Non sporty child wanting to take GCSE PE

[doramaar]

DD is y8 and choosing her GCSE options. She wants to take PE. This isn't because she has any interest in pursuing a career in fitness or health, but because she doesn't want to do any of the other remaining options. There are several other ways she could feasibly go (separate sciences, a second humanity, computing, drama, food tech) but she doesn't want to.

I obviously want her to choose subjects that she thinks she's going to enjoy, but also would like her to choose subjects that she has a good chance of getting a high mark in. She's academic so I'm not concerned about the theory element of PE.

But she's really not that sporty. She has joined an after school cricket club this year but doesn't play for the school team or an outside club yet. One of the team sports they would be doing is netball - she's never played it and has no idea whether she'd be any good at it. She doesn't do any individual activity at the moment. In all honesty my perception is that she is pretty average at best in PE. At the end of year 7 her target grade was a 2 (based on GCSE grades) and she got a 2C, so verging on a 1. For context she got 4s in English and Maths so was well above in those.

I think it would be a poor choice for her - the school itself recommends that they should be playing at least one sport outside school at a significant level and I've read things about kids needing to be playing at county level etc to do well.

Does anybody have any experience of a non sporty child taking it? If she were to ace the theory but do badly in the actual sports, could she still come out with a reasonable grade overall (ie a 6?)

Just quizzed DD (who took the old music exam with a letter grade - but as I say I think it is even more rigorous now) - she says all her GCSE music group had been having music lessons for a few years and done some theory in advance of starting GCSE too. The school did also offer music BTEC which people took who had less experience.

She says that her GCSE profile (excellent at theory, medium at performance, weak at composing) was not typical - a lot of people were better at comp but not so good at the theory.

She made the point that music GCSE involves a good deal of performing as well (I mean as well as drama) but ofc it's not speaking in front of people if that's the issue.

Her last thought was that it's crucial that your performance is good - it's less important in PE actually, as long as you show improvement and can analyse what to do better; but music to a large extent is judged on how good you are*. DD recalls virtually all of her year 11 1-1 lessons and a good deal of time in year 10 being spent working on her GCSE exam pieces.

*caveat - DD's intel is obviously a bit out of date as she took GCSEs in 2017 so mostly old-school. Her very musical mate took the exam a year later tho so new spec and she says much the same.

But I agree, your DD has time to practise and improve if she is motivated. It might be worth booking her some theory lessons - DD did hers as part of a Saturday music ensemble she attended.

Let her do PE. Seriously.
She is what, 14? This helps students explore. What is the worst that could happen here? She gets a chance to take it, and realises she doesn’t like it? Is that so terrible?

Also please let her practice making decisions about her life. This is a relatively low commitment decision, and letting them make this decision is good practice for choosing options beyond secondary.

My DD did PE last year and is now doing Alevel, she’s very sporty (competes National level in1 sport), but we found it hard work getting video footage of competing in all 3 sports, you also have to meet the criteria of 1 individual & 2 team sports or 1 team & 2 individual sports. She found the theory ok as cross overs with Biology too. She’s also taking Biology AL too now. Personally I wouldn’t recommend it if your DD is not sporty.

My son did GCSE PE (ended up with a 9) and he took zero footage of two of his sports. Ask the school - if they do the sports at school you don't necessarily need video footage.

Yeh I did do loads of videos of DS keeping goal and chucking a discus about, but more for his benefit tbh. We were never asked for them by school. This does seem to vary from school to school tho.

Obvs if you offer sailing or skiing then that's a different matter as those cannot be assessed at school.

Thanks @clary. I've just double checked the school requirements and it says that in order to access the higher marks in performance they need to be grade 4 by y11. So she's got over 3 years still to get there...doable hopefully?
Performance wise I think it would just be normal exam nerves the same as anybody else - it's specifically speaking in front of the class that she doesn't like.

My sporty child didn't pick PE because of the team sport requirement. It will be bloody awful if she doesn't like sport.

yeh I am sure that is doable. Just she needs to be prepared to spend a lot of time practising - I had honestly forgotten till DD reminded me how much work she did with her clarinet teacher on her exam pieces. She just more or less ditched all her grade work for what felt like a year. Probably wasn't that bad tho lol.

No, she's only 12. And autistic, so perhaps I'm guilty of micromanaging a bit here because I'm used to having to in so many other areas of her life.

We're letting her choose everything else and ultimately this will be her choice too, it's just it makes me feel uneasy! What's the worst that could happen...I guess time doing extra curricular sport takes her away from concentrating on other subjects, the potential expense, and then she comes out at the end with a less than great grade.

You need to find out which gcse pe curriculum your school offers, look at what is required and find out what your schools expects of its students.

Edexcel requires 3 sports (at least one individual, and one team sport) from a very long list which account for 30% of the GCSE. This rest is 60% theory and 10% coursework

Our school assesses a small number of sports during pe lessons (football, swimming, trampolining, handball, athletics) and you can provide video evidence for any of the listed sports. They don't insist on sporting prowess!

They probably wouldn't let her do PE at my DC's school. They expect pupils to be doing at least one sport fairly seriously outside school.
As others have said, the practical is a significant percentage and whilst the standard thay needs to be attained is nowhere near as demanding as it is for A level they need to be able to demonstrate progress over time in 3 sports, one team sport, 1 solo sport and one of either, off the approved list, and that can be quite time consuming. If the sports are all ones that are done in school it's not so bad as they'll be assessed in school but otherwise collecting the evidence does take time and effort.
That said, this is the opposite of the usual problem - our PE teachers stress the amount of theory as they get a lot of kids who are quite sporty but not very academic wanting to do GCSE but then being disappointed when they realise it's not the fun, easy subject they think. My younger DS used to moan about some of the kids in his GCSE PE class not taking it seriously. Fortunately now he is doing A level the class is quite different - mainly those with an interest in science who are also sporty. So I guess if she can do very well in the theory and is prepared to put in the work to get to an acceptable level in the practical it might be do-able, but if she doesn't actually enjoy playing sport it could end up being quite a hard slog.
Given she also wants to do music which is going to take her quite a bit of effort and is likely to need a fair amount of out of school work, personally I'd be encouraging her to do something different. It's true that they don't need to perform anything technically very difficult but those that who are at a higher grade already are at an advantage, both because they will find the performance less challenging but also because they'll already be studying music theory. The composition element is often the thing that pupils seem to find hardest if my DC and their friends are anything to go by and I do think already having a good grounding in music theory helps.
Neither subject is impossible to pass if you don't have a strong pre existing interest of course, but taking on 2 subjects where she will be playing catch up, plus what sounds like a challenging language, on top of all the other subjects just seems like she'd be making things unnecessarily difficult for herself. Personally I think I'd strongly discourage her from doing music and PE together in these circumstances and I'd expect the school to advise against it to be honest.

She will not enjoy it unless she is at least a little bit sporty! I agree geography or history would be a better choice.

Is she being influenced by her friends and what they are choosing?

I agree full of sporty kids who are good at sport and good at team games. Your DC will have a nightmare if she plays in a team and is clearly the weak link. She's going to do Science anyway so better to just do a bit of extra science.

Gosh I'd have thought she'd have enough on her plate just with learning Chinese from scratch and Music with only a year's playing. She really is making some odd choices. I can understand why you are worried.

Yes, but this is an optional subject. If she gets a less than great grade, is that really awful?
Exploring subjects at this age helps them learn about themselves and about the world. Perhaps being more sporty is a version of herself she wants to try on?

I believe very strongly that children should get to make these decisions otherwise they often get to level 3 and are unable to. Decision making is a life skill. She has to take core subjects- the rest should be up to her.

I don't think she's being influenced by friends. They're not sporty, they're more likely to be found playing Dungeons and Dragons than on the netball court!

She thinks it's an easy option.

Thanks. All I can say is thank god there are certain GCSEs they have to do. Can you imagine if she had free reign on all of them!

It might support her physical health long term, if it’s not a strength now, it might be good to build skills.

Hardly any kids are Olympic material. P.E. is also about being healthy, exercising safely, nutrition, setting up sporting grounds, following rules etc.
I think your daughter will love it. If not she can change next term.

Great post from @MrsAvocet agree re annoying kids in GCSE but by A level yy it's the sciency sporty types – a lot of posters are perhaps only reading the OP – from your updates @doramaar it’s clear that your dd is taking on a lot outside school.

Basically all I would think of the music GCSE candidates apart from her will have a few years of experience even now – so she has a lot of catch up to do and it will have to be outside school. You say that’s fine – yes very likely. BUT given that, I suggest she limits other catch up – yet she is taking (I presume) Mandarin GCSE which probably entails quiet a bit of extra work – I don’t speak any Mandarin and would hesitate to take it on, yet I would happily learn, say Portuguese, as it links with things I already know and would be more accessible.

And on top of that, she is wanting to take GCSE PE – which again, involves a good deal of outside work. For most candidates that’s great, it’s what they love and do anyway (thinking here of DS2 who was training or playing just about every day at one stage). But your DD doesn’t do any – so it’s a massive overload IMHO. She would be a lot better honestly picking one out of music and PE and then adding something that can be done in school as her last choice – history, geography, RE, an extra science, CS, media?

@ChickpeaPie 😂 that really made me smile this morning.

Be what you wish for my very sporty DS, took Food Tech, it was a pain in the bum quite honestly, not telling the ingredients he needed till the night before or in some cases a quick trip to Morrisons before school. I was pleased when that exam was over.

@clary I completely agree with you. All my instincts are screaming for her not to do it.

Her taking Chinese I'm not delighted about - quite a few of the class are Chinese presumably with a high level already, so she's always going to feel a bit behind in that. But she didn't like Spanish in y7 and we figured better she take something she felt enthusiastic about. But we can't keep letting her do that to her detriment!

My preference for her would be to take both Geography and History. Traditional format subjects that take up no extra time other than normal homework and revision and which keep her options open. If she took food tech the cost of ingredients every week would be annoying, but then if she did PE there would be costs associated to doing more extra curricular sport, probably more so.

My DD of the same age is also autistic but is sporty. However, she can't handle team sports at all- there are too many things going on and you have to be able to simultaneously read a lot of different people's body language. Dyspraxia was mentioned to us in the early years as well, but it was autism and not being able to focus on one thing because there were (literally) things coming at her all the time. One of the best things about the diagnosis was being able to nurture her love of sport in an appropriate way so that she didn't just write herself off.

Our school are discussing with her whether she can do three individual sports as a reasonable adjustment and it looks likely. She competes in triathlon already and does fairly well, so there are three individual sports as obvious candidates for her. Obviously this is different to your DD, but it might be worth talking to the school about adjustments.

If she can find a way now to enjoy sport, that will be a huge benefit to her life going forward - more so than a higher grade in a GSCE. However, if she is going to crash and be put off sport, that is worse - so talk to the school about how to maximise her enjoyment of it.

Probably not very useful, but just to say I took Music O Level (old!), with my only instrument being the recorder (which I played well, but no grades), and being part of the school choir, which I loved and gained lots of musical knowledge from. I managed to get a B, but don’t know what the GCSE is like now. If your dd does go for Music GCSE, it might be an idea for her to join the choir?

Getting a good grade is not the be-all-and-end-all though, surely?

It all seems to be about what you think she should do, what you think are "sensible choices". Let her make her decisions - she's the one who has to go to school and do these options, not you. And if they turn out to be wrong moves, then a) she can switch courses and b) it's a learning experience. Kids have to make their own mistakes and find their own path.

This sounds harsh, I know, but I mean it kindly. I think you need to start letting go. You've had to micromanage her up to now, but she is 12, she's becoming more independent, and this is how she will learn to be independent. If she did what you think she should do, she would have you to blame if it doesn't work out. If she does what she wants to do, she will have to stand or fall by it, use that experience to build resilience. We don't develop resilience by never making a mistake and being shielded from consequences.