GCSE subjects for dyslexic pupils

[IngridMcDonald]

DD is about to choose her GCSE options and is dyslexic. I would like to know what subjects are more modular, with coursework and generally less facts to memorise. She is considering Food tech and PE or Graphics. I am not sure if Geography would be more suitable than history. Business studies and media studies are also options. She will not have to do a language. She will cope better with less facts to remember.and more practical subjects. She doesn’t know what she wants to go on to study or do in the future. Any advice? Thanks

Dc1 has dyslexia. Did gcses 5 years ago. Was advised to pick geography rather than history (I'm so glad as dc3 is now doing history and it's lots of facts and writing). Also didn't do a language and was given extra maths/English lessons instead. Dc did photography which was great because it was minimal writing/lots of course work. Religious studies didn't seem too bad although there was writing not as much as some subjects.
Economics was also OK (it's not just maths, some writing but dc felt it wasn't too much) however I sometimes think that the ones dc performed best at were the ones he immersed himself in because he enjoyed it but also the ones with teachers that had an understanding of dyslexia/sen and gave different ways of learning a go.
With the English literature we got comic book strip books of the stories where we could, watched the movies etc. Tried audio books but this wasn't as useful as dc found the visual pictures easier to remember.

PE GCSE has a coursework element ie the practical aspect, but it is also quite science based if that might be a factor.

Not many GCSEs have any coursework now. Is art a possibility tho? Or music? Drama also has quite a bit of practical. Both drama and music have written exams tho with a fair bit of analysis. For art you need to love it as it eats up time. But it is one fewer written GCSE in May/June as it is all completed earlier.

History is very content heavy with lots of facts.

My dyslexic ds did very well with maths and computer science type subjects. He avoided as much as possible anything that needed essays and no foreign languages

I wouldn’t underestimate the power of an interested child to find ways to learn too . DS1 makes a lot of use of YouTube studying History - he’s made no revision notes at all but much to our surprise got a 9 in his mock when the previous exam had been a 5

Media studies might be technical but there's still quite a lot of reading and writing. Food tech, PE, design, IT? Hopefully she's ok at maths as that's not to do with words?

DD is Y11 and very dyslexic.

We dropped languages and she had to pick one from history or geography.

She wasn't a big fan of either - I wanted her to do Classical Civ instead but it didn't fit in the option blocks. In the end she has gone with geography as fewer essays and reading and more possibility to pick up marks on the short answer questions. She says she wishes she'd done history, but that may just be because she's not that enamoured with geography! Her school's topic list is very war heavy so not sure she'd have enjoyed it.

The best options for her so far have been:
Citizenship - really enjoyed the course and got a good grade a year early.
Music - only one exam paper and she's got top grades for performance and composition, so that will balance out issues on the written paper.
Creative Media Production BTEC - no exams at all and she's on track for top marks.

GCSEs are hard for dyslexics, especially if they have working memory issues.

My dyslexia DS has chosen to do PE, Spanish, DT and business studies . We went for combined science. Our school told us that Spanish is easier than French for dyslexic children , but I can’t remember why!

Thanks for all the replies, lots to think about. Maths is not a strong point and neither is essay writing. She doesn't play an instrument and is not very artistic so art and music are already ruled out. The geography dept so far have been more supportive so she is leaning towards Geog rather than history. Unfortunately the school doesn't offer anything like photography, it is mainly the very traditional subjects. I am not sure what the DT subjects are like.

Slightly left field, but RE? Not as many facts but lots of opinions. My DD got on quite well with it.

Food tech has more theory than you might expect.

Yes, she has actually mentioned RE and the teacher is nice which is also helpful.

You need to check with the school as different exam boards have different means of assessment and vary in the amount of coursework, practical assessment and exams. DSD is dyslexic and heading towards geography or RE rather than history, biology and chemistry and she struggles with maths so doesn't want to do physics, PE and food tech or music (probably food tech).

Actually yes Btecs are a good idea – does the school offer any? Sometimes there will be creative media or animal care or health and social? Then it’s not to much about essay writing in an exam.

Shame about music and art but fair enough. What about drama? Look at the spec the school does as they vary.

Wrt PE – does she do a sport outside school? That's a good idea IME.

Unfortunately no BTECs, just GCSEs. She does play on a netball team outside of school so PE might be good, just wondering how she would cope with the non practical side. Is there a lot of science/ biology involved in PE?

Just thought I'd add that BTECs do come with essays.

For Creative Media, DD has had to submit a pretty chunky one for the 1st Assessed Component and several sub essays before that, and I believe the 3rd Assessed Component is also an essay. 2nd is a creative product, but the majority of that is submitting your planning docs, mood boards, written section on what you did, problems, strategies etc.

But, it can be done with reference books and the internet with calm and time. And because it's all done and dusted before May it's one less subject to have to revise.

If she is musically inclined and plays an instrument music would be a good one
similarly, drama

Yes. Spanish is extremely phonetic and French isn’t.
dyslexia or not, French is hard to spell

Yeh that's my understanding; DS2 took PE and biology A level and always said he studied biology and biology!

Still GCSE PE will be no harder or more sciencey than GCSE biology. Netball would be good for the GCSE tho – students usually need to offer one team sport, one individ and one either. School will usually facilitate a couple. DS IIRC took badminton which he did in school and his sprinter mate took basketball and table tennis on top of his out-of-school athletics. Would she be interested in the syllabus tho? Have a look.

If not music, how about drama? Obvs exam essays about plays but also a decent practical element. Would she enjoy that?

My daughter is dyslexic, found Spanish actually helped. Not easy but learning the words actually helped with learning English spellings as well.

She had extra tutoring (Kip McGrath)for English which impressed her writing.

In terms of exam technique she focused on shorter answers using bullet points where possible as she was more successful that way. When writing longer sentences she tended to miss words out leaving gobbledegook.

Generally though, whatever's they find interesting is more likely to lead to success.

Oh, and make sure she gets a reader and/or scribe if it helps.

My DD does GCSE photography, GCSE food tech and BTEC dance. She started with geography but there was far too much content, so she has free study now instead. There is only one exams for food tech and none for the other 2. It’s great.

My very dyslexic DD chose Art and then realised the teacher she had wasn't great and there were 40 pupils in the class (I think she was exaggerating) and swapped to Drama. She ended up doing really well. She enjoyed reading plays because they're made up of lines rather than paragraphs and she doesn't feel overwhelmed. She also did well in RE (Catholic school so she had to take it) but didn't do well in History. I can't remember why she chose it now. Possibly because it had a trip to Berlin rather than Somerset.
I'm not sure if she would have done any better in Geography though.She also did well in Music, but she plays an instrument. He friend took Music and sang instead of playing an instrument.

As long as they are getting their extra time in exams for reasonable adjustments any gcse they want!

My dyslexic son has done a history degree.

She also has poor working memory, struggles with organisation and focusing. It has been helpful to read all the comments. I will get some feedback from the school on a few things and have more of an idea what to ask. I didn’t realise that some schools did so many different options and BTECs, she will have a choice between history and geography and then 2 other subjects from a list of about 10 GCSEs.

Have you had her assessed for ADHD?

My DD was diagnosed with dyslexia at 7 (was horribly obvious) and then ADHD in Y9 but we were pretty sure about it from Y4 onwards.

She struggles with working memory, organisation and focus... except with her areas of interest where she has extreme hyperfocus.

Medication and a laptop have both made a massive difference to results and happiness.

I think the schools with a big offer of subjects tend to be the large ones. DD has 450 kids in her year, so they can afford lots of different teachers and departments. I think we had around 30 to choose from including 4 language options and 5 art options.