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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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Original poster

Number of GCSEs

30 replies

shamoola · 10/02/2022 07:35

My son is choosing his options and he seems to have to take so many - I'm not sure it's normal. He goes to a inner city comp which is not particularly academic but he has to do:
Maths, English X2, RS then he is likely to do triple science. He then has to chose 4 options and he has picked Mandarin, DT, Geography and Computer Science.

It seems like a good range - but ends up being 11 GCSEs. Is that not too many? I'm not sure we can do anything about it but it may mean he swaps his computer science for a Btec.
What do you think?

OP posts:

TeenPlusCat · 10/02/2022 07:46

Is RE a short course or full course? Often 'compulsory RE' is only a half a GCSE and they 'have' to do something on this topic anyway as it's in the national curriculum.

If he chose just to do combined science not triple would he have to do something else or would he jut be one GCSE fewer?

At her 'leafy' comp, my not academic DD should have done 9 (she did RE full course s an option). Most did 9.5, and those doing triple science did 10 or 10.5.

Original poster

shamoola · 10/02/2022 07:52

RE is the full GCSE. I think the school says if they are studying it they might as well get a GCSE.

If you do double science I think you just do one less rather than having to pick something else. But I don't think they choose whether they do double or triple science, they are selected and that doesn't happen until later in year 10 I think.

OP posts:

Sunshine2007 · 10/02/2022 09:22

Our school does 9, a handful do 10 if they do for instance additional maths or Mandarin. which are off timetable. I believe there is little or no benefit to doing 11 other than not keeping more options open for A level. Am I right in saying unis look at your top 8 grades?

Hersetta427 · 10/02/2022 09:37

DD is doing 10 (most do 9 if taking combined science). Not a religious school so no compulsory RE (although she did choose it as one ofher options).

piisnot3 · 10/02/2022 09:48

Only 2.1% of kids do 11 or more subjects.
The most common number is 9 (mode)
On average, students take 7.85 (mean)
Some universities consider the best 8.

Taking 11 is likely to be counterproductive and result in lower grades unless the kid is very bright. Most kids are better served by focusing efforts on at most 9 subjects (and taking any more than that should be a voluntary decision by committed students)

statistics here:
www.gov.uk/government/publications/infographic-gcse-results-2021/infographics-for-gcses-2021-accesible

Sanddoc · 10/02/2022 11:36

My DS did 11 - he was at a comp. I never understood the logic of doing so many though. At his school the majority took 9. Top two sets for science did triple so that meant 10 GCSE's. Top set maths could take Further Maths if they wanted to, so that was DS's 11th. FM was optional, but they all did it as they liked the teacher and she made it fun. Honestly though, 9 would have been far more sensible!

BasiliskFace · 10/02/2022 11:43

DS1 is at a grammar school and choosing his options and they are only doing 10 - have to do English*2, maths, triple science, French, then he has chosen three others. They do offer a language that is not taught in school and another "hobby" subject as an extra "after school" GCSE, so some of them will be doing 11.
They do the GCSEs in two years though so he will only narrow down to those subjects in year 10 and 11 - I know some schools start in Year 9 so maybe they do more because they have more time to do them in?

thing47 · 10/02/2022 11:49

DD did 12.5! But they had a strange system where they did 6 (plus short-course RE) in Y10 and then 6 more in Y11. The school has now abandoned that approach as there were issues with it, and 9 or 10 GCSEs is the recommended number I think.

PiesNotGuys · 10/02/2022 11:57

I did 12. My DC is currently doing 10.

I remember when they published them in the paper (do they still do that?) with me how many you got and seemingly most at my school did 11 but there were a fair number of 12s

Standard state school nothing fancy

TeenPlusCat · 10/02/2022 12:03

@PiesNotGuys

I did 12. My DC is currently doing 10.

I remember when they published them in the paper (do they still do that?) with me how many you got and seemingly most at my school did 11 but there were a fair number of 12s

Standard state school nothing fancy

But given you are posing on MN with a child doing GCSEs now, presumably your GCSEs were some time back.

Even 10 years ago there was considerable coursework which lightened the revision/exam load in the summer of y11. up to some point (not sure when) some exams were modular and were taken when ready, not left until the end of y11, they could also be retaken.

It is very different now with the terminal exams and the 9-1 grading. In a lot of ways it is more akin to O levels (which I did). (DD1 did GCSEs 2015, DD2 should have done them last year).

Students are typically doing fewer GCSEs now than when they were more coursework/modular based.

TeenPlusCat · 10/02/2022 12:05

posting not posing

Original poster

shamoola · 10/02/2022 12:12

My son will have to do the 11 GCSEs in years 10/11. They used to do it across 3 years but this changed back to 2 years recently.

From the responses here there does seem to be a quite a difference across schools which in my view doesn't make for a level playing field.

We have an options evening coming up - I will have to ask about this, though I doubt they would change anything for this cohort.

OP posts:

Footsanitiser · 10/02/2022 12:19

DD is at a state comprehensive she did the same - English x 2, maths , triple science (although there was an option to do combined science for 2 GCSEs) RE (short course, so she finished that at the end of year 10) and 4 of her own choices. That counts as 10.5 because it was short course RE but there was the option to do it as a 2 year course.

TeenPlusCat · 10/02/2022 12:19

Schools seem to pick what they think works, then if a pupil isn't coping there tends to be some flexibility even if it isn't advertised.
Different schools will take different approaches, partly at least based on their 'average cohort'. For example a school may prioritise extra maths/English/science over an extra GCSE.

If you think it is 'too much' your best bet might be to try to decline triple science if offered it.

Footsanitiser · 10/02/2022 12:22

My daughters school had the option to convert to combined science at the end of year 10.

thing47 · 10/02/2022 13:16

@shamoola

My son will have to do the 11 GCSEs in years 10/11. They used to do it across 3 years but this changed back to 2 years recently.

From the responses here there does seem to be a quite a difference across schools which in my view doesn't make for a level playing field.

We have an options evening coming up - I will have to ask about this, though I doubt they would change anything for this cohort.

Definitely worth raising it. We brought up at the options evening that doing split GCSEs across Ys10 and 11 was frowned upon by some universities who prefer to see them all taken at the same time.

We were told that was how the school was structured at the time, but they no longer do this, so maybe we had an influence on that…

MehMahMoo · 10/02/2022 13:21

My oldest did 11, when RE was compulsory, but only taught it 2 periods a week. They dropped this, made RE a choosable subject with fully timetabled lessons if you wanted it, and move to 10 subjects, with some doing 11 if they were doing further maths. So my middle did 11 with further maths, youngest doing the 10. Much more manageable really in my view but still think GCSE exams are crazy - too many, too long. In Scotland standard 5s (is that what they're called now? O grade equivalents) are done over just a month. So much better. Never in your life again are you expected to spend 7 weeks doing exams.

Comefromaway · 10/02/2022 13:24

The three different schools my children attended all did 9 apart from the ones who took Additional Maths who took 10, ones who did an extra curricular subject (drama, Greek and computer science were offered out of hours at one school) who also did 10 or ones who for various reasons SEN/struggling etc) dropped a subject and did 8.

nomoneytree · 10/02/2022 13:28

My children's independent has scaled back how many they can do. The vast majority only do 10 now.

Mind you I only did 9 and some did 8 in my school. Only the very clever did 10.

Look at university admissions. None will require 11. Take less and have more chance of higher grades. 10 7's is better than 6 6's and 5 7's.

loobylou44 · 10/02/2022 13:33

My year 11 daughter is doing 11 in a state comp.
Her sister did 10 last year at an independent school.

onedayoranother · 10/02/2022 15:08

My daughter did 9 plus an Arts Award, she wanted to do 10. The kids that did more usually did the extra maths or a foreign language that was their native language which they had to do them pretty much on their own, and tended to sit those in Year 10.
Our school day was 8.50-4.30 with just one double games lesson a week and no study periods so hard to timetable more than ten in!

EdithWeston · 10/02/2022 15:22

Ours do 10 as standard - double science is the standard, these doing triple have to use one of their choices for it. Those doing core do 9 GCSEs.

The only people doing 11 are those who take FM.

And they will let this early who want to take a home language use the school as exam centre (they used to dothat in year 19, so it didn't get in the way of the main bunch, but I'm not sure now). If the home language is one the school teaches, they have to include it in their options.

PiesNotGuys · 11/02/2022 23:30

Thanks @TeenPlusCat

It wasn’t that long ago. It was this millennium anyway! I didn’t do anything modular, it was all sat in two weeks of exams, I remember doing three exams a day some days.

I haven’t had that much info from DCs school about the different courses and how they differ, I’ve sat back and let them choose I suppose but to be fair, we had to choose during covid times when everything was up in the air so long. I guess I need to do some reading on the subject before we get to the sharp end.

ErrolTheDragon · 11/02/2022 23:49

It wasn’t that long ago. It was this millennium anyway! I didn’t do anything modular, it was all sat in two weeks of exams, I remember doing three exams a day some days.

My DDs were like that in 2015 - she did 12 inc FM. But that was just before the reforms, not comparable with the situation today.

TeenPlusCat · 12/02/2022 07:36

Government report
In 2011 the vast majority of GCSEs were modular examinations. From 2012, the rules around GCSEs were modified to require students to take all of the assessments at the end of the course.

My DD1 did GCSEs in 2015, her exam timetable was nothing like as heavy as DD2's would have been in 2021.

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