What is the most useless GCSE?

muffinmonster · Post by **muffinmonster** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 10:13 pm

DarkEnergy wrote:creative people can change the world, where as good mathematicians become bean counters.

But aren't the best mathematicians creative?

Chelmsford mum · Post by **Chelmsford mum** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 10:19 pm

What do we mean by "useless"?
If a child has a good range of GCSEs and has a couple of choices that are not deemed to be the most widely esteemed, does it really matter? If they enjoy cooking, costume design, sociology(gasp) or suchlike , then isn't this a welcome outlet in their week?

wonderwoman · Post by **wonderwoman** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 10:22 pm

Amber wrote:
Merits of MFL for those children who struggle with fluency in their mother tongue, especially in schools where MFL is compulsory;

Couldn't agree more.

On food tech - DD doing that, she's a rubbish cook but has completed a fantastic folder for course work. She does know a lot about nutrition though, so it has been useful.
Many, many years ago I did A level Home Economics as it was called then. Of course everyone just called it cooking and I thought it would be easy. But it was really hard and there was a significant overlap with A level Biology and Chemistry, so that was useful. We had to do an independent study from a choice of about 4 different areas I think and had an exam in our chosen area. This part of the syllabus had no teacher input apart from the odd pointer about where to find information. Bearing in mind this was in an era before computers I remember it as a bit of a nightmare involving far more work than my rather more academic A levels. I failed it

sherry_d · Post by **sherry_d** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 10:44 pm

Can we not say useless subjects are those we do and never use and see the light of them?

Maths, I wonder how relevant it is in my life, adding BOGOFs maybe? Geograpghy argggrrr maybe it helped me locate on the map where GB was. English, on no I cant even use an apostrophe

I even did economics and accounts yet I am the most useless person with money. They should surely teach in school how to manage money rather than just equip you with ways to make money

Rob Clark · Post by **Rob Clark** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 11:05 pm

She is currently devising desserts for diabetics.

Sorry to be the party pooper, bromley mum, but there's no such thing.

Looking for help · Post by **Looking for help** » Thu Apr 15, 2010 7:42 am

Chelmsford mum wrote:What do we mean by "useless"?
If a child has a good range of GCSEs and has a couple of choices that are not deemed to be the most widely esteemed, does it really matter? If they enjoy cooking, costume design, sociology(gasp) or suchlike , then isn't this a welcome outlet in their week?

We enjoy cooking in our house, CM, but food tech is nothing to do with cooking, more to do with creating as someone else said a lovely folder full of paper with pretty borders and a load of useless information and hardly any cooking. Be warned - stay away from the food tech - textiles if you must as they seem to be able to create pretty dresses and cushions, but not food tech

Sorry - rant over - it's just we have spent an enormous amount of time on this that could have been better spent revising for her other subjects

bromley mum · Post by **bromley mum** » Thu Apr 15, 2010 8:50 am

Rob Clark wrote:
She is currently devising desserts for diabetics.
Sorry to be the party pooper, bromley mum, but there's no such thing.

I beg to differ. I have diabetic family members who have been told by their nutritionist that diabetes does not mean that you cannnot have something sweet once in a while. What you need to do is have something which will be high in fibre and low in carbohydrate and sugars. My DD has made souffle with egg whites, a table spoon of whole meal flour, pear puree and a spoon ful of artificial sweetner and some ground almonds. It rose and tasted wonderful. This is one of the four things she devised. She enjoyed the whole project; the research the cooking and getting feedback from people.

Post by **hermanmunster** » Thu Apr 15, 2010 9:03 am

I suppose the thing about diabetics these days is that they just eat the same food as everyone else in slightly different quantities. to some extent the insulin users are more free to eat didfferent things as There are schemes like DAPHNE where they adjust the insulin to match the food.
I tend to look after non insulin dependent diabetics (far more common) - and much more difficulty to get them to lose weight and adjust what they eat.

DarkEnergy · Post by **DarkEnergy** » Thu Apr 15, 2010 9:20 am

Probably the most common ICT GCSE course at the moment is OCR Nationals, simply because it is easier than any other course. If your DC got a level 5 or more in KS3 ICT, then doing the OCR Nationals is a backward step. The skills in it map out to mostly level 4 ICT at KS3.

I would call this a useless qualification as it is an exercise in doing coursework (100% coursework and no exam) rather than learning anything new or useful.

katel · Post by **katel** » Thu Apr 15, 2010 9:38 am

But GCSEs aren't really about learning particular facts, useful or otherwise. They are about learning to learn, learning to organize time, learning to do stuff you don't want to do, and proving to future employers that you can apply yourself to something for longer than 5 minutes. And getting yourself the qualifications you need to get into the 6th form if you want to do A-levels.

It really doesn't matter what GCSEs kids do - apart, I suppose from English and Maths.

The supposed "sort options" sometimes turn out to not be so soft after all - as my nephew discovered when he chose PE because he thought it would be a doddle!