DS and Science GCSE

[peoniesarejustperfect]

Hello

Making choices for GCSE for son. Was in specialist school for Y5-Y8, now in mainstream independent school. Dyslexic, ADD and v poor working memory. EP report, 25% extra time. Academics are a real struggle, but on the plus side he is sparky, interested in art / design, sociable and loves golf!

School suggest he does 6/7 GCSE. They offer film instead of Eng Lit. Our stumbling block is science. He really, really hates it and find's the concepts difficult plus remembering it. He scrapped through CE with a lot of help, but hasn't retained most of the info.

Is it possible for him not to do Science? I know it will be a waste of time and effort for him. I see that it's part of the National Curriculum, but in a private school they don't have to follow that. Could we argue that Geography
is a science or that he does PE instead? Is there a requirement that they have to sit a GCSE? Wondering if he could 'study it' with no exam?

Our ideal options are

• Maths
• English Lang
• Film (instead of Eng Lit)
• Geography
• Art
• Design / DT
• Poss Business Studies or Computing Science.

I would love to gather some more info / understanding before I tackle school.

Thank you.

It is unlikely the school will agree to dropping science completely. Studying it at a lower level e.g. entry level is more likely to be agreed. The theory part of PE has a fair amount of science in it, so may not be a wise idea.

Thank you @JustKeepBuilding I hadn't heard of the entry level Science and will look it up. With PE, I was thinking that there would be less 'science' content than a full GCSE, but maybe Geography or Business would be better.

Unless DS is set on PE I think I would look at something else. While it doesn’t have as much science as GCSE sciences it is not a minor part and has more than some expect.

What does DS want to do after GCSEs? Working backwards to see what he needs would help.

Got you. Think he should avoid that then. I wish I knew what he wanted to do next. He'd like to stay for sixth form and do Art, DT and maybe a BTech in Business or Geography. His current dream is to be a golf course designer 😃

Computer Science counts as a Science subject.
Geography can be very content heavy.

There is a lot of content in Geography.
My DD got on much better with RE which seemed much more straightforward.

If he is at mainstream independent I wonder if he could pick 1 science that he finds easiest?