Can anyone explain what are good and bad gcses?

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DS choosing options for September (Year 9). Apart from core subjects wants to do P.E , History, French, but wants to do Business Studies. Someone at work said it is not recognised as a good subject. Should I encourage Geography instead? DS is bright and capable. The Apprentice has a lot to answer for..

My dad refused to allow me to do typing or drama as two of my options because they weren't 'real' subjects. Instead I did geography and chemistry.

I ended up leaving school with 11 O levels. To this day I still don't understand why they all had to be 'proper' subjects.
Apart from choosing your A Level options and or persuing a specific career such as medicine, no one much cares what they are in as long as you have english and maths and the 'core subjects.

In fact the only time anyone has comment on the types of subjects I did at O level was when I went back to work after being off for 5 years after having ds. My boss looked at my CV, said he knew a very nice lady who had gone to my same school, and that I had a lot of O levels and they were all in substantial subjects. By which I took him to mean I'd have had to study hard for them and therefore he deemed me capable of hard work. But I could be completely wrong on that one!

To this day I really wish I'd done drama. And typing, yeah my dad was right you can learn to type yourself. But once you 'learn' to type the wrong way it's very very hard to go back and learn to type correctly.

Anyhow, I guess what I'm saying is, that if your ds has no real desires to follow a specific career path, and is doing the usual suspects of science, english, maths, a humanity subject etc then why not let him choose something he enjoys and really wants to do as a couple of his options?

btw I jacked in my A'levels (another thing my parents pretty much forced on me) after 1 year and went to do a BTEC in business studies. Best thing I ever did.

The French will look good, and balance out the Business Studies, imo. I would say the PE looks like an easy option, rather than the BS

Do what you enjoy, as long as it gets you into the course you want to study at Key Stage 5. Most ASs don't have prerequisites. No one really looks beyond A levels and degrees once you get further down the line.....

I think Business Studies is on the list of less preferred A levels that the red brick unis publish. Goggle soft A levels and you'll find it. I'd opt for Geography.

At the end of the day you have to think, is it better to do something they are good at but don't like or better to do something they love in the hope that they will get better. Its a very personal decision.

Oh God don't get me started on this!

Universities and schools need to get their act together on this (are you listening, Michael Gove?) because there are big double standards going on here.

'Top' universities, in their small print, are asking for separate sciences, a foreign languages at GCSE, whilst schools are pretending that all subjects are 'equal' when they are not.

If your DS is looking to apply for a popular academic course at a top university then he would do well not to take it as Business studies GCSE is not as highly regarded as other subjects, but it could be ok if taken in conjunction with other more academic GCSES, but not if everything else includes Tourism, Media Studies etc.

If this worries you, the simple rule of thumb is: if it wasn't on YOUR option list 20-40 years ago, it probably isn't a great educational step forward in terms of getting into 'top' unis.

I'd avoid just about anything with 'Studies' in the title.

Basically, go trad.

This kind of thing really winds me up.

OP please allow your DS to choose the subjects he wishes to study. They are HIS OPTIONS after all. In my experience as a teacher, students do better at the subjects they enjoy, and Ineedmorechocolate is correct in the assertion that no one gives a shit what your GCSEs are in once you've progressed onto the next step. GCSEs are a stepping stone to the next level of academia, and a string of A*s are always going to be better than a string of Cs in subjects which are seen by parents as "traditional" but which the student didn't enjoy and perhaps didn't do as well in.

My parents convinced me to take Physics, rather than Drama, when I did my options. I hated it. I went on to to English and Theatre Studies (ooo - something with "studies" in the title) at a Russell Group university and am now a Drama teacher, which proves two things - 1) my parents were wrong about Physics being more useful, and 2) GCSE subject choices don't make that much difference in the long run.

raven - I love your advice. At my school, options included People and Places, Cookery, Sewing, Technical Drawing, Childcare, Car Mechanics and Typing. Don't think I'll be pushing either of my DDs into those brilliant "traditional" subjects.

And of course we should all avoid ICT - that wouldn't have been on any option lists 20-40 years ago, and therefore isn't worth taking at all.

If your child wants to eventually study at a redbrick or RG university then stick to the traditional ones.

GCSE's still count when uni's are trying to differentiate between a million kids with the same A level results.

One of dd's friends got rejected from Edinburgh because his french gcse was a grade b .This was to do nursing

At the school I teach in, we do BTECs in several subjects (including mine) at KS4 and KS5. One of my 6th form girls is off to study at a redbrick uni next year, and was accepted at all her choices. She does 2 BTECs and 2 A Levels.

What pisses me off about this whole thing is that it's the snobbery and backward-thinking of the parents that is convincing the children not to study the subjects they enjoy. It is not true that all universities (or even all the decent universities) want traditional subjects only. For goodness' sake, they even offer degree courses in subjects with "studies" in the title.

ggirl whilst your dd's friend may feel that the ONLY reason she got rejected from Edinburgh was her b in French GCSE, I find that highly unlikely - it may also have been to do with her personal statement and/or the statement from her school.

How are students going to be able to progress with new, modern, interesting subjects if all the middle class parents insist that they will fail in life if they don't take only "traditional" options?

interesting, as I have been told by people who work at universities and grammar school teachers that whilst anything with "studies" in it might be questionable at A level for the red bricks, not an issue at GCSE. Why is there no consistent advice??? We're obviously all being told different things

EvilTwins -This is the actual feedback he got from Edinburgh University, although I suppose that could just be an excuse. He did get accepted from several other universities .
A level choice is more important when thinking about universities .

(my comment was related to ggirls', not eviltwins' .. cross posted)

lilo - some courses are so over subscribed that they will end up looking at gcse results .

Some university websites will state preferred gcses in their websites if you go to the departmental/course requirement pages, especially language courses or even biology here at bristol

so whilst taking a so called soft option will not deter you , my point is that gsces are not completely disregarded by universities once they do A levels

Just to say - that not all things with Studies in the title is seen as a poor subject.

Religious Studies at 'A' level is on Cambridge's website of preferred Arts Subjects (A2). It is not an easy option - to read the synoptic text at the end of the course, students need a reading age of 24. many of our students say it is one of their most difficult courses.

"Trinity listwww.trin.cam.ac.uk/index.php?pageid=604"

Sorry, but people bandy this around all the time - 'avoid studies courses', and it is just a generalisation - but a wrong one! Not all 'Studies' courses are to be avoided - at 'A' level, Religious Studies is a good academic choice.

Rant over.
Thanks for letting me get that off my chest

With regards to business studies. DS's form teacher is the business studies teacher and she does actively discourages the top sets not to take it. She says it's not really aimed at that level.

sigh another thing to worry about. I don't know OP, I think GCSE geography is what I would recommend.

Just my view for what it is worth , I would like to see a basic grasp of history, geography and also religious studies in order to indicate that I have someone with good general knowledge before me IYSWIM. If he really wants to do business studies, maybe he should. If he is not that bothered, I would steer him towards geography.

When I tuaght niversity students, I had maybe 3 at a time who had the basic general knowledge they needed to get anywhere on the course. Maybe that is less relevant for engineering, etc but in my subject they were hard put to progress because they lacked all the building blocks IYSWIM

OP: just to confuse you even further and apologies for sounding condescending, but has your DS looked closely at the History syllabus? Kids sometimes come a cropper if they have been studying, say, the Tudors and enjoying it and assume that the GCSE will be more of the same. It comes as a bit of a shock when they suddenly discover that they are instead studying the history of the teaspoon.

I'm not sure about doing both History and Geography together - that's a lot of wordy, essay type stuff to cram in.

Does he have any idea what he wants to do for a living? In an ideal world, he would look at the end-point and work out what qualifications he needs to get there (he wants to be a brain or tree surgeon: to do that he needs XXX qualification; to get XXX qualif he needs YYY qualif, to get YYY qualif he needs ZZZ GCSEs)

EvilTwins: 'no-one gives a shit what your GCSEs are once you get to the next level', I am afraid plenty of universities do give a shit. Perhaps someone ought to alert them to that fact.

One of the main problems of children from poor backgrounds not getting into top universities is because they are being actively encouraged to take unacceptable (by the universities) GCSES or diplomas.

It is not snobbery or backward thinking not to collude in the hypocrisy that is rife in the education system at the moment.

Why on earth do you think the universities are dominated by the private sector? Because those children are all much more clever?

Or because those schools have got the measure of which GCSEs are acceptable by the top universities. They have got it down to a tee and equally clever children from schools where they are encouraged to take different subjects are losing out on the places.

Whilst I accept that certainly not everyone is interested in applying to a redbrick/Russell Group/Oxbridge, if they are then, unfortunately, they need to know what is or is not acceptable.

The choices we made years ago are not relevant today, after all when I was at school very few pupils got 3 As at A level. Now, so many more do and the most academic universities do look at GCSE grades, as well as setting their own entrance tests.

Diplomas etc may well be being bandied about as being equivalent to 4 As at GCSE or whatever, but until someone can convince the university admissions departments (for oversubscribed academic courses) that they are, then it's all a bit of a mess, to say the least and parents/pupils are being fooled.

(It's interesting that a Business Studies teacher herself wouldn't recommend the subject to the higher level pupils.... why on earth would that be?)

applauds loungelizard- exactly what I was trying to say but you said it so well.
I feel so sad for bright kids who wonder why they can't get in to do medicine with A level PE.
The school should be telling them , not being all politically correct .

Just my twopenneth's worth.

Yay that OP's son is choosing French. I teach MFL and it's fast disappearing as a subject. The more academic students are opting for subjects they perceive as 'easier' to get an A* in. It's so demoralizing.

I teach in a really 'nice' school and my experience is that many parents are letting their children make their own choices. Very few bother to access any research wrt university subject preferences.

GCSE choices are hugely important. My sister is an educational strategist for a local authority and spends her times trying to stress this very point to schools who seem reluctant to listen.

Only yesterday, someone was on the Today programme, stressing poor GCSE and A Level choices was the main reason for the small numbers of children from poorer backgrounds getting into the best universities.

A friend of mine has a son who wants to qualify as a solicitor. Yet his 'outstanding' sixth form college has let him pick sociology, film studies and law for A level options - he is a bright lad but he has effectively ended his chances of getting into a decent university. All three A level options are awful.

A couple of soft or fun subjects at GCSE never hurts imo. History and French are both very good strong choices which with maths, english(x2) and Science makes 7 or 8 serious subjects (OP is he doing seperate sciences and are there any other core subjects at his school?).

I would think you can leave the PE & BS as extras on top of that (especially if he has seperate sciences). No idea what BS entails, but it seems in the current economic climate & with job prospects uncertain a bit of knowledge of how businesses work (& how to run your own?) could be very useful.

The thing is there are just such double standards going on.

Schools (state schools in particular) are suggesting that all subjects are equal and so they may well be (I don't particularly agree but that is me, and I am sure there will be arguments that Business studies is as 'hard' as Physics etc....) but then the Universities admission department have lists of 'soft subjects'. Why???

They obviously don't think all subjects are equal. They are working at a higher level and they need students to have studied at a rigorous level too, and they have come up with these lists for a reason, I should imagine, not just on an idle whim.

Why don't the departments just get together so everyone knows what is or is not acceptable IF (and a big IF) the pupil wants to leave their options open for applying to a decent university for a decent course in the future.

Obviously the education system doesn't revolve around all the pupils who DO want to go on to Further Education, a large majority in some schools won't be, so their needs have to be catered for just as importantly. But couldn't everyone just be a bit more honest about the reality.

Then the state sector might manage a bit of proper competition with the private sector in getting their pupils into a top university.

I doubt the OP's son will be denied a university place on the strength of one GCSE in Business Studies to be fair, but it is the principle of the thing that really gets me going, and the rather dishonest claims that are made by those peddling the 'everything is of equal value' nonsense.