Is anyone else's year 9 child choosing options at the moment? Mine has been back and forth so many times. He's fixed on French, History and Geography and has one more to pick. He has finally rules out Spanish and RE. He is picking now between PE and Economics. I want him to go for what he'll enjoy more but he can't decide!

DD in year 9 is trying to choose her options. She has focussed very much on her favourites first: Latin and drama. Because this limits her other choices she has had to choose history or geography, French or Spanish. She has chosen geography and French but occasionally makes sad noises about history and Spanish.

I've tried to say no more than "keep your options open", "read the spec", and "some people seem not to enjoy the degree of composition in music", but it has been hard. I really don't want her to give up history for example. DD's school let them do other subjects unexamined so she'll do textiles for fun without worrying how anything turns out in the end. PE and "philosophical enquiry" are required but not examined.

I've just suggested she play around with the university course finder websites to see what prerequisites are required or what her options often lead to down the line. if she doesn't have to take a course to do it at university I've suggested she leave it until later.

We went through this a couple of years ago. I can tell you that Music has been the bane of may daughter’s life. She absolutely hates it. She is a talented and diploma level musician but is struggling with the composition and she absolutely abhors the ridiculous nature of the music history stuff. She says “ I used to like the Beatles, now I can’t stand them”. Apparently absolutely everyone else hates music and Art too with teachers doing things like tearing up work, making students take pieces of work to bits and then start again. Many students have been in tears. I definitely wouldn’t recommend taking more than one creative. There is a lot of work involved. My daughter spends an half an hour before school every day, every spare lunch hour and 2 or 3 hour long evening slots in the composition suite at school on her composition and it still gets chucked back as not good enough. And that is coming from someone who is an amazing musician. Goodness only knows what it must be like for those that are not already so informed when they start the course.
Of the creatives Dance, Drama, Computing and food tech seem to be enjoyed by most.
My daughter says generally everyone likes all of the other subjects.

Just about everyone I know who has done gcse music recently has ended up hating it.

I did initially think it was just DD, then just DDs school (which would have surprised me, as she enjoyed music up to that point and it was the same teachers), but no.

Some Posters on here and friends in RL (with DCs at different schools) have also said much the same, so I think it’s the new syllabus.

We have DS1’s Options Evening in a couple of weeks, but once all the ‘compulsary’ subjects are accounted for he can only choose 3. He is pretty much settled on History, Geography and German as he is not creative at all.

They have to do the obvious Maths, 3 Sciences and the 2 English, but also RE and ICT. Personally I think that 11 subjects is too many. Hopefully he won’t be in the top % of the year and have to do Further Maths as well

Will have to find out a little more about the Business Studies course as that could prove useful. However, since the age of 4 he’s wanted to be a train driver and hasn’t deviated - French would have been a better option than German to work on the Eurostar but he hated French; no point to us in continuing with a subject he hates.

DD's options evening was the other day. The history teacher surprised me by saying DD could maintain a casual interest in history through books, documentaries etc. Also that it was harder to get a good mark in history than geography. The geography teacher said what a good subject it was (but he preferred history).

DD has 3x sciences, 1x maths, and 2x English but is only allowed 10 examined subjects overall. She has to do 1 language (Latin counts) and 1 humanity.

Glad to hear DC have enjoyed drama. We worried about group work assessment though. I was grateful to be able to pass on your words re music (she briefly toyed with it). PE is a popular choice at her GS but DD is not a fan.

Just to add some balance to the comments about GCSE music, my DD is in year 10 and GCSE music is her favourite subject. As a result of people posting that their children had not enjoyed on this forum we had a long discussion last year when she was taking her options about whether or not she should take it and she is very pleased that she did and her friends seem to be enjoying it too. She is taking EDEXEL. I think her friends who are taking art subjects are finding that they take up a lot of time.

Good to hear someone does. Hopefully it continues for your DD.

My dd is also loving music (now in year 11). She went through a stage early in year 11 where she liked it less but is thoroughly enjoying it again. Having the music performance out of the way probably helps

Music GCSE was loved in our house initially but so,so hated by the end.
It was the only regretted choice.
The numbers taking it at my sons school have dropped by half since word has filtered down to lower years.
The composition was the most frustrating and time consuming thing he has ever done.
I agree with Tinkers I think the new syllabus is the problem.