GCSE "compulsory" subject. DS doesn't want to do it.

[sugarhopper]

DS is in top set for French at school. School says that if you are in the top set in year 9 then you HAVE to take French as one of your GCSE choices.

Now, while DS is good at it, he doesn't like or enjoy it. Top set of any other subject aren't forced into a GCSE, only the MFL classes.
Also doing French will mean he will have to drop one of his other options (probably Design & Tech or Computing) which he really wants to do. (Also, top set for these subjects)
I know we're going to have a fight on our hands over this, but any advice will be welcome.

But what are the options blocks?
At 3 different secondary schools that my dc went to, everyone had to take a MFL at GCSE (unless they were taking a reduced number). The options were set out and timetabled accordingly.
Is it really stopping him doing something else that can be timetabled for him? Or can he do the GCSE as an extra himself( one DD did this cos they did not offer the subject she wanted to her year)

Over many, many years I have found my Latin O-level much more useful than my French one 😁

I completely agree that being switched off a subject will lead to a lower result and I suppose the soft skill snobby comment was describing the encouragement mc parents give to their DCs to do something they don’t enjoy for longer term gain/ benefits that aren’t immediately obvious.
So rather than encouraging a child who’s good at French to drop it for something at first sight relevant but really isn't that useful encouraging them to persevere. Mine weren’t all good at languages but got good grades because they worked hard because they could see the benefits in- they can all hold their own on holiday. Not doing French won’t stop him doing much, but having it opens up A Level, supporting courses at University, travel and lots of qualifying tests for courses and jobs he hasn’t even heard of. Not having GCSE computing won’t stop him doing anything. I’ve not mentioned CDT because that is a worthwhile GCSE.

Hmm this was my situation in the 90s. School didn't relent but I had my own protest. I wasn't disruptive in the sense of causing trouble, but I did refuse to do any work relating to languages and used the time to do other homework instead. My mother (a teacher at another school) was called in several times because I wasn't making progress, and when she pointed out that was fine because I wasn't attending the exam she was informed she would be billed for the exam entry.....two decades on and it's still not arrived. I was of course (according to the school) denying myself any sort of academic future and going to regret not having any languages at GCSE for the rest of my life, but my undergrad, masters and PhD degrees rather suggest otherwise.

Stick it out and do what's in your son's best interest not the schools!

Edited to say this is in reply to a pp questioning whether young graduate coders have maths not coding degrees:
I might well have the details wrong- this is from the mothers of my DCs’ peers and maybe they’re more in statistics and data analysis. Definitely coding in entry level Management Consultancy, but honestly in this cohort of very well paid (again, I’m not bragging this is friends’ dc) no one did GCSE computing and everyone has at least one GCSE mfl.

We had this exact situation with my DS, he spoke with his teachers, and I wrote an email supporting him and got it changed. I appreciate we may have been lucky and not all schools are so accommodating. I think it helped that his choice to replace was geography, something they wanted him to take as he is very good at it.

Surely he can do both French and computing? DC1 school puts most students into EBacc. They only have two free choices. I don’t think it’s a bad thing.

Aargh. Typed a long reply and lost it...

To answer a few questions:
He hates French. IF it were German he might like it better. We have friends there, and visit occasionally. However when the kids were put in the language blocks they refused to move him over.

Two of my older DC's went to excellent universities. One did a language, one did not. Ebacc was never mentioned.

Changing school is not an option. He was unable to get into the other (better) school in year 7 which is why we're here. There's no other choice in this area.

DD's DP was earning a ridiculous amount of money at 19 working in computers. He didn't even have a degree, and he thinks computing is the better choice. DD who works in Computers/DT also thinks it's the better option. Given they both work in the area DS is wanting to go, I'm happy to take their advice.

I have had a brief conversation with a "senior leader" at the school and was totally fobbed off. However I will have no hesitation about stamping my feet in reception until I get an audience with the head.

Ah, so the young graduates with maths/econ degrees are not coding then, as data analysis and statistics are application based.

Yes, you are correct coders would not do the Computing GCSE which is hardware based, what I said is young graduates who code today would tend to have Computer Science degrees instead of Maths/Economics degrees.

Go on, do elaborate on this.

By “Computing gcse” I’m presuming posters mean the ICT gcse, not the computer science gcse.

You are wasting your time

The school timetable is based on the staffing it has available. The school is not going to be able to magic up more teachers in the subjects your sone wants

If it doesn't suit your son, move him to a school with the staffing to teach him what he wants to learn.

I think most pupils don’t actually get that much choice about gcse subjects do they? In that there are always limitations and compulsory subjects/ groups of subjects. I did my GCSEs in the late 90s and had hardly any choice. We all did 9 GCSEs so by the time you had the 2 English, maths, at least dual award science (or all three seperately), a MFL, a technology and a humanity (all compulsory at my school) you only had one free choice (and that was only a free choice if they could timetable it). I really wanted to do single award science which would have given me an extra choice, but in my year they withdrew it due to not enough interest. I was pretty unhappy but nothing i could do and i just got on with it, perhaps because I was a bit more conformist in those days and my parents would not have gone up against the school’s decision. It didn’t do me pr my grades any harm as I was good enough at science, I just hated it. I ended up taking the subject I couldn’t fit in because of the science faff for A level anyway as it was one you didn’t need to have done at GCSE so all worked out well.

If it’s a hill you’re prepared to die on with the school then go for it, but it might also be a lesson for your DS that you can’t always have your own way and sometimes you have to just get on with things even if they’re not your first choice. If he’s ok at French then having it as a gcse don’t do him any harm and he’ll still be able to pursue his more specific interests at a-level/ degree. GCSEs for me are more about having a grounding in a good range of subjects rather than focussing narrowly, there’s plenty of time for that in the future.

What an embarrassing reach.

It's not compulsory. Only maths, English and science are. The school are making it look like it's compulsory as they get judged on how many kids they rope in for the ebaac. My DD was told she needed to do the ebaac subjects as she is in top set. She flat out refused to do a language and so she didn't. She just chose another subject instead and the school can't do anything about it....as it's not a compulsory subject end of. The ebaac means absolutely nothing to the kids and it's literally just for the school.

Don’t do GCSE language= no A Level language, no getting by skills travelling there, no ebac. Fewer opportunities to pick up a language via short course at university. Lots of aptitude tests for careers are vocabulary based, so any knowledge of any language puts you at an advantage.
Don’t do GCSE computing = nothing closed to you. You can still do A Level computing and onwards for a career in computing or coding.

Can he not do 1extra gcse if he’s in top set? French gcse isnt too hard and I had to stay behind after school to do my religious gcse for an extra hour.

but really if he’s good/fluent it doesn’t matter about the gcse.

Pretty sure they will mean CS as there is no ICT GCSE and hasn't been for a number of years.

Also D&T is amazing to do. One of the most genuinely engaging classes/studies, it cover a broad church of technical and aesthetic design and he should definitely do it if it calls to him.

you can do French anytime, it’s not going anywhere

@TrailingLoellia
I disagree. I think learning that there are multiple possible ways to express a relationship between two things, which is an essential part of 2nd language learning, is helpful for coding.

That number being 1? It ended in Summer 2022 and the poster I was talking too was talking about recent graduates with Maths/Econ degrees.

They cannot make him do a GCSE he doesn’t want to do. what are they going to do -exclude him for not taking French? I don’t think so.

Just go to the head of year and say he won’t be doing it and to please programme him for computer science. It can’t be a timetabling issue if this is only imposed on the highest-attaining pupils. It must be about league table position. if it were a timetabling issue I’d have all the sympathy but it really isn’t in this case, it’s about performance measures.

throw around a few buzzwords like centering the child, meeting the gatsby career benchmarks and facilitating progression or some such ;)

We had the same at my Son’s school. He would have only had one choice if the school had made him take the MFL. I phoned the school daily to make a nuisance of myself until the headteacher would speak to me. He tried to bluff that it was about encouraging students to achieve when really it was all about league tables and the EBACC. In the end he relented and allowed him to drop the MFL and take a subject that aligns much better with his future career plans.

ETA, high attaining students were being forced to take a MLF while the lower attaining students were allowed to choose other courses, I pointed out that this was clearly being used as a way to manipulate the statistics. The head also claimed to the EBACC students gained an extra certificate when it’s actually a measure of the school.

Having working French is pretty useful in aviation when you consider which country in Europe has the largest aerospace industry and is home to the biggest civil aviation company in the world. Sure, the working language is English but if you are spending any time at Airbus or any of its myriad subsidiaries then some functional French is extremely useful, if only for socialising.

Python? C++ ... those sorts of languages, sure.

French? Hum... in about 40 years writing software, I think I've once come across a comment written in French but nowadays google translate would have done a lot better than my very rusty o-level