GCSE computer science: Daughter was refused a place

[iloveteddies]

Hello, my daughter was refused a place, and the excuse is the course is oversubscribed. I know that very few girls applied and lots of boys, and the class is going to be mainly boys and potential 2-3 girls from what I know (not official school communication). The school is saying that a computer program selects and they cannot be biased towards the girls because that would not be fair for boys. Also to add they all have an assessment that they have to pass to be considered. My daughter passed that exam. I don't think there is a chance she is going to be given a place now,but I feel this is still unfair for girls. So many people are saying we don't have enough girls in STEM but yet schools are not enabling even the ones willing to do STEM subjects. Does anyone know if the school has to tell you what is the class composition. Does anyone have any adivce/comment. I know is not going to change it for us but I can't stay passive about it.
thanks.

She can still do Computer Science, you only need A level maths if she did it at university. The best option is to try out a code club (free) and the lessons start at an easy level and then advance. Just so you know not all code clubs in my area are listed on the site so worth asking around. https://codeclub.org/en/ Try your local library as they may have coding opportunities and they most probably have children's and adult's books on coding. Start with Python, as there are lots of easy projects for kids. It's all free nothing stopping you except time. My son is doing A level Computer science and most of his skills he has self taught after doing the code club lessons, and then trying out various projects and using free online guides, library books and YouTube to learn how to code.

Surely the main point is she is going to have to pick a GCSE she might not enjoy for numbers if she can't do what she enjoys and is good at?

History A level should be available without the GCSE - especially if a,student was interested and wanted to take GCSE.

Did they really not offer GCSE history? How small was the school? Its always been v popular at schools I have worked in.

If they restricted history A level to those who had done GCSE and they hadn't offered the GCSE then I'm.guessing history A level take up was low 🙄

I would suggest doing some independent learning like iDEA course and even the BBC bute sized one. My friends daughter wanted to study Maths at Cambridge, her school didn’t offer Applied Mathematics so she taught herself (alongside her highers) and got an A in the exam. Her school did what they could to support her.

There were limited spaces and her parents reminded her that she was from a small state school and was up against the best educations money could buy (applicants were from Eton etc). When they learned about her teaching herself a full course and passing with such a high mark they were blown away. She was accepted due to her work ethic.

If your daughter can say she wasn’t able to get accepted to the class but has done x and y self led learning it will open doors for her.

Give over. It would be far more unfair to lose your place after a random allocation to another pupil because she's a girl.

I’d bet my house on many of the selected students wanting to drop it come September when they realise how dry and hard the subject is. Ask for her to be put on a reserve list.

While each school has a sixth form they pool together all the sixth forms in city and transfer between to offer range of A-level - and while other schools have potentially diverse enough offer range to avoid transferring for lessons DC school never has yet from years I've seen..

DD1 school wasn't one offering A-level history that year and seemed disinterested in helping - they were missing key personnel at time - we directly contacted school offering A-level history and it was a flat no from them with no history GCSE.

DD1 preferred college anyway - it's a huge regional one with multiple campuses - they weren't keen then finally said no though they were at start of process of group into subject areas and encouraging selection in those areas and rest of her A-levels were science based - so she choose another subject from that subject stream.

The did at least offer History as an option at GCSE and not enough kids chose it that year another standard subject and that department weren't allowed to even offer that year - they asked parents to complain and I know at least one family then looked at transferring schools because of it.

There wasn't a history department but a humanities one and in earlier years kids her year had been taught history by geography and RS teachers - still a bit of a surprise there weren't enough to run History GCSE course. Next child is two school year behind and did History GCSE and had a full class of 32. Youngest is current GCSE and her mates have taken history - passed text books on to them and they have full class.

So yes weird cohort year and perhaps unlucky that year with places offering history A-level here. It was a bit disappointing for her. She ended ended up in area she's very happy with - it has lab work so science background is still useful despite area being history related.

I only mentioned it so OP can double check in her area not having GCSE computer science isn't an issue for A-level- it's not here but not everywhere is the same.

Inaccurate, though - any external GCSE exam passes (or fails) are added to the school's progress measures, as are things like music, dance or drama grades.

I didn't know that - I thought they were under independent (I seem to remember someone telling me their child had been refused to do a course at their school because they didn't get a grade at GCSE and acing it...was a few years ago).

I'm currently down a hole trying to understand the difference in GCSE's in Computer Science at my DD's school and Computing at another local school.

History A level is a funny one. If you haven't done learning core analysis skills and learning about sources at GCSE / don't have essay writing skills / general knowledge I do think it's hard to pick up.

At my school you weren't allowed to do History A Level if you didn't do it at GCSE.

They made an exception for me because I'd done those skills as part of media studies and geography instead, but they did stress it was an unusual case and I did really have to argue the case.

They knew me as a student which helped and knew I could do it and I did work hard. It's much harder to make that judgement if your don't know the student concerned.

Having done it myself I get the argument. It's not an easy A level. You have to be pretty committed to it really.

Hey @SmileyHappyPeopleInTheSun @RedToothBrush sorry that there was an issue with history A level without the GCSE. That's a bit bobbins. It's often quoted on MN that you can do it without the GCSE, alongside other subjects. I do suspect sometimes this is people trying to prove what cannot be so - someone once told me that A levels of (IIRC) biology, maths and history didn't close any doors bc you could still study English lit and French at uni without either at A level!

Anyway; I do personally know two YP who were allowed to take A level history without the GCSE but I agree it's not obvious and there would need to be a good reason along with evidence of an essay subject like RS at GCSE.

@SmileyHappyPeopleInTheSun it's very poor that no one was allowed to take history GCSE - but the humanties dept with the same staff teaching history and RS or even geography is not at all unusual IME. Shouldn't stop history being engaging.

Anyway @iloveteddies I meant to say before, and this backs it up, might be worth finding out if your DD will be able to take A level CS at her sixth form setting of choice with a good maths grade but no CS GCSE.

It's likely history is rather different to CS because history is one of the 2 EBAcc humanities (or have they added RE now?) - anyway, I'd have thought it was much more unusual for a kid who wants to do it at A level to have not been able to take the gcse.

Every child who isn’t awarded their first options will have that, thats why schools typically ask for say 5 choices when they will actually only study 4.

This happened to my son. We ended up enrolling him on an online iGCSE. Cost £300 for 2 years. Full online support with a tutor. Made sure it was the same CS syllabus as the school (think it was Edexcel?) And luckily the school agreed he could do the practical part of the exam at school when all the other pupils were doing theirs. Otherwise he would have had to have taken the practical part of the GCSE at a building specified by the course providers, of which there was only one on the other side of our city.

I can't see why they can't assign 50/50 places to girls and boys to address the gender gap. That would be fair and probably lead to much better grades.

That only works if there are equal numbers of boys and girls who want to do it, AND there's an identical ability curve for boys and girls. I.e. assuming everything else is equal.

There's nothing FAIR about a boy losing his place to a girl who has a lower score in whatever criteria they have used, i.e. maybe Maths results.

I suspect there won't be enough girls applying to make up 50% of the numbers (there were 6 girls in DS's year with 56 in total).

So essentially that means if you are a girl you will get a place. I can see the argument for positive discrimination, but are the school wanting to take it on? And, if they do, they will also have to apply it in other subjects that are more girl dominated.

but the humanties dept with the same staff teaching history and RS or even geography is not at all unusual IME. Shouldn't stop history being engaging.

I think I worded that poorly as it was still a humanities department for our younger kids and their years ran history GCSE - it was more there was more than one GCSE being offered by that department and some of the other disciplines were more proactive approaching parents and pupils about doing their course.

OP waiting list are worth asking about because there can be fair bit of moving subject areas in early weeks and hopefully it won't close options down for A-level CS in your area either way.

sounds like they were as fair as they could been?

DS didn't do computing at GCSE or A level and seems to have picked it all up in the first year of his Engineering degree, so it won't matter long term if that's where her interests lie.

Did you manage to find out the selection criteria the computer was programmed to use, OP?

Picking up enough to be able to do the programming needed for engineering and science subjects probably isn't really comparable to doing a CS degree though.

And while teacher shortages mean there's huge gaps in availability of gcse and A level CS, the latter may not be a requirement for many if any CS degrees any time soon, this may not always be the case.

(I've had a long career writing scientific software, largely self-taught...I'm not remotely a "computer scientist")

Positive discrimination is a good way to increase under represented groups into specialist subjects .

increasing women in STEM means increasing take up at gcse level.

this is why single sex education is useful.

Given that teaching is nowadays a female dominated profession, the teacher shortage in CS (and other STEM) subjects will almost inevitably persist till more girls take up and continue with these subjects. (And/or more people retrain later in life)

And also choose a low wage in comparison to what they would get doing the sector in a normal career - comp sci isn't a job with comparable pay to teaching.

I actually wonder if women might find teaching STEM a nicer option post children for the lack of sexism and school holidays. Thinking aloud here.

What an odd comment? I didn't claim it was the same as a CS degree. I said he'd learned to programme in 6 months and that the lack of a CS GCSE or A level had made no difference.

To be honest most CS degrees don't require a CS A level