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.

Fluent French speaker here.

Not really.

Very few people actually retain anything from their language GCSEs if that's as far as they take the subject.

I even know people who studied French at university level including a year abroad who really aren't that good.

I did German GCSE and I enjoyed it and was good at it (I got an A*). But I haven't used it since and if I went to Germany today I'd struggle to say more than hello, please and thank you. I could ask where the station is but I wouldn't necessarily understand the response and I'd probably just use Google Maps anyway.

I'm hugely pro learning foreign languages but a GCSE on its own isn't going to be of much use, especially if the child isn't interested in the subject and doesn't want to do it.

Moving away from the original thread the point is that not studying a language past age 14 is limiting. I’m also fluent in French, not from the lamentable school lessons and identify with that sense of being at sea in languages I don’t know. But I can have a shot, have a good ear for patterns in languages. As pp have said GCSE computing isn’t needed for A Level or higher computing qualifications or a career in coding so why not study something he’s good at and shows a more rounded education.

Honestly I think it's only likely to be of much use if you plan to take it further.

I doubt most employers are going to care either way if you have done GCSE French or not.

Many people here seems to be quite down with GCSE computing. I'd like my DC1 to pick computing GCSE. She wants to do physics at university and I think computing skills are essential in all STEM sciences. There is so much data analsis nowadayas, and a basic understanding of data models and algorithms are great knowledge to have. She hasn't shown any interest in picking computing however.

On the other hand, her school also mandates a MFL at GCSE. I'm not going to fight it. I think it's a great thing they learn a foreign language too.

I'm here to point out that computing GCSE isn't useless. I've looked some past papers and I think they are learning good stuff in it.

I did the equivalent of GCSE computing in the 80s and I love it. I remember doing binary numbers, logic and sort algorithms.

Thanks @PerpetualOptimist that's the sort of advice I was looking for.

Unfortunately swapping to German is not an option. They refused to let my DS swap in year 7, so there's no chance of them letting him start a GCSE when he's missed nearly 3 years of the basics. He can speak and understand a little but not enough to drop straight into the GCSE at year 10 (as I mentioned we have German friends and visit each other occasionally).

To add insult to injury they sent a letter yesterday asking for £1000 for a trip to France next year. I honestly doubt they'll get many takers. Amongst my other criticisms of the school, they seem totally oblivious to the fact they they are in a seriously deprived area, with the majority of pupils in households with very limited budgets. Myself included.

And again, this isn't an argument about whether French is better than Computing. My stance would be the same if it was between history/geography or Art and RE. There's no better subject, there's just one which is preferred to the other. An option which we were led to belive we could take.

And again, this isn't an argument about whether French is better than Computing.

Except that for some reason the school seem to think it is more important.

It's off topic for the OP but I was intrigued by this comment, so I looked up a few universities. Four of the 6 I checked specifically mentioned CS positively in their entry requirements, eg by requiring either Maths or CS, or by giving a lower standard offer to those with CS. Newcastle seem to be doing it qualitatively: "We are committed to encouraging the adoption of A level Computing. Students applying with an A level in Computing will receive favourable consideration."

No mention of Physics by any of them, funnily enough.

This was just a small, unscientific sample but is perhaps a reminder for people to do their own research.

I'm fairly sure those people are out of date and thinking of the pre-reform syllabuses.
But in any case, my dd did both the gcse and then AS back then, and they were definitely useful to her, giving her a grounding before she started her STEM degree. Her peers who hadn't done any CS had a steeper learning curve on the uni courses, on a degree which was plenty hard enough without starting on the back foot.

In some ways, doing the gcse may be of more value to students who will need computing as a means to an end, vs those likely to study it at a higher level and very probably code as a hobby. (Not that amateur coding is comparable to comp sci!)
(The gcse german otoh - her school did make everyone take a language - was nothing but stress and distraction. Maybe language GCSEs have also improved post-reform, IDK, but they weren't at all good then.)

@ErrolTheDragon It's true that language GCSEs don't actually teach children anything they might need to use in real life.

I remember my aunt put it beautifully when she said you learn French at school and they give you a French pen pal and you write them a letter saying, "Hello Pierre, how are you? My name is Sarah and I am 13 years old. I live in a city called Birmingham. I have a brother and a sister. I have a cat. In my pencil case I have a pencil, a pen, a rubber and a ruler. My favourite colour is red."

I mean, bloody hell, I moved to France and started working in an office and I've never needed to ask anyone for a pencil or a rubber but I did need to know words like "printer" and "stapler", which the 2002 GCSE syllabus apparently deemed irrelevant.

They teach you how to ask for directions to the station, or, even more irrelevant, the tourist information office, when everyone just types it into Google maps these days. But try to order anything more complicated than a burger in a restaurant which doesn't have its entire menu conveniently translated into English and you are still going to be sitting there typing words like "merlu" and "pintade" into Google translate.

As for computer science, I never studied it myself but I remember that when I did my A-levels I decided to take law, and then I heard that universities didn't consider it a "proper" subject, when as far as I was concerned it was a lot more useful than the other "proper" subjects I was doing. Hopefully they are more enlightened these days, especially in fields such as computer science.

Fight it. I fought a similar rule for Dd that every kid had to do a language unless they were deemed to be struggling overall academically. Dd is dyslexic and was struggling with a language (German) .

School went as far as lying to us about timetable clashes so she did actually start it in year 10. But then she found someone doing art and product design which she had been told wasn’t possible and I pointed this out to the school. Said she was dropping German regardless and she’d either just do 9 GCSEs or they could let her do Art instead of German. They found her a space in the Art class.

it annoys be that schools seem some subjects more worthy than others. Dd ended up doing an architecture degree so the art gcse was far more invaluable (and the product design). She already knew she wanted to be an architect.

Well, yes in this instance. But if the school insisted on taking art or history and my DS didn't want to do it, I'd feel the same.

And you know, the world has moved on. French lessons are very much the same as I was doing in the 80's. Before mobile phones and translate apps. My computer lesson was making the text on the screen change colour. Kids are making their own apps and all sorts these days.

A few years ago I ended up at a party abroad (not in europe). All I could say was hello. Had a great time. Some people wanted to practise speaking English to me, and those that didn't, we used google translate and waved our phones at each other, so I'm not convinced that learning French is even useful these days. Maybe Chinese, Arabic or Hindi might be of more use.

Many people here seems to be quite down with GCSE computing.

Yes. I have no idea why. My ds is doing GCSE computing and wants to do it for A Level alongside physics, maths and further maths. He's considering applying to Oxbridge and thinking of a career in cyber-security.