GCSE options in year 8

[Tinkers]

This was one of our main reasons for not wanting DD to go to the local comp, options are decided in year 8 not 9, and this was before we knew there would be significant changes to GCSES that would affect her.
DD has started think about her options now, but just in the last couple of weeks she has gone from hating French (did it at primary and it was soooo boring according to her) to actually starting to like it. If she had been choosing this year she would have probably already dismissed French as an option, whereas now it looks like she might be taking both german and French.

[twinkles]

My sons school (a comp) choose their options in January of year 8 and I heard yesterday that the local girls grammar has this year changed to choosing options in year 8 also.

[Guest55]

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Draft specs are only out in the summer for the exams in some subjects. I certainly wouldn't want to be 'guessing' what to teach in Spetember ... this is an added hazard this year.

[2childmum]

Almost every school in this area does options in year 8. When we were looking at schools we tried to find one which didn't, as I was concerned about narrowing the curriculum so early on, especially as I have a DD who loves creative subjects and these always tend to be restricted when choosing subjects. Unfortunately the only school we found who still had options in year 9 was changing to year 8 that year as they were the only school in the borough who still had year 9 options. As parents we have no say in what the schools decide to do, and in our case no choice between schools who organise things differently.

As it happens, we withdrew DD from school a year ago to home educate, so we can carry on with whatever subjects we want without having to take exams in any of them!!!

[scary mum]

I thought that schools were moving away from this rather than the other way round. Our GS starts triple science in year 9 but that's about it.

[Peridot]

(Thanks for explanation of Classics GCSE Hera.)

[Amber]

Very disappointing to hear that more children are being made to specialise earlier. This combined with the news about limited GCSE choices on another thread here supports my belief that soon subjects like Drama, Music and Art will be dropped from the secondary curriculum completely, and the heavy focus on Maths and English which starts at Nursery will be carried on through to GCSE and beyond. The lack of breadth and creativity in such a narrow curriculum will soon take its toll. As many of the East Asian countries our leaders seem so to admire are discovering, if you squeeze creativity you end up with a workforce unable to innovate. As well as losing so much potential. Very sad.

[Peridot]

Absolutely Amber. Also very sad to read this morning on the BBC news website that some modern language GCSEs and A levels including Portuguese, Turkish and others may disappear.

[Amber]

You know, soon, schools will just coach kids in Maths and English following a prescriptive curriculum decided by the Education Secretary of the day. There will be a nod to Science with some theoretical stuff but no practicals, which are already on the way out. History and Geography may make it through; and some kind of techie subject involving computers also. Everything else will be offered by private companies and tutors, but as the exams won't be prestigious, any subjects not part of the core curriculum will gradually be sidelined and then dropped. Teachers will be reduced to technicians, delivering a heavily assessed curriculum against which their performance can be measured alongside that of their students: their pay will be performance-related (as now, in fact) and 'performance' will equal how well their students do in assessments. So poorer-performing children will be the ones no-one wants to teach, and they will end up more marginalised than they are now.

Progress, eh?

[tiffinboys]

If these subjects are canceled due to low uptake then I won't entirely blame schools or government. Government has not disallowed to offer Art, Drama etc. Most schools have these subjects option. They also say that the subjects will not be offered if uptake is low. I think we need to encourage uptake of creative subjects, but these very threads advise is Art and other creative subjects take too much of the time and effect other subjects.