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Secondary education

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Original poster

How many GCSEs is your child taking?

78 replies

Alpacasoup · 30/10/2022 11:57

My DD is in Year 11 and is taking 10 GCSEs. She is a bright girl but does not have a great memory and really struggled with the retention of information for her Year 10 exams and is already worrying about January mocks. I'm hoping that the actual GCSEs will be easier in some respects as even though there will be more content to cover, they will have longer to revise. For the Year 10 exams they were getting homework and learning new information right up to the exams so it was really tough for her as she needs time to absorb it.

Anyway, I was wondering if 10 is the norm? It seems like a lot, especially if it includes the three sciences. If it gets too much I'll be tempted to persuade her to drop one so am holding that thought in reserve at the moment. She's on track to get 6,7,8s.

OP posts:
BananaDaiquiri · 30/10/2022 12:30

At my daughter's school most of them do 10 (though they take RE in y10 instead of 11). Some do 11 if they choose to do Latin as well as an optional extra (for this reason my daughter decided not to do Latin). I think about 10-20 of them a year do Latin as an extra. A small number do less as they do a non-gcse qualification instead of a GCSE (for example Childcare). Another 20 or so will do an additional GCSE in their community language (Arabic, Japanese, Polish etc), so not studied in school but taken in school, so you could be doing 12 in theory if you took a community language and Latin, but this is single figures of kids.
So in summary, most do 10. Would she be allowed to just drop one if she is in target for good grades? Or do you mean she could be entered for double science instead of triple?

TeenDivided · 30/10/2022 12:33

DD is now y13, but at her school 9.5 was the norm, 10.5 if doing triple science.
Make sure she revises properly for mocks, and stays up to date with whatever revision notes she needs to make at the end of units. Relearning having properly learned for y10, mocks is faster than memorising for the first time.

Original poster
Alpacasoup · 30/10/2022 12:37

@BananaDaiquiri I don't think that the school would allow her to drop one, and she would continue with the three sciences as she is doing well in those. I was thinking really that if it all got too much and too stressful she could unofficially drop one, i.e. make a decision to focus her revision on the 9 strongest and write off the 10th, and then never mention it again!

OP posts:
skyeisthelimit · 30/10/2022 12:42

DD is Year 10 and doing 10 GCSE's. She is rated at 4/5 apart from French which is 3.

She has terrible memory and concentration problems, has been assessed for extra time and laptop use in exams. I had to push for that after hearing about it from other parents, the school did not tell me that it was possible.

I asked if she could drop French but the school won't allow it as 4/5 in the other subjects is good enough for them.

So she could only drop French if she was worse than 4/5 in English/Maths.

I have told DD to concentrate on English/Maths, and her chosen options as they feed into the college course that she wants to do. If she fails French then so be it.

VariationsonaTheme · 30/10/2022 12:51

8, and that’s the limit at her school. So long as they have enough for whatever they want to do next they don’t need to do more.

SE13Mummy · 30/10/2022 12:55

11 for the students at my DCs' school who do triple science, 10 if they do combined science. RS is taken in Y10 so that lightens the load for Y11.

TeenDivided · 30/10/2022 12:56

Alpacasoup · 30/10/2022 12:37

@BananaDaiquiri I don't think that the school would allow her to drop one, and she would continue with the three sciences as she is doing well in those. I was thinking really that if it all got too much and too stressful she could unofficially drop one, i.e. make a decision to focus her revision on the 9 strongest and write off the 10th, and then never mention it again!

You can't never mention it again (unless she doesn't attend any of the exams?)
If she gets a grade it will have to go on UCAS form for uni (I believe).

Original poster
Alpacasoup · 30/10/2022 12:58

@TeenDivided I did wonder if it would have to go on the UCAS form. I think if she really decided not to take it she would withdraw from the exam.

OP posts:
Boomboom22 · 30/10/2022 12:59

Unis only count the strongest 8 including maths and English.

Boomboom22 · 30/10/2022 13:01

Also what the school says and what they do nearer the time or under parental pressure are different. Do look up entry dates though as by soon this term in yr11 she would have to be withdrawn or the school will be charged anyway.

piisnot3 · 30/10/2022 16:24

51% do either 8 or 9, in roughly equal numbers.
14% do 10 or more.
2% do 11 or more.
data here
Some universities look at the best 8. Others look at the proportion of top grades. For the purposes of UCAS/university entry there is no real advantage to doing 10 or more. It is generally better to get top/good grades in 8 or 9 subjects (including English language, maths and a science) than mediocre grades in a larger number of subjects so if a student is taking more than 9 and struggling with workload then it makes sense to cut down the number of subjects.

Redambergreenforgo · 30/10/2022 16:32

Our school do 8 or 9 depending on academic ability. The extra is a language and the top 1/3 of the year (about 110) are told they will take this, so theres no choice its just where you are placed in the year group at Christmas of year 9.

Agsiajva · 30/10/2022 16:36

10 seems a lot, I only did 9 and that was years ago before they brought in number grades (and I was in the top sets).

My brother did 8 including 2 BTECs and was in the middle sets that was under the new system.

Have you considered that your daughter might have ADHD? She sounds like I did and I was undiagnosed at the time. Doing 9 (did double science) and no more definitely benefitted me, and I came out with far higher grades than predicted / than I got in mocks.

Agsiajva · 30/10/2022 16:38

Oh and other than on my sixth form application and UCAS (which even then only cared for 8 of them) I’ve never once been asked for my GCSEs

FourTeaFallOut · 30/10/2022 16:39

8 GCSEs and a Further Maths qualification. Predicted grades are 7/8/9s.

PastMyBestBeforeDate · 30/10/2022 16:42

8 GCSEs and a BTech. Plus 1 GCSE she's already done. Predicted 8s and 9s.

Agsiajva · 30/10/2022 16:43

@TeenDivided
regarding UCAS my brother (he changed his mind about uni in the end) was told in the class that the only GCSEs that had to be listed if they’d failed them were English language and Maths. Plenty of his friends failed one or two subjects and didn’t include them

InTheFutilityRoomEatingBiscuits · 30/10/2022 16:48

I have 12 GCSEs and my DC can only take 9 which I thought wasn’t very many. I knew most people didn’t take 12 as I took one extra option but I thought 10-11 was standard.

JanglyBeads · 30/10/2022 17:00

Remember English counts as 2 - Literature and Language.

TeenDivided · 30/10/2022 17:42

InTheFutilityRoomEatingBiscuits · 30/10/2022 16:48

I have 12 GCSEs and my DC can only take 9 which I thought wasn’t very many. I knew most people didn’t take 12 as I took one extra option but I thought 10-11 was standard.

Under the new system people take fewer than before. Otherwise the revision and exam load in the summer would be even more horrendous than it is.

TeenDivided · 30/10/2022 17:44

Agsiajva · 30/10/2022 16:43

@TeenDivided
regarding UCAS my brother (he changed his mind about uni in the end) was told in the class that the only GCSEs that had to be listed if they’d failed them were English language and Maths. Plenty of his friends failed one or two subjects and didn’t include them

I've found a few links that indicate otherwise e.g. www.whatuni.com/advice/ucas-application-guide/ucas-form-advice/54517/ but I don't know the official rules or what cross checking is done.

JanglyBeads · 30/10/2022 17:47

We do 11 for most at our (academic but state) school, including Triple Science.

rosiepozis · 30/10/2022 17:59

Most at my daughter’s school do 11 – triple science is mandatory unless a child has significant issues, and they also all do statistics.

diar · 30/10/2022 18:55

DS is Y11 at an academic private school. They mainly do 9, a few do 10. I think the theory is that they've got more time to keep doing extra curricular stuff if they don't do 10/11/12 subjects, which they won't actually need. Though doing 9 can make for some hard decisions about what to drop.

HappyBinosaur · 30/10/2022 18:58

My son just did 11.