How would you feel with this GCSE policy?

[DecisionParalysis]

We've just discovered some aspects of the GCSE policy of a school we're considering (in fact it was probably a front-runner up to now).
The school is Catholic so RE GCSE is compulsory - that's fine, I knew that from the start. However, it seems they only offer individual sciences (not the double science award) and they don't allow children to take more than 9 GCSEs.
I think each of these things is fine - but together they basically mean, if you believe in doing all 3 sciences to GCSE (which isn't compulsory at this school btw), you then have Maths, English, Science and RE taking up 7 of 9 choices... 2 choices left to cover MFLs, humanities, arts, and computer science. I'm a bit uncomfortable about this :/

@Talipesmum @clary I agree, Double Science would be preferable to wholly dropping one but I'm not completely married to the idea. If I had a child whose strengths lie elsewhere I wouldn't mind them dropping a science. But it is not ideal.

@DecisionParalysis Are music, drama and sport well covered by extracurriculars? That may relieve some pressure on options as well.

Not in England but it’s similar here where Welsh is compulsory. DD had 3 choices and opted to do an extra one from home on top.

Compulsory subjects take up 7 slots, plus 3 choices and one extra from home. They do the exams across 2 years though, not all in year 11.

We are in Wales so Welsh is compulsory.

The gcses have been revamped- with some of the new courses starting in Sept 2025 and other starting in following years.

May vary a bit in some schools but some changes are a default with the new qualifications offered.

Maths is maths and numeracy- double award
English is language and literature combined - double award.

i think there is the option for schools to pick a single award if needed, but double is the default.

Science covers biology, chemistry and physics as a double award. In our school to take a separate gcse in all three, them one was selected as an option.

For our school either RE or equality and diversity are compulsory. We weren't given a choice and level 2 in equality and diversity was allocated.

They were allowed to choose three options and a back up. There were no requirements to select one from different sections, or a humanities/language etc, but they asked for indications in advance to help prepare timetables and which options were in which pathway.

In total dc will be
2 maths
2 English
2 Science
1 Welsh
3 options ( gcse and btech level 2 were offered depending on subject).
Dc is taking an extra one that was being offered after school.
Total 8 subjects ( counting Science as 1), but potentially 11 grades plus a level 2 in equality and diversity.

It is a state school, with a higher than average number of children in free school meals.

In some ways it feels a lot - but because some are double awards, in other ways it doesn't feel as much.

I did gcses in 1990. We had maths, English lang and English lit, then 6 columns to pick from. One column only had the three sciences, general science or human biology.
Another only had creative options.
Two had mainly humanities, language and other science options.
You then had to choose 2 from a box of vocational subjects, or 2 from two other columns of humanities/science/languages etc. Those colums had things such as sociology, economics etc in. Basically couldn't do more than 9 - had more options, but had to do at least one science, one humanities and one practical. Although encouraged a language wasn't compulsory ( I chose not to do one).

Hang on - isn’t all three sciences “double science” so it’s only two slots? That’s quite common . But agree with those saying English is usually two slots too (lang and lit)

I think in this (private) school the OP is saying only option is the single sciences – but you don’t have to do all three. But they are saying they woud prefer the option of yes, double science, ie studying all three but only using up two GCSE slots. But this school does not offer that. So you either do all three sciences and have only two choices from history/geog/MFL/music/drama/CS/DT/food/textiles/art (etc) or you choose three of those but drop one science altogether.

What are the school's extra curriculars like?

If they have a great program of sports, arts, drama, music etc. then it wouldn't bother me that my DC couldn't take a GCSE in one of these subjects. In fact, I'd prefer them to specialise in academics for GCSE and do the creative stuff as extra curricular.

Extra-curriculsrs in Drama, Sport and Music are good (partly why we're considering private). But I had imagined my son doing something like History, French, and Computer Science. I personally also did RE (again compulsory), but our school did double science (didn't offer triple and seemed no issue for Chemistry A Level at least) and did 10 as standard (different times, although it still does as it's a grammar school). So we had 4 choices (although I think we had to do 1 MFL as part of that). 2 just feels limited.