'Extra' GCSE ever worth it?

[Hellsmell]

DD is in Y9 and selecting her options for GCSE.
At her school they do either 9 or 10 GCSEs as standard depending on the science course taken.
They have 4 option "columns" but one of these is just French or German and the other is just History or Geography so not real choices. In the other two columns DD has selected Art and Media Studies.
DD is a very capable student, and it's been suggested she do one of the 'Extra' choices. The extra options are Italian, Latin, Psychology and Further Maths. She is a member of the "Italian" club and seems to enjoy it.
The extra subject is offered via 2 30 minute lunchtime sessions and 2 50 minute after school classes. This would mean 2 times a week her school day would be 8.30-4.50 which seems very long.

Now DD has hobbies outside school, mainly tennis, which she has before school training for 3 days a week (6.30-7.30), now we could arrange it so tennis isn't on the long day but that would be difficult! She also plays piano and goes to a once a week recreational ballet class. I think with studying for 10 GCSEs + hobbies an 11th would be pointless?

Is there ever a good case for it?

Right now DD wants to work in magazine journalism but I'm aware that could change.

Mine is doing additional maths. He enjoys maths and finds higher maths easy. He is doing it to stretch himself.

I don't think the extra option would be worth it if your dd already has lots of other after-school activities that she enjoys.
Psychology can be taken at A level without needing the GCSE and additional languages can also be picked up at a later date.

Mine did classical civilisation as an off timetable GCSE. Absolutely loved it. Now taking an A level in the same and considering a degree.

So yes, in their case it was absolutely worth it.

I would suggest it's worth it if you love the subject and/or it's going to help with future options.

In this case, with OP's DD already opting for Art and Media Studies, which are 2 coursework heavy subjects, I'd be extremely wary of opting for another subject that eats into lunch times and evenings. At DC's school (this is possibly school dependent) these were the main chances to use the art room/media facilities if you wanted to do things that weren't possible out of school.

wow, if she enjoys Italian, and this is a chance to learn it for free, absolutely it would be worth it - it is difficult and expensive to learn another language at other stages in your life, and Italian is fairly easy, as well as having a huge overlap with many other languages she might want to use later

It's not going to make any real difference. If she wants to do an extra, go for it. If she says she'd rather not have the extra time commitment, leave it. If she's unsure, it might well be okay to start off and drop out (although if whether they run these options depends on the number of takers, they might not be happy about that).

Ultimately it’s her decision but if she was my DD I wouldn’t be encouraging it to be honest. I’d argue that those overly lengthy days and losing out on lunchtimes would begin to burn her out quite quickly and put her at an overall disadvantage when it comes to her other subjects. 10 is more than enough

I think if she was desperate to do one of the subjects (ie wanted a career as a psychotherapist) then fine but you could possibly risk her slipping a mark elsewhere if she is too stretched and for no good reason. Better to have 10 sets of 9-7's than one or two going below due to workload.

Depends what you mean by "worth it".
Will it make any difference to University entry? No, almost certainly not, and in fact if she is too pressured it could even be detrinental. 8 or 9 good grades is generally better than 10 or 11 mediocre ones. Nobody "needs" 11 GCSEs. In 2023 only 1.9% of students sitting GCSEs sat 11 or more subjects and Universities are generally only interested in a student's top 8 grades anyway.
But would the individual subject be beneficial to her is a different matter and one which she is probably the best person to answer really. How much does she enjoy it? Is it likely to be something she wants to pursue later at all?
The new GCSE syllabi are time consuming. A lot of schools have reduced the number of subjects taken to accomodate this. Realistically I would say that 11 GCSEs plus that number and intensity of extracurricular activities will be a big ask. Not impossible, for a bright and motivated youngster but definitely tough and there is a definite risk of time just getting stretched too thin or her getting overwhelmed by the workload and not achieving to her full potential.
How does she feel? If you ask her which one of her hobbies she would give up or cut down if needed to fit in the Italian what does she say? The answer to that might give you the answer to how motivated she is to take the extra course!

I was going to say yes until you mentioned the tennis. It depends on her energy levels of course, but that sounds a bit much.
she definitely doesn’t need 11 GCSEs, or even 10.

On the other hand, if she finds GCSEs easy, she may be perfectly fine with an 11th subject.
If she is keen to try Italian perhaps she could start it and then drop if it was getting too much.

Mine did FM as an extra, but it was just one session a week, after normal lessons, plus extra homework.
Totally worth it for her. She was in set 2 for maths gcse (at a GS), doing fm upped her game and she got an A^ ('double star' pre reform) and it set her up well for her A levels inc FM. And she enjoyed it!

If she'd not done the extra gcse maybe she wouldn't have done as well at A level which would have made a difference to uni offers - impossible to know for sure.

With the extra subjects (they did a twilight Latin option too, a few of the girls did both!) they were allowed to try them and drop if they wanted.

Maybe your DD could try it and then see if she wants to continue, maybe cut back on one of the extracurricular activities if it's too much.

Add Italian, drop it if it's all too much.
Latin languages are so useful IMO
(Assuming your DD wants to do the extra subject)

As a teacher I'd say no to my children if they wanted to do an extra.

The thing is an extra subject often does detract from the main studies as they're trying to cram it in so it's extra time.

Also lunch times are important. As are hobbies.

Also by year 11 so many students feel overwhelmed and it really is a lot to manage 11 at once.
For a while le some private schools were focusing on 8 or 9 so they had time to get good grades (obviously focusing on less subjects increases chances of good grades) and has time to do the extra curricular.

School isn't just about cramming as many gcses into 2 years. Or it shouldn't be. Gcses are currently content heavy so there's a LOT to learn for each one.

Even at the local high performing grammar school they do 10 (with the exception of extra maths for the top set which is slightly different to the others).

Of course if you ask a bunch of people is Italian/whatever useful they'd say yes but doing 11 gcses and losing lunch times and time after school is going to make a very pressured 2 years.

Most people doing psych A level won't have the gcse (huge subject at local schools and v popular but most don't offer the gcse). Italian can she continue for fun at the club?

I think people saying, an extra gcse is nice to have are not thinking of the workload.

Art GCSE still have issue with workload and coursework stress so is already an "above and beyond" subject.

If she wants to do Maths or something with high maths content at Uni then FM will make a big difference to uni choices and how she manages in first year at Uni. A lot of unis expect you to take it if it's offered.

Could she do the Italian and drop media studies? Lots of my friends that did languages at uni went into journalism.

That's an enormous amount of time to spend on further maths , unless it's only for one year? I've just finished teaching it, and we have 4 hours per week but only form Mid January of Y11 till the exams, and it's not really a rush, although an extra month would have been useful.

@Mumski45 I agree wrt A level but surely not at gcse.

Its just far too many hours commitment on top of school when actually sport and music are going to be far more rounding and she already enjoys these.

Well unless she likes those subjects and wants to do them for A level then no there’s no point.

In 2023 only 1.9% of students sitting GCSEs sat 11 or more subjects
I’m surprised so few do more than 10 GCSEs though! I did 13 and a half and I am early 30s so not that old.

My DD has done FM, it’s one lesson after school each week finishing at 4.30. It’s been useful for her as she dropped another subject but still has 9 GCSEs with FM. Didn’t anticipate that she would need to drop a subject so it worked out well.

There have been major changes to the syllabi and structure of the exams since you did them. My eldest is 26, youngest is18 and their GCSEs were very different.

That may not be the lessons for Further maths actually but it is for Italian.
DD said she'd rather 'climb Mount Everest with bare feet and a mountain goat chasing her' than do further maths so I didn't ask when the lessons were for that!

If she's already doing a language, Italian shouldn't be too onerous if she wants to do it, as presumably they do the same exam board, so there's no extra exam technique to learn. As a linguist though, I'd have jumped at the chance to do latin, which very few schools offer these days. If there's any chance she might want to study classics it would be worth doing.

My DCs school does 11 GCSE as standard. This thread is worrying me! As it's standard though it means the lessons do fit into the normal school day.

Out of curiosity - how many lessons a week do they get and how long per lesson?

additional / further maths as a "GCSE" (they tend to be either level 2 or 3 certificates though) is a good springboard for A level maths. Without it, many students find the jump from GCSE to A level a big shock. But it's only really worth doing for those who are good at or enjoy maths and intend to continue to maths at A level.
Italian is useful in its own right, depending on what you want to do later.
I wouldn't do an extra GCSE just for the sake of it though. 9 or 10 is plenty, and many unis only look at the best 8. The head of one of the swankier schools said that bright kids can collect GCSEs like scouts collect badges, meaning it's not that hard, and therefore at the end of the day it doesn't mean much unless you've got a reason for the extra ones.