". It's something she could probably do pretty comfortably this year but she doesn't want to do it because it's a subject she really likes and she wants to be part of the GCSE cohort at school.

I'm trying to see it from his perspective but every time we talk about it, it ends in a bit of an argument. He thinks I'm not ambitious enough for DD, that she's overly scared of failure etc And I think he's being pushy and that her reasons for saying no are valid etc. (NB DD doesn't know that DH and I disagree on this, I've tried to be even handed about it when talking about the possibility of doing another one early).

Anyone else have any wisdom to offer? Is it really a big asset having 12 GCSEs? Say she wants to apply to a top uni in years to come, will that extra, early GCSE make her stand out in the way he thinks? Anyone here whose DC have done early GCSEs and how has it worked out for them?

I feel really cross about the whole thing just at the moment but am willing to admit I'm wrong and am genuinely looking for different perspectives rather than people to just tell me I'm right.

Thanks in advance

@stuckinaGSCEloop
Thanks !
Also to do add that the GCSEs MFL taken early were all organised by the school, including weekly lessons and exam sittings, I was just asked to agree to it and pay the exam fees!
And on the 11x GCSEs taken in one bulk 11 in Year 11 it includes Further Maths (taught during the normal Maths lessons, normal maths being slightly accelerated for DC’s set to make time for FM) and also include triple science taken by about 2/3 of the cohort. So despite having their 12x GCSEs, it all feels rather contained to the school (and managed by them) and they have also made it really clear that quality is better than quantity so will direct DC to double science over triple science to achieve higher grades.

Good luck!

Rather than using her free time to do an extra gcse, why not find something she’s passionate about and do that ? What are her interests ? Ie if art, could she volunteer at a gallery or auction house ? Just more GCSEs isn’t standout. Standout is doing something a bit different.

But lucky girl having supportive parents, and that you seem to balance each other

GCSE's are just the stepping stone to the next qualification. As a recuiter myself I would only expect to see them on CV's for new graduate positions.
Language skills are a stand out though - fluent in Mandarin is a great CV line (as long as the candidate really has that skill.

I don't believe 11, 12 or 13 GCSE's will make a scrap of difference in terms of university entrance. DS2 has just (yesterday ) received his offer from Oxford for next year. His 11 GCSE's were clearly adequate.

Thanks again for all the good input. It's been so helpful.

@Grumpyoldpersonwithcats thanks and huge congrats to your DS! I actually went there myself back in the day and I only had 10 GCSEs, which weren't even all As... But that was about a million years ago and so not relevant to the 2021 discussion with DH. I have no idea about criteria for any unis these days, which is why this thread has been so useful. Anyway, I hope your DS has a brilliant, inspiring time there.

@DaftVader42 that's an excellent idea re volunteering at a gallery or auction house.

@naem very useful insight re universities. A photography GCSE is a lovely one to do on an extra-curricular basis - great that she's able to earn a bit from it too.

If the second additional GCSE being discussed is music, does that mean she currently attends a junior conservatoire? A couple of years ago I had this very conversation with the head of one such place who said the reason they offer the GCSE is so that students whose schools don't, can still take it. Their preference was for students to take GCSE music at their own school, not least because the more it's taken outside of school, the less demand there is for it in school and less demand is what leads schools to drop it.

@SE13Mummy yes she does. I haven't spoken to them about her taking it through them but I will see if I can have a chat with someone about it there tomorrow. I think though that she'd still prefer to do it through school because she really likes the head of music (and he is strongly encouraging her to do it through school...)

I am quoting from the medicine university requirements because another DC (not the DD I mention here who who is doing her Year 11 GCSEs this year, and who emphatically does not want to do medicine) successfully negotiated the medical entrance system (which is super, super, complicated), so I know a fair bit about it.
Here is the link to Oxford medicine which gives you some statistics as to previous applicants - you have to scroll down a bit to see the sections about the GCSEs, but some of the other information might be interesting to you, such as the percentage of applicants that are accepted etc:
www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/study/medicine/pre-clinical/statistics
The key bits of information from here are:
The GCSE measure used was a combination of proportion of A grades at GCSE and number of A grades at GCSE (with equal weighting). For shortlisting purposes a grade 8 or 9 is considered equivalent to an A*
...
The mean number of A* at GCSE for all applicants was 8.2; this rose to 10.2 for those shortlisted and 10.2 also for applicants receiving offers.
The mean proportion of A* at GCSE was 0.80; this rose to 0.96 for those shortlisted and was 0.96 also for applicants receiving offers."

As far as I am aware Oxford is the only university that does anything like this (Cambridge pretty much ignores GCSEs, and as mentioned, the other medical schools around the country, at most look at 8-9 GCSEs), so this is specific to if you want to go to Oxford (and possibly Oxford medicine, I don't know how Oxford treats other subjects, but medicine is likely to be one of the most competititve). They do look at number of GCSEs, but they also look at the percentage of GCSEs that are A* (currently 8 and 9, although I could see that changing in the future, they might decide to only look at 9s) out of the total taken.
So while an additional one might give you an advantage (although most who got an offer had 10 or 11) if you didn't get an A* in that extra GCSE, it actually drags you down.

I can understand the mandarin (she's studying it so why not get a GCSE in it but not the music).

A boy who had lived in France for a few years took French GCSE early but he then did AS Level in Year 11.

Music she should definitely not attempt to do it early. She probably can't anyway as the composition element has to be over-seen. A significant amount of the work has to be done in class so the teacher can sign it off as being all the candidates own work Plus it will force her to give up a subject she enjoys a year too early.

It might once have been common to do 12 GCSE's, but that was before the curriculum reforms. There is now so much more content in the new syllabi. Most schools offer 9. A few only offer 8. To do 10 is in itself slightly unusual today.

Having just had my daughter do GCSEs you really do not want to put so much pressure on her. So what if she could get straight 9s on 12 or more, she doesn't need them. Let her spend that time and energy on something else, possibly non academic.
But taking an extra gcse early or concurrently but on your own is not unusual, especially if it's a foreign language. In our school those doing that did take it a year early as it was felt they would already have enough GCSEs do deal with at the normal time. But as mentioned up thread unis want to see you do them together - one could argue doing a standalone one or two GCSEs is not that challenging for a bright student; it's doing nine to eleven together over a few weeks that's hard.

Interestingly DS2's 11th GCSE was music. His (state) school only allowed 10 to be taken but they supported him to do Music as an additional (largely self taught) one.
His Oxford place is as an organ scholar reading music. (Hence the earlier than normal offer).

Really interested to know what sort of recruiting your DH does for graduate level that’s so fixated on gcse results? When I was looking for graduate roles after uni my gcse were a one line item listing number at each grade and referencing “includes English and Maths”. A levels and degree all listed plus job experience and volunteering etc. By the time I gained my professional qualification gcse weren’t mentioned and A level were one line item or not mentioned. I recruit now for jobs needing professional qualification. If the person has this professional qualification I don’t need any info on the school results. They’ve got a professional qualification and and degree school results are irrelevant by then.

You sound quite clued up yourself OP trust your gut instinct on this one. I would def be willing to argue with DH and at the end of the day it’s your dd choice anyway and she’s already said she wants to do music with her school gcse class. Doing it early will make no difference to her future at all. Have mandarin especially fluent speaker in her cv will though for certain roles. Things like that and Duke of Edinburgh or volunteering are more likely to be noticed that any gcse.

@therespectablecardigan

My eldest did his first GCSE in Y6 (and got an A*) in a second language. Absolutely no one has looked at it favourably or even mentioned it so I doubt it has stood out at all!

How ridiculous to sit a GCSE in year 6. That's the result of crazed helicoptering. .

Kaptain thanks for the assumption, absolutely no helicoptering involved though. It was a language subject that was very easy for ds, we had come back to UK briefly and weren't sure if we would return or not. Our host country could not have facilitated the subject so ds wanted to go for it. He did a few past papers as practise, but needed to do no revision. The language GCSE's are often extremely basic, zero helicopter parenting required.

The language GCSE's are often extremely basic

Well done to your DS, but MFL GCSEs are certainly not basic. It is a challenging qualification IMO and anyone who gets a 7 or above on the new spec has done very well.

Possibly your DS did the old spec which involved a good deal of rote learning and I agree, was definitely less of a challenge for anyone with a facility for that.

@StopGoQuitStart don't want to make this too identifiable as it's quite a specific set of subjects - and potentially publicise our rather trivial domestic spat but DH works in the City. Thanks for your sensible comments.

So, thank you again to everyone who has taken the time to post. So many practical, helpful contributions and useful stats, and they have really helped me to see the bigger picture. DH is a very high achiever and can be intensely single-minded, which is a source of tension between us at times but, to be fair to him, he is also very good at having a real laugh with the DC. Anyway, in this instance, I feel I have the wisdom of MN to back me up!

I'm going to check out of MN for a bit because I am TOTALLY addicted and unfortunately working for myself means I can indulge that addiction and then have to pay the price later.

clary it was an MFL, old spec and I made it clear it was a language ds was already very familiar with so not challenging at all. My point of mentioning it was not to denigrate anyone's grade or stealth boast, quite the opposite - no one has ever been remotely interested in it.

@therespectablecardigan no, and it didn't come across to me as a stealth boast at all!

I really am going now...

@therespectablecardigan no I didn't read it as a stealth boast either, sorry.

Just didn't want anyone to read that and think GCSE MFL is easy - for a non-native speaker it really isn't, as I am sure you would agree :)

Which is a big argument for saying native speakers should be assessed separately and marked as such! There clearly is an advantage which diminishes the talents of others making the higher grades more difficult to achieve and turns off potential students.

My ds wasn't a native speaker, but had lived there for several years. I do agree though that native speakers should take a separate exam, otherwise it just (unfairly) pushes up grade boundaries.

Maybe DH might be happier if you point out that music grade exams are accredited in the qualifications framework. Grades 6-8 are "level 3" (like A-level) and carry UCAS points. Grades 4 and 5 are level 2 like GCSEs.

Most DC just take music exams from the different music exam boards. No need for the gcse.

[quote stuckinaGSCEloop]@SE13Mummy yes she does. I haven't spoken to them about her taking it through them but I will see if I can have a chat with someone about it there tomorrow. I think though that she'd still prefer to do it through school because she really likes the head of music (and he is strongly encouraging her to do it through school...)[/quote]
Music GCSE taken at school does offer something quite different from lots of other subjects e.g. collaboration for performances, recording compositions etc. and lots of scope for hanging out together in practice rooms.
Quite often, when taken at a junior conservatoire, GCSE music commitments mean the student attends fewer ensembles for that year which seems counterintuitive if that's part of what is being paid for and they're at a higher level than ensembles available at school. Given your DH's eagerness for your DD to achieve highly, limiting her access to conservatoire activities for the sake of a subject she can, and wants to, do at school sounds like muddled logic.

@TizerorFizz

Which is a big argument for saying native speakers should be assessed separately and marked as such! There clearly is an advantage which diminishes the talents of others making the higher grades more difficult to achieve and turns off potential students.

I agree, especially for A level, where the numbers are so very small and proportion of native speakers so much higher that it really does skew the results.

GCSE it is not such an issue because many thousands of students are sitting GCSE French and there will be hundreds at most of native speakers.

2,500 students in the UK did German A-level last year (a scarily tiny number - compare to 41,000 doing history for example). I am betting that at least 500 of them were native speakers or had lived there.

I was in a similar(ish) position back in the day (did my GCSEs in 2005!). I did 12, with maths in year 10 and additional maths in year 11, which was standard for the top sets at my school. I was also torn between a second MFL and Music, and was doing lots of music outside school at a v high level. I really wanted to do Music in school basically because I knew it would be a total doss compared to my other subjects and I could just have a laugh. In the end I didn’t want to drop the MFL, which I couldn’t have done outside school, so I basically taught myself GCSE music and my school let me enter for it despite not being in the classes. I did it in year 11 though.

I went to Cambridge and doubt the no of my GCSEs made a difference. I now work in the city and we don’t care about gcses or use them to distinguish between candidates. I do notice them and tend to see that private school pupils have fewer than state school ones - make of that what you will.

I think ultimately your DD should get to decide what she studies and when.