How many GCSEs?

[3littlebeans]

So my daughter's grammar school has 10 GCSEs as the norm.

How many do schools usually do? Is it better to get say 8 or 9 good grades than 10? Or will 10 with a few lower grades be okay? I like the idea of breadth but with content heavy GCSEs just wondering what people's experiences are.

For example another local school does 9 and often 2 of those are BTecs or similar so less focus on end results (I think) which makes getting "8s and 9s" easier.

This is all pretty hypothetical as she's doing 10 but presumably dropping to 9 wouldn't be the end of the world if necessary (other than timetabling).

Ham - I was wondering if that's a point we might get to. Only yr 9 at the moment (3 Yr gcses) but its SO content heavy compared to when I did them!

@3littlebeans It really is. So much harder than when I was at school. It makes complete sense to me that she should focus on doing well in 9 than spread herself more thinly doing 10. If you’re the sort of person that has a great memory then 10 is doable but she’s not and it’s really overwhelming.

11 here plus the Welsh Bacc. English Lit and Numeracy are already out of the way though so down to a more manageable 9 for most of year 11.

@Hamofthesea ds has ADHD and he did 8 in the end. Dd did 9 and she’s just going through the ADHD diagnosis process now too. 9 was the maximum she could cope with really. Both their schools (grammar and selective independent) were very supportive of them dropping one/two subjects so I’d push the school on it.

I think the trend in many schools is going back towards "more breadth", rather than narrowing the curriculum.

This is what my DC non selective state school does - they start in Y9 but don't drop as many subjects, so three years of slightly narrowed curriculum vs two years of more restricted curriculum.

They end up with a ridiculous amount of GCSEs though - everyone does 8 or 9 compulsory subjects depending on double or triple science. Then four options. Plus compulsory Welsh Bacc, a GCSE equivalent apparently. Top two maths sets also do additional maths. So mine ended up doing 15 in total.

I am a bit ambivalent about it - it seems a lot and I'm always told on here that it's ridiculous because "even Oxbridge" only look at 8 GCSE results. But if you think of education as something bigger than just getting the minimum required for the next step, it could be seen as a positive thing. I guess you are allowed to drop things if you are struggling, mine were ok with the workload though and wanted to carry on with all of them, either because they liked all their subjects (DD) or because they felt they had invested effort and wanted to get the qualification (DS).

Big disclaimer: we are in Wales where some GCSEs are still modular, so they take some bits and bobs in Y10 after two years, which reduces the pressure on Y11. I doubt this approach would be possible in England.

I like the approach of keeping breadth. My eldest hadn’t decided if he was an arts or science person when he chose his options and doing 11 GCSEs allowed him to keep his options open. The second child’s favourite GCSE subject was the one he would not have chosen had he been doing only 9 subjects and so his extra choices made him look at more subjects. As it turned out, they turned into favourites.

Yes, broader definitely helps those who don't know aged 12 what they might want to do with their lives!

Madness isn’t it, that we expect that they should know at 12? I am not sure I know now in my 40s.

My kids school make you choose 9. They do have to take a language and a humanity though

DD was at a top grammar school and did 10. Seems to be pretty typical but have heard of some schools doing 9

The mean number taken per student is currently around 7.8 (this has fallen steadily from 8.1 in 2018).
Around half of kids take 8 or 9 (i.e. about a quarter each). 14% take 10 or more. 35% take 7 or fewer.
full statistics here

Oooh that's really interesting.

So those schools taking 10/11 + are in fact unusual.

10 is normal at my dc's selective indie. The focus is definitely on doing well in a manageable number rather than doing loads. Dcs can select to take the HPQ as one option too which would take examined GCSEs down to 9.

On the flip side top set maths do gcse further maths and a small number do classical Greek off timetable. This means for example that while my ds did 10 GCSEs my dd will do 12. Unis won't care either way!

I did 10 in 1992 but the standard number in my school was 9 it was just that I took Latin in my lunchtimes. Normal comp for me.

State - 12 including 3x science and further maths.