Can anyone me help on GCSEs

bushmins

bushmins

bushmins

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My son is about to take he GCSE's, he’s in the process of choosing what he will take.
He has a goal to become an animator, what that entails I don’t really know, but for now its a goal and that’s what matters. He has spoken to various graduates who visit his school. They suggest taking ICT and Art. It seems the government have just brought out something called an Ebac (I think this is what’s its called) and teachers are trying to persuade pupils to take this instead of ICT. An Ebac from what i can gather is a group of GCSE's that includes ICT but not at the same level as taking ICT as a separate course. The ICT that he wants to take give 2 GCSE grades. If he takes and Ebac he will not be able to take Art (due to the way the time table is set out)

Due to the way things are organised at his school if they persuade enough pupils not to take ICT they wont run the course, this will then reduce the amount of GCSE grade he can get. He’s a bright kid and wants to do as many GCSE’s as possible.
Im also guessing that because this is a new Govt. scheme the school will look good if they get lots of kids to do it.

Any programmers/animators here got advice on what to do?
 
I'd agree with your suggestion of doing art and ICT. The big problem is at GCSE level they probably won't dive into any animation stuff.

IMO the best course of action for your son is to get his good grades at GCSE but also to look at what courses he'd like to do/are available at local colleges. You can order a prospectus or most of them have them online anyway. I know it's another 2 years yet till he'd go off to college but having an idea of what he wants to do in the next step can prepare him for getting there.

When it comes to choosing college courses he should have a wider range of options relating to "animation" or even other computing fields for that matter.
 
All he really needs to do is get good grades, pretty much all college ICT based courses will only require decent grades in the basic subjects to get you onto the course, maths, english, etc. some don't even specifically need an ICT GCSE, as the ICT GCSE is a piece of wet, well it was when I did my GNVQ in ICT, it was basically produce something using, excel, powerpoint, and frontpage, then have an exam about it.

And if he wants to do animation anything he learns in a GCSE ICT lesson won't be of that much use to him, or is stuff he already knows. Art might be a good shout, but so would some sort of graphic products/design class.
 
think the most important for him will be Maths and Physics which he'll have to do anyway, after that, just tell him to pick what he enjoys doing as it'll give him the best results :)
 
AHarvey said:
think the most important for him will be Maths and Physics which he'll have to do anyway, after that, just tell him to pick what he enjoys doing as it'll give him the best results :)
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Maths, physics and art will be the most important at GCSE.

From my experience IT gcse's are pretty much worthless
 
After just typing a massive reply to this, I accidentally refreshed the page, DOH!

Long and short;

GCSEs aren't as important as the College course.

A BTEC National Diploma in Graphic Design/Interactive Media/Animation would be the way to go. Personally I'd choose Graphic Design as it teaches all aspects and is much broader, is more about being creative and getting the ideas out. You can go onto an Animation degree after.

ICT & Art will probably help develop technical ability slightly for drawing, and ICT will help as he'll spend more time with computers learning software which is always fine - even if it isn't relevant as of yet.

On my Double Award ICT GCSE we did do some very basic Flash animation.

I'm currently studying a ND Graphic Design, achieving a DDD (3x Distinction, top grade), I didn't take Art or Graphics GCSE.

What benefited me was when I worked as a Junior at a design agency when I was 15 for 3 months, started with 2 weeks work experience and they kept me on as a paid role.
Having been back each year since also for paid work.

It's a long journey and simply knowing the software and being able to draw is about 10% of anything design or animation related, laying the foundations are whats important.

Personally - I don't see A Level Graphics, Art etc. as great, and nor does any University I have applied to - they have all said they don't choose based on Qualification (some do say no A Levels), but have said that the likelyhood of taking on an A level student is very low because their portfolio standard is poor compared to an ND.

Hope that makes a bit of sense...
 
Did you hear in the news last week about children who want to be in the games industry/animators are being told to do certain btecs etc when actually they want people with ict and art a levels? I think teachers are too heavily influence by government and you should look at what animating jobs are asking for
 
publicwhobreach said:
Did you hear in the news last week about children who want to be in the games industry/animators are being told to do certain btecs etc when actually they want people with ict and art a levels? I think teachers are too heavily influence by government and you should look at what animating jobs are asking for
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There isn't one University I applied to, looked at applying to etc that wanted A Levels. The first preference was always BTEC.

It was the exact same for the people in my class that applied to an Animation degree; they were in a far better position with a BTEC.

To 90% even have your application acknowledge with A Levels you need at least 80 UCAS points in an art related subject. This would require you taking 2 usually - say Art A Level and Photography A Level.

A Levels won't build your portfolio in the same way a BTEC does. An A Level won't give you live briefs like a BTEC does. BTECs are far more full on and are more industry related.

Going straight out of college into an Animation job - I wouldn't know. But I wouldn't advise it either.

My Uncle works in the Games Industry and has for a very very long time - he has no degree or 'proper' qualifications. He does however, have a very creative brain naturally - something which a lot of people need help to develop, which a BTEC will do far more so than A Level.

A lot of people that come off A Levels may possibly have technical knowledge, they might know their way round Cinema 4D, Flash whatever like the back of their hand - but they might not have any creative brain and know how to produce a good idea.

It can also be the same for a BTEC, there are people on my course that will just end up as Artworkers, which isn't a bad job but it's tedious. (Done it for a long period before)

A BTEC will make you more rounded, it will give you better industry related experience, and it will set you up (if you want) better for a University course.

Of course, all my opinion - I don't pay attention to what the Gov. say you should do. From first hand experience, from talking to tons of people in the industry and universities is what I base it on.
 
Ok. If he wants to be an animator - the most important thing is art! By that I mean fine art/classic art e.g. drawing and pen and paper. Not design, not graphics, just art. Obviously he should do maths as well. GCSE ICT is not that important.
 
As usual with these soet of things go and talk to the people that will be employing your son. Forget what the teachers (and to an extent lecturers) say as they are usually either pushed/bias for whatever reason or out dated/know nothing.

So give a few companies a ring/email and see what they want their new staff to have studied (and potentially, where), then go to the universities and see what those courses prefer in the way of A-Levels/college certificates, then find out what GCSE's he needs/may want to do in relation to that.

Hopefuly then in 5-7 years when he is looking for a full time job he will have the right qualifications and skills.:)
 
Does he plan on going to university or to college after?( if at all) Might be a better option to look at what's required further down the line.

When I did ICT at A-level, which I later dropped due to AQA not having a clue what they were doing with the syllabus. It was access databases, newsletters etc. Check to see what each GCSE entails. Art would be the logical option where he can then branch out into the specific area he enjoys a couple of lads in my class were in to film so their coursework was short movies they had made.
 
Bucket said:
To 90% even have your application acknowledge with A Levels you need at least 80 UCAS points in an art related subject. This would require you taking 2 usually - say Art A Level and Photography A Level.
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Erm... Last time I checked 80 UCAS points was a single grade C at A-Level. You don't need two subjects to get it unless you only just scrape a pass.


(This may have changed in the few years since I did my A-Levels)

EDIT: Yes, they are still the same.
 
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It all comes down to what course he applies for at college/6th form and then at University.

I guess GCSEs related to what he's going into would help so look into that first, but it's not the biggest deal as it doesn't go into that kind of depth at Key Stage 4. Just make sure he does plenty well in whatever GCSEs he does, and the courses he wants to do will all be available to him later on at Key Stage 5 :)
 
I would suggest the traditional route as well - e.g. a levels -> degree -> job

as games companies are increasingly requiring these traditional qualifications (assuming he wants to go into gaming). From what I've seen you don't need a btec to get into good animation courses...
 
As an ICT teacher I would advise your son to take on any GCSEs in subjects that he currently enjoys and not to worry about the Eng Bac- its only for school league tables

The Eng Bac which includes Maths, English, Science, Humanity and a MFL but no ICT. The reason why - the man who wrote the White Paper detailing the new education plans wrote it on paper therefore he doesn't believe ICT should be a core subject. General feeling towards the Eng Bac are in 3 years time it probably wont be used, it was just one way of highlighting the Labour governments 'overuse' of vocational course and the schools being able to include these in the 5 A*-C stats.

There are masses of ICT qualifications at your sons level and tbh I don't think there is a massive about of difference between the content and how it looks eventually on his CV, theres no animation on them anyway.
 
Yeah, anything at GCSE level is unlikely to aid in anything but the progression onto a-levels. 7-8 years ago when I did GCSE IT it was a joke, nothing of any relevance to my future career. I would ignore ICT if anything and do art.
 
IIRC ICT at GCSE is messing around with spreadsheets. That's all we did anyway. Total waste of time. I spent 2 years surfing forums and learning HTML, PHP, CSS and JavaScript. My actual coursework took a week and I scored an A* overall. The exam was a joke (what does a mouse do? etc). I've always been more computer literate than the average, but I'm no digital jedi, by ANY stretch of the imagination.

I think he'll really need to wait until college/sixth form to take a course in graphic design to really get close to anything like he wants to do. In reality, best thing is to take whatever GCSEs interest him and focus on digital art as a hobby to put you in a better standing when it comes to starting such a course. :)
 
I'm neither a programmer or an animator but I've got quite a few mates in the computer games industry - some have degrees, some left part way through uni, some flunked uni and some never bothered to go in the first place. Now I recognise that's a bit of a way off for your son and his priorities may well change between now and then but the thing all the animators said was important was the portfolio of work that you could show (actually this applies quite a bit for programmers too) - this doesn't have to be work that you've done in academia but anything you've done that's good or shows your technique/skills and understanding is worth saving ready to show off.

I've got to admit I've never heard of Ebac - could it be the International Baccalaureat? If so then they're generally quite good courses and well respected as far as I know (would be the Middle Years Programme if it is). If it isn't then I'd be inclined to push for doing as many GCSEs as your son is capable of - if he wants to program then maths and physics are a very good starting point. I'd also suggest art, English and then depending on what the other choices are see what he wants to do.
 
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