Starting GCSE in Y9: pros, cons, still frowned upon by Ofsted?

[ParentOfOne]

We saw a state secondary school where they told us they start the GCSE curriculum one year earlier, in Y9, this way they dedicate most of Y11 just to revision.

Can you please help me understand how this works?

I have found a few threads where people said that Ofsted kind of put a stop to it because it didn't like it. Has this changed again, and does Ofsted now not mind? This school was rated outstanding and was last inspected 4 years ago.

Regardless of Ofsted's preferences, how does this work in practice? They must be compressing what would be the typical Y9 curriculum, but doesn't this create other problems, as in, isn't the Y9 curriculum the basis for the Y10 content? Maybe not in all subjects but at least in some?

From what I have read and heard, the pros can be that kids drop the subjects they don't like earlier and can proceed with the GCSE content at a more relaxed pace, the cons are that some feel choosing in Y8 is too soon, and dedicating too much time to revising can be stultifying .

Thoughts?

PS We have discarded the school which does this for other reasons.
We are trying to understand how our top 4 preferences (we get 6 choices) go about this as it wasn't mentioned at the open days.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow Thank you. So, if I understand correctly, this means that you don't take an optional subject in Y9 which you then drop because you don't do the GCSE in that subject, right?

However, what remains unclear to me is whether they rush through what would otherwise be Y9 content in the core subjects like maths and English

They did an InfoTech course until Y11 which had no exam and was computer literacy rather than computer science.

RE and Citizenship ran until end of Y9 and then you picked one for Y10 and did the GCSE in the summer.

So in that sense, yes you would drop one of RE or Citizenship as you had done most of the course but didn't take the exam.

They didn't rush through Y9 content, the course was just designed knowing that all the kids in the Y9 class would be taking the GCSE in Y11 rather than only a small percentage. Pacing was designed to get to the right stage allowing for everything to be covered and then revised.

So for the core subjects, it was a Y7-11 course. For options it was a Y7-8 'taster' and then a Y9-11 GCSE course, rather than Y7-9 'taster' and then cramming it all into Y10-11.

I suppose because of the options being picked early there may have been more sessions allocated to core earlier on as more timetable space.

Y9, DD had 5 hours of English, 4 hours of Maths and 4 hours of Combined Science.

Y10 was 5 hours of each.

Y11 was 6 hours of each.

Options were 3 hours for Languages and Humanities and 2 hours for the other subjects across all years.

I suppose because of the options being picked early there may have been more sessions allocated to core earlier on as more timetable space.
Y9, DD had 5 hours of English, 4 hours of Maths and 4 hours of Combined Science.

Ah, I think I understand now, thanks.

in Y9 Graveney in Tooting (partially selective in SW London) does 4 hours of English and 3 of Maths https://www.graveney.org/Academic-Curriculum/

So it's not so much that they compress the curriculum of the core subjects, but they do fewer hours of other subjects and therefore more of the core ones.

I wouldn't have wanted my DC to go to a school that did this. I think the curriculum narrows too early in this country as it is. Asking 12/13 year olds to make decisions that may impact significantly on their futures doesn't seem like a great idea to me. I think that year 9 is too young to be making such decisions really, never mind pushing the decision making process back to year 8.
And it's another nail in the coffin for the teaching of "non core" subjects in secondary school adding to the damage already done by the EBacc. At this rate teaching of subjects like music and art will continue to deteriorate and ultimately probably disappear altogether. If you're the Head a school that's pushing the EBacc which inevitably decreases the numbers taking non EBacc subjects at GCSE and then you start that in year 9, employing specialist teachers for subjects you only teach for 2 years and then to a handful of pupils thereafter doesn't look like very good value for money does it? And we all know what financial pressure schools are under. I'm a scientist so absolutely believe we need high quality maths and science teaching in our schools but that should not be at the cost of a reasonably broad general education. Other subjects have intrinsic value too, even if they're not studied beyond year 9.
At my DC's former school I believe they did start the GCSE syllabi in Maths, English and the sciences towards the end of year 9 which seems sensible. If you've reached that point in the teaching anyway then naturally you're going to move on rather than wait to the following September. But no subjects were dropped until year 10, which is how I think it should be. I would have looked elsewhere if my DC had to drop subjects for year 9.

I used to feel the same as you, @MrsAvocet but actually the reality was all those non-core subjects were done in a rota at my sons school anyway. So he didnt lose a year of them, he lost at most a term of the ones he didnt carry on with or some only half a term . It booked down to missing about 12 hours of it, which wasnt as life changing as I first feared.

He still had opportunity through clubs to stretch beyond the curriculum too.

I didnt have a choice of school so I had to lump it, but it really wasnt the disaster I though it would be.

To be fair his school had really low ebaac so that wasnt a thing. People had more choice at gcse

Thank you all for your input. It's obviously not clear cut, but at least I have a better understanding of the pros and cons.

I would disagree.

DD knew she wanted to specialise in music from before she even went to school. She has never wavvered from that position. We should probably have looked into specialist music schools from a very young age, but I wanted a broader curriculum and for her to be able to change her mind.

Her secondary has one of the largest music departments in the country and iirc over 100 students sat GCSE music this year. There were extremely large numbers taking art as well. Plus if you didn't want to do GCSE there were more bands, orchestras and choirs than there was time in the week.

DD is now at a specialist music college... and delighted to have dropped everything else.

It wouldn't suit my sibling's children who have no particular fixed interest and are finding it hard to choose their GCSE options.