Dd choosing GCSE's

[InterestedBadger42]

Dd is in year 8 but apparently has to choose her GCSE's in January. She has no idea what to choose - according to her report card I think she's good at most subjects but she has no idea what she wants to do. I don't know how to help her decide. The school has been no help. Any suggestions?

Our DD only got to choose 2.

Have they told them what subjects they must do yet?

At the moment though I'd probably just be saying it's a while till she has to choose and school will probably talk to them more when the new school year starts.

Generally there's not really a lot of actual choice...

Most schools will want English x 2, Maths, Double or Triple Science, a Humanity (so History or Geography) and then a MFL.

DD's school also has Infotech, Citizenship and RE as compulsory for Y9 and then pick one of RE or Citizenship for Y10.

So they only really get 2 free-choice options and at her school you have to take a visual or performing art (so Music, Drama, Art, Graphic, Photography, Textiles, Design Tech or Creative Media Production are on offer).

If you break it down that way, you may find it easier to see what she gets to choose from.

We went with a BTEC as one of DD's free choice options as there is no exam... it's all continuous assessment, so take a bit of pressure off in Y11.

School will guide her. There is likely to be an options booklet, options evening and talks in assembly/ registration or form time.

As PP said, the choices are likely to be limited to 2-4 subjects given all the compulsory ones. Our head reassures parents that the options are structured in such a way that kids can't make a bad choice!

Yh as others say, her actual choices will be limited.

More info will come from the school, but in the meantime there is no harm in thinking about it. Her choices are most likely to be two or three from a creative (drama, DT, music, PE, art, perhaps creative media; some of those are best chosen if pursued out if school - I am thinking of PE and music), or a humanity (history or geog or RE; many schools insist on at least one) or an MFL (ditto) or possibly a new subject like sociology or psychology. So by all means have a think about where her skills lie. Most dc will know by year 8 if they want to keep going with art or music, for example.

Meant to say, as an example, ds2 took 10 GCSEs and his only actual choices were comp science and PE. The rest were decided for him (he had to pick one if history or geography).

It's a little bit early for schools to have input yet. My son choose in March but didn't get any input untill the December before when they put an information evening on and sent out options booklets, then the children where interviewed in school. If yours choose in January I wouldn't expect any involvement untill October.

So currently in y8, going into y9, choosing Jan of y9? That is quite standard.
School will give lots of guidance in the run up.

She'll have to do Maths, 2xEnglish, and at least 2xScience.

She may get to choose whether to do 3xscience, or school may decide for her.
She may be forced to do an MFL, but not necessarily
She will probably have to do at least one of Geography or History.
Then there might be 2 or 3 others.

Even know what school did last year may not help you, as they don't always do things the same way. (Though if you look now there may be this year's y9 option booklet on your website).

Mainly next term your DD needs to start thinking what does she enjoy, what is she good at. Don't get too fixed on anything as they will probably not give a completely free choice and compromises will be needed.

When it comes to picking the two extra ones after the ones like history or geography where you have to do one, all I would recommend is picking the ones she will find the most fun.
I had to do 14 gcses and the ones I loved the most were the two 'fun' ones I got to pick. They took up a lot of time but it was brilliant, meant that everyday I had something I really enjoyed and was a nice break from so much science etc
And its easier to get good grades in subjects that you like.

Colleges will look at core subjects anyway as all schools offer slightly different courses. So if she ends up wanting to do law and psychology at college, it wont matter that she didnt do them at gcse because she will have english etc

Out school held a couple of afternoon where kids could have taster lessons in subjects they'd never done before eg business, psychology, sociology.

As the others said the actual choices are not as daunting as you'd think because some of the choices are Double science or triple science, Geography or history etc

You did 14 GCSES?? How on earth is this even possible? I struggled with 10 workload wise (although admittedly this was way back in the day)

OP unlike @SpaceJamtart (14! wow) most DC do no more than 10 GCSEs now, maybe even as few as 8 is usual in some schools. Some students used to take more but because of the removal of coursework and the fact that virtually all GCSEs are assessed only through summer exams, school shave reduced the standard number.

Eight is plenty btw for whatever someone wants to do. My younger DC took 10 because they did triple science. But more and more schools are advocating 8-9 because of the increased content needed to be covered in two years.

We did 1 of our triple sciences in year 10 then the other two in year 11.

We did statistics gcse in year 10 instead of maths lessons and then did the maths course in year 11.

We did gcse PE, two lessons a week and then a three hour aferschool club on fridays to make up hours

This was a religious school so RE was non optional. 2x english then choice of another humanity and a language, then you get two 'free' choices. And I sat exam for my dads native language in year 8 or 9, that was an option for anyone who spoke a second language well enough, which was nice, but probably just to boost the schools numbers, I can't speak it now though.

They didn't do this for everyone it was just the kids in triple science, they picked a classes worth of us to trial the statistics and PE combo. It was not optional though and was a bit more stressful than necessary. It worked out fine but did really make me appreciate my 'fun' options

OP, the others have given you good advice. If your DD is anything like mine, there were some subjects they could not wait to drop, like Art and DT, so the list pretty much made itself.

14 GCSEs is a lot but pre the Gove so-called reforms, they were not as reliant on terminal exams. My older DD did 12 which she studied in years 9 & 10. Because she's a late July child, she was only 14 when she took them but managed a clean sweep of A star grades. She then did 3 years of sixth form, ending up with 6 full A levels plus another AS and EPQ. Despite her A star in GCSE French, she couldn't order a baguette in France!

Realistically Ds got to choose 2 the other 2 were from humanities so geography, history or philosophy, religion and ethics. Then an MFL as they were only studying one language that decided that. Then the compulsory ones were maths, English language, English Lit and science.

There should be an options evening where you can and your DD can talk to staff about the content of each subject so Ds knew what topics they would cover in history etc. Is there nothing on the school website? Usually there is a student section with information on, might have been for this year's year 9s but would give you some indication of what is available.

She has plenty of time, some subjects are more essay based than others, is that where her strengths lie?