How many GCSEs is too many?

[OnTh3Up]

DC will be taking 13 GCSEs due to triple science and 2x extra maths.
The impact on their exam timetable has only just dawned on me (more exams on the same day, less days between exams).
Extra maths would usually be taken a year early but this didn't happen due to Covid.
School have said that dropping GCSEs isn't an option.
Grades would probably be:
9x 7ish
2x 4/5
2x 3
This isn't a moan or a humble brag. I'm genuinely looking for advice.

Thank you

Our school do 13 if you're doing triple science and double maths. It worked out fine really. They'd done that many mini tests throughout the year they were well prepared. Exams were spread over four weeks I think, so enough time for last minute revision.

Thank you

I expect those doing 13 aren't getting 3s in some of their subjects though.

And how are they fitting all of the subjects in the timetable?
At DD's old school if you took triple science it used up one of the options so the pupils still only took 10 GCSE subjects.

DD got a 6 in GCSE maths and a B in A level maths. She was a late bloomer and a hard worker.

I did 11 myself which was fine, but I think things are different these days. I possibly could have got slightly better grades if I'd done fewer...

Apologies if I'm duplicating others' comments.
Unless perhaps they are changing school/college for 6th form, sitting the extra maths papers is not very important. The benefits of them for A level will be gained by having learned the work in the first place.

In terms of exam timetable (and I've only had one child go through GCSEs due to covid, 2nd about to do A levels), I noticed that one remaining "benefit" of IGCSEs is that at least some have fewer, longer papers. eg when my eldest did them she had I think 2, 2 hour maths papers compared with 3, 1.5 hour papers. It may be worth looking at the exam timetables (when do they come out?) to see what it's really going to look like.

Sod's law the papers that would make most sense to drop, academically, will be the ones with several free days to prepare for them ...

Hope it works out smoothly!

I would normally say 13 was too many but given that 3 of them are maths-related I assume that there is at least some overlap between them. It's therefore not the same as doing 13 completely unrelated subjects.

The 'basic' maths GCSE may not need much work, though obviously will impact on the exam timetable.

Well done to your DD, but statistically she is an outlier. There is a mumsnetter who is a maths teacher and she has all the statitsics for GCSE maths grades and what the progress is to A levels.

He could give them up himself even if entered for them? Not revise, potentially not bother turning up for the exam, not put them on his CV? Just concentrate on 10 inc English.

If he is potentially only going to get a 4 in English, that could seriously limit his post 16 and university options.

He obviously has strengths elsewhere but he wouldn't be allowed to do science A-levels where I work, and his uni choices would be severely limited.

He needs to be allowed to drop something to focus on bringing this up, but unfortunately it likely won't be geography or re he is allowed to drop.

@Postapocalypticcowgirl I'm gutted to read your school policy on science alevels.
As a child I really struggled with English - and got 2 grade Cs. I was allowed to do my science Alevels, and got 3 As (maths, phys, chem) and 2 Bs (bio and general studies). And went on to get a first class honors degree, and a MSc at distinction. The policy is extremely disadvantageous to those with some form of written or expressive language disorder. I'm not stupid. I'm dyslexic.

@OnTh3Up I agree school will try to remove the maths entries rather than the grade 3 entries. I wonder what the impact would be if you proposed DS turning up to lessons, doing the class and homework, but not sitting the exam? That removes the issue with supervision during those lessons.

To clarify, it's a blanket policy the students must have a 5 in English and a 5 in maths to study A-levels. Which is equivalent to a high C.

That said the style of questions on a lot of the A-level papers for sciences now mean that most students who struggle with English struggle to access the papers. I don't write the exam papers, and I do think the style of question is often unfair and designed to trip students up.

Unfortunately, the sixth form where I work is actually oversubscribed, and actually we have waiting lists for some subjects such as biology and psychology. We have to select students somehow and people who've been here longer than me have found the grade 5 is usually the cut off for success. Our senior leadership don't believe it's helpful to let people onto courses they will likely fail. And again, they aren't responsible for designing the courses.

We do also offer btec courses with lower entry requirements which are still an excellent path to uni for some students.

I also don't set uni entry requirements but I don't personally know of any that admit students with less than a 5 in English and Maths for science degrees now. This usually a hard cut off. It's very possible some exist, I'm just not aware of them.

The private school DS goes to won't let you do more than 11 even including further maths.

Def too many. Both mine were nearly all 8s and 9s. My eldest did extra maths but didn't do the triple science and we thought it would be too much. My second eldest did triple but wouldn't do the extra maths. Both felt any more would have had a detrimental affect on their other grades. I wouldn't consider any extra unless all the others were at least 5+ and probably 6+ unless there was a particular good reason.

DD2 went to a school which ran a very odd system, consisting of splitting GCSE across Years 10 and 11, so she took the following:

Y10 – maths, double or triple science (she did triple), 1 option (she did PE), RE short course, Citizenship, some sort of IT diploma
Y11 – English Lang, English Lit, further maths, stats, MFL, humanity

So she ended up with 12 full GCSE, an IT qualification and a half-GCSE in RE.

@OnTh3Up DD2 has actually found the Stats GCSE quite useful in her science degrees (her Masters contained a fair amount of epidemiology, which is very stats-based). The Further Maths less so, but she didn't do maths A level, it may be a useful bridge to that.

My children's secondary school (well regarded state school) has reduced the number of GCSEs in recent years, in response to the syllabus changes. My eldest did 11, middle child took 10 and my youngest did 9. They have used the increased space in the timetable to give extra time for English and Maths. Their rationale is that there is no real advantage to anyone of having any more GCSEs than that and that it is more important to have 8 or 9 with good grades, especially in the core subjects.
I'm not sure what your best course of action is really OP, but I would say that the most important thing for your DS is to concentrate on doing as well as he can in the core subjects, including English Language.
As others have said, 5s in English Language and Maths are mandatory requirements for entry to many 6th forms, regardless of A level choices, and are required by many universities too. It's worth putting extra effort into the core subjects even if it's at the cost of some of the others in my opinion.
I know that it's not that long ago that when GCSEs were mainly modular it was quite common to take 13 or 14 subjects, but things are very different these days and 13 sounds excessive to me.

DD's school used to do something similar @thing47.
They did two short fat GCSEs in year 10, so instead of 5 hours a fortnight of, say History, they did 5 hours a week; and two short fat GCSEs in year 11. They did the rest of their GCSEs over years 10 and 11.

As DD was a July baby she took 2 GCSEs at 14 and 8 at 15.

12 is normal here (Wales) because they do Welsh Language and Welsh Literature as well as the normal 10 in Englan

DS2 did 13 as he did an extra one outside school. He was really interested in the extra subject so was motivated to work at it.

DD started Further Maths but ultimately decided against it as she didn't love it and she found the workload of 13 quite heavy going.

They both got all A*/A

That sounds a lot. My DD did 11 x GCSE's plus an ICT equivalent and a spoken English exam. Only the top set did advanced Maths at GCSE. I would be questioning anything at grade 3 unless English, Maths or Science.

It's an awful lot, and it's definitely more than they need, but they are clearly very talented at maths and could well need to put in less work for their 3 maths GCSEs than some less able kids need to do for their one.

However this year's Y11s are under a lot of pressure. We know so many on reduced timetables or out of school altogether. If your child is really struggling to cope with the workload then do speak to the school from that angle. Dropping a subject or two to head off a spiralling mental health crisis should be doable even if they don't allow it for most students, most of the time. You have to assume that school has the child's interests at heart and proceed accordingly. If they are basically OK but you are just worried about the exam schedule I would say ask about dropping the 3s but be prepared to just ride it out.

One question to consider is if they were to drop some, would you be able to physically pick them up so they were out if school for those lessons? If the school is adamant that they can't go to the library or sit at the back of their scheduled class with headphones in, this may be the only way to have them removed from those lessons.

How do they fit all of it into the curriculum? Do they do fewer hours per subject than pupils in England?

Likewise. DD2 is a late June birthday (and 7 weeks early) so was only 14 when she did maths and triple science GCSEs.

The flaw in the system wass that no science was timetabled for Y11, as they had already completed their GCSEs in it. Not great for those wanting to do science A levels as they had had a year without any science!

Yes, that was ill thought out. At DD's school I think the only subjects where a pupil might have struggled with a break would have been French and Spanish.

All the core subjects were sat in year 11, although under the old GCSE system the double science pupils sat paper 1 for all sciences in year 10 and paper 2 in year 11. All the triple science pupils sat all three papers for each science at the end of year 11, so they had more exams.

@RampantIvy I'm not sure as my DC have only been educated in Wales, but that would seem to be the only way they could.