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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

GCSE Extras with a Tutor?

12 replies

TheHuntingOfTheSarky · 10/02/2022 19:25

Hi.

My daughter (currently Y9) wants to take more GCSE subjects than her school allows. We've said we'll pay for a tutor for an additional subject, but it's really hard to know which subjects are more conducive to tutor-led learning.

At the moment she has 10 with school - currently Maths, English x 2, triple certificate Science, RE, History, Spanish and Classics. We just had parents evening where none of her teachers said it would be ok to do the subject with a tutor - she has the potential to take Art and/or Drama, which I assume she'd need to take in a group format.

My question is, do you know students who have taken certain extra subjects with a tutor and still done very well? I'm in a flap, and so is she! Only 10 days before she needs to commit to,school options!!

OP posts:

clary · 10/02/2022 19:42

I tutor (not art or drama!) and I have worked with students taking my subject as an extra GCSE. It has gone OK but only if they are really keen and committed to doing extra work outside their GCSE courses at school.

I would agree, drama or art would be really hard to take outside school. Is it that she cannot decide which subjects to drop? Her choices are very rounded but maybe lack a creative subject - not that you need that but it can provide a useful outlet.

Would she consider dropping (eg) RE or classics (do you mean class civ or actual Latin and Greek?) to take art or drama instead?

If she had a passion for class civ, I would imagine that is a subject that could be studied outside school - maybe just for fun rather than taking the exam, as it is not essential for any A level study (whereas art GCSE would be very useful for art A level, for example.

RedskyThisNight · 10/02/2022 20:51

If she's thinking of Art or Drama, why does it have to be as a GCSE? I would think both lend themselves to doing as leisure activities - which might actually be more fun than the GCSE! DD is very artistic, but finding herself bogged down by the constraints of the syllabus- it's taken a lot of the pleasure out of it for her.

stlletoes · 10/02/2022 20:57

What about looking at LAMDA exams instead of an extra GCSE, if she likes drama, I understand the higher ones even carry UCAS points.

onedayoranother · 11/02/2022 19:19

I do know peopl who have taken extra GCSEs. Mainly kids who take extra foreign language as they are native speakers and did it in their own time with minimal help from school, or those superachievers who take extra GCSEs just to challenge themselves. Both in Y10.
If your child has extra interests then they don't have to be as GCSEs - they could just be extracurricular activities.

spotcheck · 11/02/2022 19:25

I would agree, drama or art would be really hard to take outside school
Er....
Clubs? Leisure classes? Does it have to be a GCSE, OP?

clary · 11/02/2022 20:45

Obviously I meant taking drama or art GCSE would be hard outside school; drama needs group work so that would be a challenge. The op asked about GCSEs externally. I agree pursuing art or drama as extra curricular activities would be easy. It depends why she wants to do these extra quals. If it's in order to take art A level then I would do the GCSE in school tbh.

notagainnotagain · 11/02/2022 20:53

Why does she need so many? Choice at our school is 9.

Naem · 12/02/2022 20:32

My DD took photography (which is actually under the Art heading - ie GCSE Art, photography) with a private tutor (albeit one who was teaching art at another school, and was able to include her within that school's admissions). But that was because DD's school didn't offer it as an option - only fine Art (she would have happily dropped another option at school for photography if it had, but was set on and passionate about photography, not fine art, even to the point of toying with a photography career). She also did it in Years 9 and 10, so that it didn't impact on her Year 11 year. Her school does 10 GCSEs as well, and I think doing an 11th in Year 11 would have been too much. Are you sure what you are doing is sensible? Note also that because this was the only GCSE she took in Year 10, she could have the other school as her exam centre, and then her real school will be the exam centre for her main set of GCSEs. I am not sure how it would work if she had been finishing photography in Year 11 - as that would have meant she was at two exam centres simultaneously. You might have to get agreement of her existing school to be used as an exam centre, and for something like Art, that might be difficult.

Cleothecat75 · 12/02/2022 20:42

I’m agreeing with those asking why she can’t do drama for fun? Not everything needs to lead to a gcse, it’s really good to have hobbies outside of school where your dd can just ‘be’ and enjoy what she is doing. When dd was interviewed for college, they were as interested in what she did outside school (hobbies/extra curricular clubs) as they were what grads she was predicted.

In our town there are drama classes and I think they do exams (I’ve heard of LAMDA, which is possibly from following their fb pages) and several Amateur Dramatic groups who are very active, have their own theatre and put on several shows each year. They have a great mix of ages from children, teens and adults.

LittleOwl153 · 12/02/2022 21:33

So she wants to take it up to 11 gcse's which she would take at the end of Yr 11... sounds like alot to me and an unnecessary pressure.

To answer the question I would ha e thought spanish would have been an option - but you need a proper teacher tutor not a graduate looking for cash or a foreign fronted computer course as neither of these will have syllabus access. You also need to look at what her school/exam centre will support as she will need to be entered fir the exams somewhere.

I've also seen music done as an extra where a student already plays an instrument to a good standard - but as others say RCM for music or LAMDA for drama are as acceptable at the right grades...

LittleOwl153 · 12/02/2022 21:35

Also I assume there is the issue of option blocks to work around unless she's jn a massive school?

Original poster

TheHuntingOfTheSarky · 14/02/2022 08:31

Sorry to have abandoned the thread everyone and thank you for taking the time to reply.

You're all totally right of course - I was panicking but having reflected in the cold light of day I realise that she will be absolutely fine doing what she's chosen and leaving it at that. She is also in a Netball League and doing DofE so we definitely don't want to put extra pressure on her.

Re the options blocks, her school is very big (10 form entry) and they have basically said it'll be fine for them all to do their first choices providing there's enough uptake for them to be able to run a decent-sized class.

Thanks again for all the replies.

OP posts:

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