GCSEs in England: which subjects / how many are compulsory? What can each school force kids to take?

[ItalianParent]

Can you please help me understand a few points about GCSEs in English (and I specifically mean in England, not in any other part of the UK) state secondary schools?

1. Are Maths, English language (not literature), and Science (whether combined or separate) the only subjects which are, by law, compulsory for all?

2. Is there a minimum or maximum number of subjects mandated by law? Does the law say something like: everyone must do those 3 above, but also at least 5 more of their choosing?

3. Can each school decide which other subjects are compulsory for its students? Eg if a school wants everyone to do religion, or history, or geography, or whatever, I presume families cannot object and say no, right?

4. Can each school decide a minimum number of subjects for each student? Must this number be the same for all? Or can a school say: John should do 9 GCSEs and Jane should do 11? Can families object? Can a family say that 11 GCSEs are too many and they'd rather the kid did 8-9?

For context, I am not complaining about a school forcing a particular subject.
But I have found these are some of the points on which many schools, at least in my area, are the least transparent and provide the least information.

I have even found some schools lying about it (whether through bad faith or just ignorance I don't know), and saying that some subjects are compulsory at GCSEs by law (one school said it about history, another about religion) and it wasn't the school's choice. I have no qualms about GCSEs in either, but why give the wrong information?

Thanks!

Gcse are level 2 qualifications so FM is equivalent to gcse as are level 2 btec, nvq etc. dd took Maths gcsesin year 10 then FM/Add Maths level 2 certificate in year 11.

Nothing is obligatory by law.

As an adult an individual will find it extremely difficult (though not impossible) to get employment without 5 GCSEs (at grade 4 or better) including maths and english so schools won't usually consent to pupils taking any fewer than 5 and its generally good practice to take more as a child is more likely to get a good grade in an optional subject that they like than the core subjects.

All KS4 pupils must study maths, english and science as well as having timetabled slots for Physical Education, Computing, PSHE&Citizenship and Religious Education but it is not obligatory for these subjects to be targeted at taking the GCSE exams, and schools are at liberty to schedule classes which offer the opportunity to learn about eg religion and spirituality as a non-examined subject in a half hour slot once a week, or may have a policy that the only way they will fulfil the obligatory requirement to teach religious studies is by teaching all pupils the full RS GCSE syllabus - and similarly for the other obligatory subjects. Schools must offer at least one GCSE subject in the areas of each of:

• arts
• design and technology
• humanities
• modern foreign languages

But they are not required by law to make all pupils take one of these.

Schools can certainly require all pupils to be timetabled for 5 full days of lessons as they don't have the staffing to allow pupils to have lots of untimetabled time.

However schools are ranked and judged according to what percentage of their pupils achieve EBacc standard which requires GCSEs in Maths, English Language and Literature, at least the 2-certificate combined sciences course, at least one out of History and Geography, and a Modern Language and their "Attainment 8" score which is a measure of each pupil's top 8 GCSE grades so schools will be generally very reluctant to allow a pupil to sit fewer than 8 GCSEs unless their SEN or other challenges make it likely that they won't achieve the important 5 good passes if they have to cope with that breadth.

None of the schools near me do more than 10 GCSEs:

Dd1 - grammar school - 10, everyone does triple science and has to do a language and humanity
Dd2 - comprehensive - 9 subjects, Maths, English x2 and Science x2 compulsory. Students can opt to do 8 if SEN. 4 options are completely free depending on timetabling so you could for example do art, Music, DT and Food tech as your options.
DN - Private school - 9 including compulsory language and humanity but some IGCSEs so more coursework

None of them offered Further Maths

I see many others have said what I was going to say, including the fact that no GCSEs are compulsory by law, although most schools will enter the vast majority of DC for the core GCSEs and then further subjects.

To answer your further questions @ItalianParent – firstly, remember that you don't choose a secondary school. Depending obviously where you live (and in London there are more options) for many of us there is very little choice. I live in a city and realistically there were four secondaries I could list which were even accessible by the DC; of those four, we were very unlikely to be allocated two. So just to factor that in.

For most schools, the same subjects will be on the compulsory list (assuming no major SEN here). Some, as others note, will insist on RS GCSE, often as an extra. That would not be a deal-breaker for me either way (my DC did not take it). Some ask for ebacc subjects (history/geog and an MFL) but that's becoming less common as it is being phased out as a measure. It's still not a bad idea to take a spread like that though.

Optional subjects will be pretty standard tho some schools do not offer all tech subjects and the specific MFL may vary (Spanish on the up, German going down sadly). I guess it's worth looking but as others say, it can vary; as @TallagallaPenguin says, the textiles teacher may leave and school may not be able to recruit; an inspiring music teacher may start and music GCSE may have more takers - that kind of thing.

Most students who are in mainstream school will take between 7 and 11; the majority will take 8 or 9. As others say, this can vary with things like triple science in a accelerated group. I wouldn't worry too much about the number. An extra GCSE like triple, taking a YP from 9 to 10, won't make much difference and they will be more able if it is offered to them (two of my DC took 10 in this way).

If extras like FM or stats as a twilight (offered in a few schools) are too much they can always drop them. Again not a deal-breaker. I would say btw that FM (yes it is not a GCSE but yes is at the same level, ie a Level 2 qual) is not that common. Certainly no school I know about in my area (and I know about quite a few through my DC and also working in schools) offers it. Maybe it is area-dependent?

There was some way of listing it on UCAS.
I didn't know it was unusual. I think iiuc the material was repeated in A-level so it is a way of getting a headstart on the A-level syllabus, with a result "in the bag" as extra proof that A-level predictions are based on evidence.

Thank you for the clarifications.
Yes, I get it that, in many cases,, actual choice may well be limited.
And I get it that the availability of optional subjects may well change for a number of reasons.

Still, I can think of no valid reasons why a school shouldn't be more transparent in saying which GCSE subjects it considers compulsory, and of no valid reason why a school would lie and say that religious education GCSE is compulsory by law for all - it isn't, it is the school's choice, so why lie about it?

I have nothing against religious education GCSE per se, but i) it means having one fewer option and ii) if the school lies / is not transparent about that, what else will it be not transparent about?

If they're saying it's compulsory by law, it may be compulsory because they are a school supported by a religious organisation? I have worked at a Catholic secondary where RS was compulsory simply because that's that the Catholic Education Service dictated as part of our funding.

@SunsetGirl They are not. It's a state, non-faith school.

Discriminating access to a crucial service, funded by everyone's taxes, based on religion is beyond bonkers and would be unconstitutional in Italy, but that is a separate discussion. After many years here, I am still shocked by the fact that so many Brits seem to accept this without battling an eyelid. The UK is much less religious than Italy (the latest census shows Christians < 50%, and no religions ca. 40%), accepts less interference from religious lobbies on many things (eg same-sex marriage, made legal here many years ago), yet you remain crazily backwards when it comes to religious discrimination in schools.

Imagine calling the fire brigade and being told that this fire brigade prioritises Christians, so you must call another one which serves everyone. Bonkers.

Religious schools will remain until they solve the problem of how the government can acquire all the land and property the schools are based in an affordable way without seizing property from the church and other religious organisations.

(My childs Comprehensive covers the compulsory RE curticulum, PSHE, citizenship etc in a handful of off-timetable days throughiut the year rather than weekly lessons. They dont have specialist RE teachers. The world hasnt ended. So i agree forcing a GCSE is unnecessary)

@ItalianParent yes it's misleading. Core RE is compulsory, all children need to do RE until 16 so a lot of schools just make them do it as GCSE as they need to teach it anyway. Both my children's schools (grammar and comprehensive) allow them to drop it and just do core RE, which is a couple of lessons a week where they just discuss ethics. It is annoying when you need to waste am option on something you're not interested but also anecdotally, it's one that DC seem to get high marks in so maybe that's why the schools like it.

You could start only the compulsory GCSEs in yr 9 and not start the optional GCSEs until year 10, allowing students to choose their GCSEs in year 9

It may be that the particular teacher either misunderstood or explained it badly.

It is true that Religious Education is compulsory by law. It is within the schools discretion to choose whether to do that as a minimal non-examined subject, or whether to timetable it as a full GCSE option, or whether to have a 2-track system for some pupils to choose between these, but it's perfectly reasonable for a school to choose that the best way for them to meet their legal obligations is to teach the full RS GCSE syllabus to all pupils and to not have the resources or timetable time to offer a downgraded non-exam RS option to some in order to facilitate more flexibility of other options.

Generally the schools that require all pupils to take GCSE RS are the ones with faith-based entry criteria, and it's generally the people who played the system to get the faith school who then complain about the school being run in a way that prioritises faith-related matters.

Timetabling is a nightmare that causes huge headaches and having one option that most-but-not-all kids take is particularly difficult to manage. If the majority of kids at a school are from families who prioritise faith and are likely to choose RS then it's much more sensible to make it an obligatory subject for all than it is to do the necessary juggling to make separate provision for the minority of pupils who don't want to do it.

@Stowickthevast I get the rationale. I am not questioning that. I am questioning the lying and the lack of transparency. Makes me suspect that an organisation which lies on something so banal may also end up lying on more serious stuff. I asked 3 teachers on 2 separate occasions. One may have misunderstood, but 3?

@Muu9 I see that some schools start GCSEs almost a year earlier, and that opinions are divided. Some don't like it because they see it as a way to climb the league tables, but by neglecting the content that won't be tested explicitly at GCSE. Some like it.

@BirdLandedonmyHead Two objections to that

• we could and should stop creating and funding new state faith schools FFS! You may have heard that a previously independent Islamic school in North London recently became state-funded, and only after the media uproar did they backtrack on their uniform code, which previously forced ALL girls above 7 to wear head covering
• it is perverse to subject crucial rights to a cost assessment. Remember that cost has always been a reason to claim that we couldn't get rid of certain injustices. By that reasoning, we should not have abolished slavery because it was too costly. We should not have recognised the right to equal pay because it would have been too expensive for the economy. Etc etc etc. No, I am not saying that state-funded faith schools are the same as slavery, I am saying that rights should not be subject to a cost analysis.

This is a total misunderstanding of why state-funded faith schools exist. The church is not interfering in state education, the state has negotiated an acceptable way to interfere in Christian education.

The churches were providing education long before the state decided that education should be state funded. For centuries there was no fundamental right to education, you got educated if your family coukd afford it or you went to a charitable church school if one existed in your parish.

The schools providing education to the children of the parish already existed and the state could not and did not steal the church's property and couldn't have afforded to buy the many thousands of school buildings from the churches so came to an agreement with the churches that the school properties they already owned would remain the property of the churches, but the state would start to pay the staffing costs. The church schools were allowed to continue to prioritise local Christian children as they always had done, but with leftover places (and where necessary expanded places if the demand for school places was high) going to other local children.

It would be totally fine for the state to build and run more secular schools so that they didn't need to piggyback on centuries of Christian philanthropy that established church schools long before the state worked out that an educated population is a good thing. That would leave the church schools able to continue to provide a Christian education to anyone who wants one with less state interference. But the state can't afford to do that, and in any case the demand isn't there because people who aren't very interested in faith nevertheless notice that the faith school gets better outcomes and want to get places there.

Is your issue actually around the religious studies issue? Your original post was broader. I was actually as surprised as you when I realised how this aspect of the school system functioned...and I'm British! I think I have come to accept that this is one of the remnants of living in a very old country (United Italy is very youthful by comparison) with lots of leftovers of the past such as the church influence on education. I also think Britain has a lot of cultural Christians with no real religious belief (I'm one) and as religions go, traditional CofE is pretty homeopathic, although you have to watch out for the enthusiastic evangelical bits.

There's a campaign you can join here if you like:

Religious schools – Humanists UK https://share.google/lJP3WGFgqc35IL1D7

For what it's worth, my daughter's school requires all students to sit RS GCSE short course in year 10 as a public exam practice and opportunity to develop essay and critical thinking skills.

@Phineyj Is your issue actually around the religious studies issue?

No. I have said multiple times that I have no issues with studying religious studies, nor with schools making it compulsory. I have an issue with schools lying about it and telling parents that it is compulsory by law to take religious studies GCSE. My issue is not with the subject but with the lack of transparency, and makes me wonder: if they lied about this, what else will they lie / be less than transparent about? I have repeated it so many times that I struggle to see how it could be misunderstood.

If I understand correctly, in England religious studies is reasonably diverse and is not indoctrination. It is unlawful indoctrination in Northern Ireland - the UK Supreme Court said so recently.

@KindlySurfiingPlatypus Mine is no misunderstanding at all. You point to the historical reasons why state-funded faith schools exist. I never disputed the historical reasons.

Historical reasons may explain the existence of very old schools, but do not justify the creation of new ones (see my point about the new state-funded Islamic school which tried to force head covering an all girls, then backtracked).

Leaving this aside, my point is very banal: whatever the historical background, the fact remains that, today, a crucial service, to which everyone should have the right to access, and funded by everyone's taxes, discriminates based on faith.

Please, tell me where the misunderstanding would be. Is the statement above not factually correct????

Would you accept this with any other crucial state-funded service, whatever the historical context?

people who aren't very interested in faith nevertheless notice that the faith school gets better outcomes and want to get places there.
Nonsense. It has been amply studied and shown that faith schools tend to be more socially selective
https://www.suttontrust.com/our-research/selective-comprehensives-2024/

If RS GCSE is compulsory it is often taken as an extra IME. At my old school everyone did the short course (half a GCSE) though I am not sure if that still exists. It didn't reduce the other choices. I do see that some schools may have it as an option tho.

If a school says the GCSE (rather than the subject per se) is compulsory then it is at best misleading parents. But it wouldn't surprise me if there was no malice. Schools often don't seem to be aware of such details. I wouldn't worry about a hidden agenda of lying tbh.

If you have concerns about a school and its GCSE offer, just ask the school.

Something you may want to consider is how triple science is taught.
At DD's school triple science took up an option so, pupils who took double science had 4 subjects that they could choose over the compulsory subjects and the triple science students had three to choose from.

To be clear about the status of these subjects, the National Curriculum has English, Maths and Science as compulsory subjects to the end of KS4, which is when pupils take their GCSEs. It is not compulsory for students to actually take these GCSEs but, given that these subjects will take up a lot of teaching time, it makes sense for them to do so.

Academies are not required to follow the National Curriculum so they could, in theory, allow students to skip these subjects. However, their performance in league tables is damaged if students don't take English, Maths and Science. So, whilst there is no legal requirement for students to take these GCSEs, in practice all schools in the state sector will insist they do.

RE is also a compulsory subject to the end of KS4. However, it is not required for the school performance measures so schools take different approaches. Some take the view that students might as well get the GCSE since they have to study the subject, others take a different view.

Regarding faith schools, @KindlySurfiingPlatypus is correct. Faith schools existed long before the government decided to fund education. It wasn't until 1944 that faith schools became fully state funded for running costs. Voluntary Aided schools still have to find a proportion of their capital costs.

The land and buildings used by faith schools belong to the relevant faith, not the state. In return for allowing the state to use their land and buildings, they want to continue to prioritise children of their own faith. Note that they are not allowed to exclude children of other faiths, and many faith schools reserve a proportion of their places for other faiths. However, for some popular faith schools the reality is that you aren't going to get a place unless you fulfil the faith requirements.

If the government chose to stop faith schools giving priority on faith grounds, the Catholic church would close all its schools. Some other faith schools would also close. The government cannot legally seize the lands and buildings without compensation, so abolishing faith schools would require them to either buy them or build new schools. Either approach would cost billions of pounds - money the government doesn't have. It is therefore unlikely to happen.

@KindlySurfiingPlatypus , @prh47bridge
I forget the exact number, but, since 2011, between 100 and 200 new state-funded faith schools have been created.

I understand there are complex reason why it is politically unrealistic to buy the land from the Churches, for existing state faith schools. But unrealistic doesn't mean fair.

There was no complex reason why NEW state-funded faith schools were created. It was an explicit political choice.

Why the hell did we create more schools which discriminate based on faith???

Also, please help me understand which injustices you are willing to accept because of cost, and which not.

How would you react if you were told that women should be paid up to 50% less than men for the same job? yes, it's not ideal, but doing otherwise would cost too much, there are complex historical reasons for that, love, and, after all, it's better to earn something than nothing, right? We wouldn't want all these employers shutting down, would we?

Or how would you react if your local hospital prioritised another child over yours because of faith? yes, not ideal, but, you see, that Church owns the land, the NHS cannot afford to buy out the land, so in the end we must really suck it up, love.

How would you react in these two scenarios?

PS Plus it is always possible to force old faith schools to have the same limit as those created after 2011, i.e. to discriminate based on faith for only half of the intake. it is perfectly possible - there is just no political willingness to do so

You clearly do misunderstand the obvious long term/permanent(?) consequences of the historical basis for the current situation if you think it feasibly could now be set aside.

(a) the school buildings and land are still the property of the church, and they are run under long-standing contractual agreements that give the church a say in how the school is run. Buying out those contracts and acquiring that land would take incalculable billions of pounds - and why on earth would the government spend that money in order to disrupt the successful functioning of so many of the most popular schools?

(b) the legal principles that allowed this settlement to be agreed have established that faith communities are allowed to have schools that prioritise the children of that faith within the state-funded system, and that freedom is still a valued and cherished part of the culture of the UK today. It would be massively discriminatory to say that Christians can have this but Muslims, Jews etc cannot, or that emerging Christian communities in places that don't already have church schools cannot create them if there is appropriate demand. This is about freedom of religion and that's not something that's old-fashioned and inappropriate in the modern day. Other countries have chosen different paths and may have all state schools be 100% secular and all religious schools are private, but that's not the path that the people of the UK chose because the freedom to live out your faith in all aspects of life is a freedom that we cherish more than the different kind of "freedom-from" that is enforced in countries where there is an expectation for public life to be fully secular.

(c) It is an inaccurate mis-stating to say that the system that "everyone should have the right to access, and funded by everyone's taxes, discriminates based on faith" - everyone does have the right to a school place, and I'd be the first to agree that the system is underfunded and many schools are inadequate but everyone does get a school place eventually. It is not "discrimination" when something that has been established and exists primarily for people in category X is run in a way to prioritise people in category X. You might as well say that the Paralympics is "discriminatory" for not allowing competitors who don't have a disability. We as a society have chosen that we want faith based education to be allowed to exist and be run primarily for the people who want their children to have a faith based education. People who are not of that faith are still allowed to access it and often want to do so because the schools that are run on faith-based principles often have better outcomes than secular schools and there are fair and proportionate means for those people to apply for the places that are available once the faith community that created the school has met the needs of that community. Using the word "discrimination" to refer to something that exists in order to meet a legitimate need being allowed to meet that need cheapens the word and makes the argument ridiculous.

I suspect that your real problem is that the secular schools near you aren't getting as good results as the faith schools - and maybe it's true that families that are more chaotic and more likely to have troubled and disruptive kids are less likely to meet the criteria for the faith schools (given that the schools are not allowed to actually attempt to measure the strength of someone's "faith" but have to use proxy criteria for verifiable facts about how often the family attends church/mosque/synagogue which takes time and effort to be able to prove) which would naturally lead to the secular schools having bigger challenges. The remedy is not to attack the freedom of faith communities to have faith schools that meet their needs, but to campaign for a more equitable funding model that gives more financial resources and support to any school with a more challenging intake demographic.

I forget the exact number, but, since 2011, between 100 and 200 new state-funded faith schools have been created.

It is actually 95. The church or other faith organisations have provided much of the funding needed to get these schools going, including providing the land and buildings. These new faith schools can only use faith criteria for 50% of their places. They exist because no-one else was willing to put up the funding required to create these new schools, NOT because of an explicit political choice to create more faith schools.

Your child has the right to an education, not to an education at a specific school. They may be unable to get a place at a good school because they are of the wrong sex, or because they don't live close enough or have sibling at the school. Are all of these injustices?

I have an issue with schools lying about it and telling parents that it is compulsory by law to take religious studies GCSE

The school is not lying. It is compulsory by law that students take religious studies, regardless of the type of school. The law does not require them to sit the exam, but they must take the lessons.

My dc do English, maths and combined science as compulsory subjects.

Then they have to pick at least one national expectations subject which are computer science, triple science, history, geography, french and spanish.

Then they pick 2 other subjects from a choice of art, drama, health and social care, food tech, design technology, creative imedia,

@KindlySurfiingPlatypus if you think it feasibly could now be set aside.

Which part of " I understand there are complex reason why it is politically unrealistic to buy the land from the Churches" was unclear?

but that's not the path that the people of the UK chose because the freedom to live out your faith in all aspects of life is a freedom that we cherish more than the different kind of "freedom-from" that is enforced in countries where there is an expectation for public life to be fully secular

Interesting. Was there a referendum in which the majority of the UK voters chose to support not just the current system but the creation of more state-funded schools which discriminate based on faith? I must have missed that.
I do remember, however, the last census showing this to have become one of the least religious country in Europe, with less than half the population being Christian, and ca 40% identifying as "no religion"

You really need to help me understand what discriminating school admissions has to do with religious freedom. May I kindly remind you that the Supreme Court ruled that the kind of religious education they have in Northern Ireland is unlawful indoctrination. What we have in England, even in state faith schools, is a teaching of various religions and worldviews, without advocating any single one as the truth.

So what exactly is the difference with a state faith school? They don't teach different maths or English. They cannot even teach that their own religion is true and the others are false. The difference ends up being... surrounded by more people of the same faith, by seeing religious symbols in the school and maybe have some kind of worship during the day.

Are you telling me that being surrounded by more people of a different faith, not having religious symbols in the school and not worshipping in class is an infringement of religious freedom???

I suspect that your real problem is that the secular schools near you aren't getting as good results as the faith schools
No. Actually, one of the faith schools in my area ends up accepting students from some very rough estates, is undersubscribed and has some terrible results, with ca. half the students failing GCSEs in maths and English.
Another one is OK but much worse academically than other non-faith schools.

I get it it's hard to believe for many people, but mine is truly a point of principle. Eg I am not in North London, but the fact that we made an Islamic school state-funded, and it tried to impose head covering on all girls (before backtracking after public uproar) still winds me up.

Oh, and my previous point still stands: good faith schools tend to be more socially selective. It's been amply demonstrated. There is no magical link between believing, or pretending to, in a certain deity and having better academic results.

I mean, you are welcome to believe that the Oratory gets good academic results because the families are Catholic, or pretend to be. But it would be incredibly naive to think that social selection plays no role. Didn't the children of multiple prime ministers go there? And ty]hat was the school which prioritised families making financial donations, before a legal challenge which found it to be unlawful. Religious values my ### !