Wanting my child to do less than 11 GCSEs - what are our options?

[toomanygcses]

Hallo, my child is in year 9 and at a state school where if you do triple science you take 11 GCSEs. And there's an additional maths qualification they do as well in top set.

This seems really unecessary to me. I live in a heavy private/grammar area and these schools get kids to do 8-10 presumably because they've realised kids do better without being totally swamped with loads of different subjects you don't even need....noone needs 11 GCSEs.

I'd like my child to do less. As far as I can see I have little leeway with this & the school are unlikely to be keen as they are a good student.

I believe my only parental right might be to withdraw them from RS sometime in year 9. And then presumably they won't sit RS GCSE which is "compulsory" at their school.

Is this right? Any other ideas? And how to go about withdrawing from RS (I don't believe I need to give a reason?) and when it might be sensible to do it?. Do I need to get it in writing they won't put them in for the GCSE or is that overkill?

Many thanks!

8-10 is plenty. Universities couldn’t give a damn if you’ve got 800 GCSEs. They only want to know that you have the ones you need for a particular course plus maths and English. In practice, most kids don’t really need any more than 6 or 7. Unless he’s going into science or medicine I wouldn’t bother with triple science or further maths either.

Thank you! It was news to me until recently too. Which is why I was interested if anyone had done it. Appreciate you looking into it.

Thank you Clary for sharing this, I really appreciate it. I hope you felt the school helped your son navigate those years as well as possible for him.

I would definitely talk to the school about where they can best accommodate him during RS lessons. This thread has cemented for me I don't want him taking 11 if it can be avoided.

Please familiarise yourself with the specification content of the RE GCSE taught in the school before you make any decisions. The name is a bit of a misnomer: it is the study not only of religion but of secular philosophy and ethics, human rights, etc. The OCR version of the GCSE is explicitly named Philosophy & Ethics. It contains a lot of content around understanding and questioning beliefs and perspectives. The parents who withdraw their children from it tend to be the kind of people who do not want critical thinking about religion to be introduced into their home.

I would not want my own child to miss out on this part of their education, even if they did not ultimately take an exam or receive a qualification in it.

Schools can decide to enter some kids for less GCSEs so it makes sense that parents can request this too.

The OP doesn’t have any concerns about the content of RE, she just wants to reduce her son’s workload and it’s the subject she will be most likely to be permitted to remove her child from.

Yes, this is it in a nutshell unfortunately.

I wish I thought the school would be able to offer some flexibility. I get on the one hand why it's unlikely, but I also don't understand why they are placing this large and unnecessary exam burden on students. It's been confirmed up thread how unusual it is to take 11 GCSEs (and the extra maths thing!).

I assume, but I may be skeptical, that it works out overall best for them in terms of the schools performance. But I don't think it will work out best for my son.

I work in the birth world and balancing the needs of an institution against your own personal needs is constantly in focus. There are parallels.

Appreciate everyone's help. I think I have a plan going forward but anyone who has actually done it would love to hear your experience.

I understand that. There is a cost-benefit analysis to be done, she needs to know the content that she would be removing from her child’s overall education, and on the whole I think the content of RE GCSE is pretty important stuff. A sensible compromise might be to consider attending the lessons but not entering the exam.

One of mine did 12 and an extra qualification (which they scraped through). They actually did 12 as they struggled to fit in the things that they wanted to do because the school made so many compulsory. Their French grade was poor, they hadn't wanted to do a language and there were less 9s than I think there would have been if she could have sat nine subjects of her choice.
The school said she could drop subjects, but they were the subjects she needed for A level. It was ridiculous and she ended up so stressed.

This is frustrating for you. I do understand schools have timetabling constraints etc but... why make so many compulsory.

I hope she went on to do the a-levels she wanted.

Thank you, appreciate and understand your point.

I wish I felt like I could have a nuanced chat with the school about this but nuance is often hard to find in institutions.

Just curious - what if the child attends the classes but does no prep and then just doesn't turn up for the actual exam (eg because the child is unwell) - what will happen then? if the said child was entered for 11 exams and then only attends 10 exam, how many exams will then be sent to 6 forms/universities?

I agree with you OP. It would be far better to achieve 9 or even 8 top grades than 11 or 12 mediocre ones.

I have a child who completed 10 GCSEs last year. She did 23 exams, it was so so difficult and unrelenting.

I have another child (at a different school) which specializes in sporting excellence. As a result they are used to managing kids that play at the highest national & international levels and the time off it entails. Kids are permitted to drop to 9 or even 8 GCSEs and they study/do homework in those free periods and their experience bears this out. They have been assured by top universities that it will not be viewed adversely. I personally think that after 9 or 10 the number becomes pointless. Unless a child has a specific special interest or skill there is no point doing all the additional ones.

i would speak to the school to understand whether this can be accommodated - though i understand it can be difficult for State schools to facilitate flexibility given stretched resources.

What you want to avoid is the decision to drop one (or more) down the line when you have lost the additional time that could have been used to boost other grades. I hope you get this sorted.

I was looking into this but would love someone to correct me or elaborate.

I believe if do not attend all parts of the examination, you get an X which is not a grade it means "no result".

So it means they were entered to an exam board for a subject but they were not awarded a result. So it's not a fail, or a low mark, just a statement of fact I guess.

Interesting how you might view that rather than getting a 4 when you otherwise got 7-9s for example.

Doesn't seem that productive for anyone concerned and would not be my preference tho but interesting nonetheless!

Not entirely sure on sending it on to to college/university. Have no idea how that works hopefully someone else might!

Thank you! Appreciate you sharing both your children's experiences. 9 would be my ideal tbh, with the option to do 1 more for children who wanted to... But I can dream ha.

In Wales they still have Grades not numbers

Yes that’s true. Also I think some IGCSEs still letters? But in Wales it’s deffo a thing to take GCSEs over more than one year too, which is less common in the state system in England.

My point (also made by others) was that it’s not very helpful talking about your experience or that of your DC if it refs a different time.

No use me talking about my French A level where I wrote about four books in English to an A level French student today.

I note that that poster has not answered.

My son dropped Spanish in year 10 - but that was for SEN reasons. I would definitely see if you could drop RE. Just to add, each subject has at least 2 actual exams sometimes 3. Maths x 3 exams, Science x 6 exams, English x 4 exams, Georgraphy x 2 etc. So also work out that too with how many physical exams he will be doing in May / June with 11 subjects! My son did 21 or 22 exams with 7 subjects this year

Thank you. Such a lot isn't it over a super short period of time.

I am glad you found some flexibility for your son.

DD is in year 10 and has been offered higher maths as she’s in top set. As she doesn’t want to pursue a career where maths is particularly valued, she’s not going to sit it. They also encourage all students to sit a RE qualification which is half a gcse. I don’t want her to waste valuable revision time (DD agrees) so I’m going to try and withdraw her.

Yes same boat here. State school where the norm is 11 GCSEs plus additional maths. Even if you do double science you have to pick another option so it’s still 11. There are of course kids who struggle with this. I don’t think sitting in the library is an option but the school enrol the kids doing less GCSEs on other practical courses at a local college that have no exams. So they still a full timetable.

Also where we are, exams are staggered so by the time a kid reaches the summer of year 11 they’ve sat about a third of their exams already.

When it’s clear a kids not going to do 11 GCSEs a friends experience was that which ones they dropped was steered by the school. think the first GCSE dropped is the compulsory language, followed by the optional subjects. Naturally prioritising Eng/maths/sci.

no compulsory RS here though.

My eldest has 11.5 and my youngest 8 . The eldest has everything from a group of 8s down a 4 . There is no value in that 4 ( a MFL ) and it probably caused a predicted 9 to become a 6 in history as something had to give . So I cheer you on . In the year subsequent to DS1 children were allowed to drop subjects in which they were struggling .

I insisted on DS2 dropping subject 9 entirely because of what I saw play out with Ds1 . No grand ideas - but good luck

Ps the add maths should be retained if a level maths is an option - it helps a little

I was on a secondary school tour recently and they claimed that because you normally get 2 or 3 GCSEs out of science, those GCSEs tend to be less work than 2 or 3 completely separate subjects (say, French and History). I was also surprised that 11 is no longer standard, it was when I was at school (and I only did 2 science GCSEs). If your child is academic then 11 should be doable, in my view. The school wouldn't push for it if they didn't think it would yield good results, after all