GCSE PE

[JaneKatSuttonGoals]

Hi
Dd1 is yr8 and due to start options process in Jan.
She is desperate to do PE - favourite subject & considering becoming a PE teacher in the future.
She understands what is involved in terms of physiology/psychology etc as well as sport side reviewing performance, tracking improvements etc but as a parent I have 2 qu's.

1. How good does she have to be at the 3 sports to get a decent grade?
2. There were only 8 pupils at her school who did PE last year and highest grade was a 5. She is a potentially high performing student (SATS/Yr7 feedback) - would you discourage her from choosing it?

How good at the sport? My DS submitted footy (played for a local youth team), athletics (competed for his county at England-wide events) and another sport I can’t recall – but think he did that one through school – badminton maybe? Or table tennis? He is very sporty so would play either of those well but no way he was at any serious “level” at either.

His mate who is a good sprinter offered two in-school sports – one has to be a team sport (for the board they did anyway) and I think that was basketball – which he certainly didn’t play outside school. Like DS he was county level at athletics tho. So they both had one sport to a reasonable level.

I don’t think there is an expectation of being county level at three sports tbh, whatever anyone says – very few dc can be in practical terms (time needed etc).

In terms of grade – eight is very few taking it and highest grade of 5 is low. I might raise that as a concern with the teachers tbh. It was a popular choice for DS’s school – I think about 25 took it and then at least 10 did the A level. DS got an 8 and so did his mate. I agree it’s perhaps not chosen by the most academic – DS was probs the most able in the group, which he was not in his other subjects necessarily. But lower ability of the group in general should not be a barrier to a specific student achieving well.

My dd played in a football team (League, on Saturdays) with quite a few people doing PE GCSE.
All the parents found it a right pain, because they had to get the footage of their dc. Quite difficult, across a full sized pitch, whatever the weather, with just your phone or tablet rather than professional equipment. Plus you can't film without the other team's permission. It doesn't come out if you are filming into the sun (and you have to stay on 'your' side of the pitch), or on foggy days or rainy days.
Then you had to be able to demonstrate your dc's skills - again, quite difficult either if child gets subbed off or not picked, or if they are out injured for a long while, or if they are the lone striker in a team that doesn't get the ball much, or the sweeper or keeper in a team that dominates their games.

Doing a sport such as climbing, where you can set up the climbs - re-do if needed, only get your child in shot, specifically set out to demonstrate a skill is a whole lot easier than trying to film a whole team sport that you don't have much control over.

It's most likely they got low grades as people choose it, not realising that you need quite a lot of sports outside of what's offered in school. You need to submit evidence of 3 sports if I remember correctly. 2 have to be team. You need to show evidence that you perform to a high standard and show evidence of progress.
This massively disadvantages those in lower income communities and a lot of those schools get lower pe grades/ are moving to offering sports studies instead.

Just to add to previous posts - for my DC, one sport had to be team abd one individual - the third was either. This may vary per board tho.

I also didn't have to record ds, tho I have heard from others that they had to. This might be bc all his sports could be done in school (unlike riding, or skiing). So I would check all of that with school.

You can find requirements for a lot of sports here: https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/physical-education/gcse/physical-education-8582/scheme-of-assessment/non-exam-assessment-nea-practical-performance-in-physical-activity-and-sport/activities-criteria. Obviously this may vary between exam boards but it gives you an idea of what is needed.

The level of difficulty does vary a lot sport to sport, and in some you have to show specific skills which can be an issue e.g. for kayaking you may need to be able to access a slalom course.

For horse riding you need to show yourself jumping at least 75cm, which requires a suitable horse etc etc. You also have to compete, but only in certain disciplines- you could be competing FEI (international level) endurance but it wouldn't be suitable.

It's also worth bearing in mind you have to show a certain level of breadth over your sports, e.g. you can't do rhythmic gymnastics and dance.

For me, I think it's much easier if you can do the sorts of sports that might be traditionally played in school.

Thank you @Postapocalypticcowgirl that AQA link is brilliant, and to everyone else for their examples.
She plays football outside of school for a league team, then netball in school but her tennis out side of school is not at a high enough standard based on that link.
I might not have to play bad cop yet.....

So she needs an individual sport. tbh there’s time (easily) to get to a decent standard in athletics or running

My DD is in yr 11 and doing PE and predicted a 9, she is doing 2 of her sports through school and an individual sport outside school. She doesn’t compete at county level and I understand very few of her year group do. (Approx 40 students) The theory part of the exam is quite hard which is where a lot of the less academic students struggle which is potentially why grades are low as it is picked as an ‘easy’ subject by some. I did think about discouraging it as a subject but she loves it and it has resulted in improving her biology predicted grade as there is such an overlap

I'd really rather want to know whether the highest grade being a 5 was just because there were only relatively weak pupils taking it. It's also a very small group - I'm surprised they ran it - and you might find it doesn't run every year. It must restrict practical work, as well as being a financial issue.

If 5 was a typical grade for the pupils taking it across their subjects, then that's less worrying. If there were pupils who were getting 7+ in their other subjects, that suggests that the teaching is not all it might be. I don't know whether the school looks at the "residuals" - how pupils do in each subject relative to their overall grades - or whether they would share that with you. Don't be afraid to ask at the options evening if that is your concern - they'll obviously be limited in what they can say, but they might be able to reassure you that these grades were reasonable for the pupils concerned, or they might be able to point to better grades the previous year.

The other thing to bear in mind is the peer group - if in this school it tends to be taken mostly by the less academic kids, is that a group she would enjoy working with? (This is not meant to suggest that there's anything wrong with less academic kids - it's just that it might be tricky if she's getting substantially higher marks than everyone else and perhaps taking it more seriously.) She'll have been told to ignore what her friends are choosing, but there might be less worry about choosing it if there's someone like-minded doing it too!

There's no doubt a lot of hype going on about choosing their GCSE subjects, but it's unlikely that it will make a difference to her career; many sixth forms will not require the GCSE to do the A-level (check your likely options). You could perhaps sell the idea of breadth: "obviously you'll do PE at A-level, so why not take Spanish a bit further before you drop it."

DD did PE GCSE. She is v academic and got a 9.
The practical part is important as it is worth 30%. So if you want a good mark then the sport offered needs to be decent.
As its all assessed in house you are also at the mercy of the teachers doing the assessment! (Unless the school is moderated) I only had to provide footage of sport they didn't see her play at school..although if moderated the video helps back up the school's assessment.
And the criteria are nuts. My DD plays academy football for a top women's team and she wouldn't have ticked all the boxes for football- that's because whatever your position you are supposed to show everything (she's a defender and doesn't have a lot of chances to score a volley shot on her weaker foot, for instance!!)
She also offered hockey (was performance centre level) and cross country (went to nationals). She still didn't get full marks- but did do v well..
I can well understand why kids get 5s. Many of her cohort were the least academically able and only offered grass roots level sport. So between those two (and a 10% extended essay) it's hard to get great grades
It's not an easy subject by any means. It's also quite picky with how the exam questions are answered. DD didn't find the content hard , it was harder to know how to answer the often very woolly questions to hit the marks iyswim.

I'm staggered that only 8 chose it - we usually have about 60-70 entries each year in my bog standard school, the full range of grades, with a positive SPI of +0.38 (anything above zero is good in terms of value added).

My dd did gcse PE and got grade c. She hates all sport and is useless at all sport. She was good at the written work. It was compulsory at her school at the time.

If she wants to teach PE she should do it.

Yes I very much agree with @lanthanum that you need to quiz the teachers at options evening about the numbers taking it and the grades.

Is it a very small school? I agree I am a bit surprised that only 8 took it. That said, one school ds looked at for sixth form which is very highly regarded here also had a very small number taking GCSE PE - DS was surprised as it was about 12 or so - and hence they didn;t offer it at A level (so he didn't go there!).

I think there is no issue taking it tho if you are happy with the teaching - and surely it's a good idea to take it if you already know you will take the A level? Yeps maybe it is possible to take the A level without the GCSE (possibly not tho) but why would you? It can hardly be an advantage.

It might be a good thing to be the brightest in a small group especiallly if you are not always the tiptop of the class. Give your self-esteem a boost.

Let her do the subject - she enjoys it, that matters more than whether she gets a 5 or a 6

As part of a balanced portfolio of GCSEs, absolutely let your DD choose PE. As a young woman who is seriously considering becoming a PE teacher, 100% she should take it - look at it this way, one can always explain away a slightly low grade, much harder to explain why you didn't take a subject directly relevant to your future career. And if she changes her career ideas completely, most people aren't going to care about PE GCSE one way or another.

FWIW 2 of mine did GCSE PE, one was very good at one sport (wnet on to do A level and now broadly works within that sport), the other played about 10 different sports for her school but not a single one to county level (she's a scientist and particularly enjoyed the biology side of PE GCSE). Both got top grades.

Just to be aware one of mine was doing GCSE PE and I was concerned about how much out of school sport he was doing so came on here to compare.

I did a search and there was lots of people saying their kid did x,y,z to Olympic level basically, so then I went to see the teacher to see if continuing was a good idea. When I voiced my concerns they looked at me like I was nuts.

Turns out you don’t have to do what people put here, the vast majority of the sport is done in school and a lot of the course is theory. So sciencey study stuff. If you don’t like science, stats etc then that is more of a thing to put you off rather than your actual sport performance. They may be getting worse grades for not being invested enough in the theory side of it. People do like to show off about sport if any good (like anything really), but it’s not actually that relevant for the GCSE.

But don’t do what I did, ask the teacher instead, much more reliable.

Whereas I totally agree with you about going in and asking the teaching staff, I have to disagree with you about this

Turns out you don’t have to do what people put here, the vast majority of the sport is done in school and a lot of the course is theory

Or at least clarify that it is going to be very dependent on the school even having teams in the sport your dc plays, let alone to a quality that allows them to show all the necessary skills.

This is what I was thinking. DS is Y10 doing PE, loves sport but only averagely good at sport but excellent at science.
I wanted him to do something he enjoyed as well as some more traditionally academic GCSEs, and he likes this. Spending an hour playing football/badminton with friends once a week certainly beats an hour of computing.
I don't know yet if he will get a good grade, and mumsnet always scares me with the expectations - but the sports are only 10% each, if he gets even half marks in those and a bit more in the theory, it will have been worth it.

To be fair @Budabest I can't see anyone here claiming their dc are at Olympic level in any sports. I said clearly ds competed at County level in one, local level in another and just played the third at school. Still fine for him to get an excellent grade.

I believe the weighting for the practical will vary between boards. But yes, there's lots of biology - ds did A level PE and biology and called it double biology! Good thing he wanted to study it at uni eh.

My DS is in year 10 doing PE GCSE. In his school (state grammar) there are around 25 students taking it. I think he should be sporty enough, running at county level and cricket at local club level, and hopefully he will take up some sport at school too. He is generally considered academic too.
Sounds like your DD, so I would encourage it - especially as she wants to take it further. My DS not so much but who knows by the end the course!

DD just sat GCSE PE (she got a 9). She only plays one sport outside of school (but national team level) and its a sport that although common is not played at her school at all so assessments were all done via game footage, her second sport she plays for the school 'A' team which at a girls school has a lot of competition for places - she would play for a club but she had a full enough schedule with her main sport. The other (her individual sport) she only ever played at an after school club.

She got a 9 for practical moderation (receiving full marks for her 2 team sports and an average mark for her individual) and has now just started her A level PE course.

if she wants to do it - I would definitely let her.

My son did GCSE PE is good at footy but teacher never saw him play so gave him a 14 out of 20, then a 12 out of 20 for both badminton and table tennis - so really very low grades for the sports and he was predicted a 5. But he studied hard for the theory (he is at a grammar school) and pulled off a 9 for his overall grade in the end. He also did reasonably well on his in course written assessment.

DD came out with a grade 7 for her GCSE PE this year - she’s not very academic and was helped by a solid 9 and the highest score in the year (approx 50 kids) for her practical.

She’s very athletic and competes at a high level for cheerleading, but it’s not on the list of sports for GCSE. Although she’s an excellent tumbler, the logistics of putting together a gymnastics routine for assessment were too difficult.

She ended up doing netball (played for school team), trampoline and rock climbing. School were very good at helping the kids find sports that they were going to do well with. Rock Climbing was offered for those who needed an extra sport and took them out to a climbing centre for a couple of days to learn the basics and film videos.

If your DD is keen on studying PE at A Level or becoming a PE teacher, she should definitely do the GCSE.