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.

We all did gcse French in my day (late 1990s) regardless of your working level. I'm surprised kids have a choice these days not to take a language. Can't say I enjoyed it but we all managed OK.

Absolutely nothing to stop him learning it later in life if he wishes. I have functional German and Italian now and working on my Spanish. Didn't learn a word of any of these at school.

Sorry, I disagree and I have tons of degreed relatives who work professionally in the field who only know computer languages and their minds cannot learn foreign languages.

@TrailingLoellia
I’l not saying it’s essential. Of course you can learn python without knowing French. But it’s not a completely pointless exercise either. It’s more like how learning music can help with maths or art can help with history.

That could be a dangerous game to play, depending on school options locally. I know if I'd tried that approach at my DC's school I'd have been cutting my nose off to spite my face. The school is very over subscribed and the reality is they could replace any one of my children before their seat was cold whereas the probability of me finding a place in anything like an equivalent school locally is close to zero. The only roughly comparable state school is equally oversubscribed and we're not in catchment and the nearest 2 independents are even more restrictive on subject choice. Changing schools is often anything but an easy answer.
I can sympathise OP as our school also insists on more or less every pupil capable of passing the EBacc qualifying subjects doing them, which I don't altogether agree with. My younger DS was very opposed to doing an MFL (coincidentally it was DT he wanted to do instead too) but it was non negotiable. It wasn't a hill to die on for us as in more or less every other respect the school is ideal so he had to suck it up I'm afraid. In the end he got an 8 for French without a lot of effort and he ended up with a broad range of GCSEs at high grades which gave him lots of options for A level and hopefully shows him off as a good all rounder on his current University applications. This is a fairly new policy at our school so my elder son has a very STEM heavy set of GCSEs. He has continued down that route thankfully, but had he changed his mind later he might have regretted those choices made at age 13. Keeping things broad does have advantages. And I don't know about DT, but at our school you can definitely do computer science A level without having done GCSE so it might not be as big an issue as it first seems. Of course talk to the school and make his case, but if they won't budge it's unlikely to be massively detrimental to his future career plans so I'd encourage him to make the best of it. If he is good at French even though he doesn't like it, he can probably still get a good grade for it, and a set of good results across a range of subjects is never a bad thing.

Sorry, I disagree and I have tons of degreed relatives who work professionally in the field who only know computer languages and their minds cannot learn foreign languages.

I used to work with an absolutely genius scientific algorithm developer who hadn't had a hope in hell of a language o-level (back in the dim and distant past when some 'top' unis required one - none do now, thank goodness). He'd barely scraped a high enough grade in English because of dyslexia. He had a hell of a time writing his thesis but his code was brilliant.

OK some boards (just WJEC?) offered it until last year but very few schools had it as an option. I don't know any schools that have taught it for GCSE since about 2015. My teacher-ICT-mate was very relieved to stop teaching it in favour of CS.

I have one relative exactly like that- he currently teaches at MIT in the USA.

@ErrolTheDragon
I just meant that learning to treat words as grammatical components in a sentence that can be organized and expressed in different ways is a helpful exercise if you’re interested in coding.

Rubbish. He’d be much better off doing Computing and going on to do coding - much better employment prospects in the UK right now and far better paid.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not anti-French gcse. My problem is that he is being "forced" into doing a subject which he doesn't want to do. I know there's no choice when it comes to English/Maths/Science. I'd still be here complaining if he were being forced into art/geography/IT against his will, by being told it was compulsory, when it's really not, just because he's good at it.

Big swell head here, but he's good at everything. Top set, top of the class. Every teacher is encouraging him to take their subject at GCSE. It would be easier to say, well son, you're shit at art, so drop that for starters, but no. Most teachers are saying that we'd love you to consider xx for gcse, it's only French who are saying you HAVE to do this.

I'm getting the impression the Ebacc thing (didn't do that in my day, mind you I did O levels) is what's important here. Important to the school anyway. However, I will stick up for what DS wants. He's an excellent student and knows what he wants to do, and I'll support him in that.

The ICT one that was often called “computing” to differentiate it from “comp sci” around here was a pretty awful GCSE. The poster was saying how useless “computing” was as none of the young graduate coders they know had it, so I naturally thought that must be the ICT gcse they were talking about as the computer science gcse is really good for aspiring coders.

Why is it useful to do that in French and not English?

I've not read the full thread, so I don't know if someone has offered this perspective. I'm a software developer and consider my language studies to have been useful in forming my professional skillset as a programmer. Picking up a new software development language has a few things in common with learning a real language - you have to learn the keywords and the 'grammar'. Everyone knows that e.g. maths is helpful, but some other esoteric skills can help too. I would advise him to do the French GCSE and would suggest you ask the school for him to do an extra GCSE in the subject he might have to drop.

So the doors closed are to an even tougher exam he doesn't want to do and will also be no help for his chosen career, and an optional short course at uni that he also doesn't want to do. How tragic.

Maybe it depends what sort of code you write. I can't say I recognise that at all. I'm curious, what's your area of expertise?

Computer languages don’t have “words” like you see when learning French.
As in “ecoutez-vous” for “listen you” as different commands. See screenshot.

If anything, the language of mathematical proofs is more useful.

Conveniently missing the aptitude tests for a myriad of careers he’s not yet considered or heard of. He’s 14.
What doors are closed if he doesn’t do CS at GCSE?

@ItsNotRocketSalad
Because French grammar is different. It doesn’t matter that it’s French in particular. It’s more that learning any 2nd language teaches you that there’s more than one logical way to express the same idea or the same relationship between two things.

😂😂😂 Smart

@ErrolTheDragon
Linguistics.

Well I am amazed to see the English so disdainful of foreign languages. Good thing you left the EU.

When I was young, French was obligatory up to GCSE then, later, when I arrived in Mexico, I met so many Americans who, like the OP's son, had opted out of studying a foreign language and hadn't the first clue about how to go about learning one.

Op if it's about the ebacc are they also forcing him to take a humanities gcse

Labour government dropped MFL requirements at KS4. This led to a steep decline in GCSE entries.

To top that off -- there has been a reduction in the number of GCSE subjects studied. In the 2000s, you had many academic students taking 10-11 GCSEs. The current formulas count the top 8 subjects (as well as changes in the content), so there's a disincentive for students to pile on subjects. 20 years ago you would see a decent number of students doing 2 languages at GCSE as DH & I both did. Not now.

The government has an Ebacc target of 75% which requires students to take an MFL. This has brought entries up somewhat, but nowhere near where they were 20 years ago.

Sorry not sorry to keep banging on. He’s 14. He can drop the language and do CS A Level. You don’t need it at GCSE.