Year 9 GCSE Options - Any teachers around?

BDEE

BDEE

BDEE

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Could use some advice from any teachers (especially options leads), or anyone who has a similar experience of this.

My daughter is wanting to choose French, History, Drama and Music for her Yr9 GCSE Options. Post-16 she is wanting to study film / music / TV production and has also identified a number of degree courses in the same field which she is interested in.

Her school are preventing her from choosing these options, as there is no combination which allows the choice of both music and drama.

She is being told she can do French, History, Music and then a choice of Art / Single Sciences and then a number of other things totally irrelevant to her interests.

I am trying to state my case to the school, as doing one of these other subjects is totally pointless for her. From what I can tell, doing her choices still qualifies her for EBacc, which I know the school will want due to government targets and thus I am perplexed as to why her combination of choice is not available.

It can't be because of it being a vocational course, as the option set she has to choose from includes Art, plus other vocational courses (Engineering, Hospitality and Catering).


I am composing a response to the school, so if there is anyone who can help shed some light on why this gap exists, be it that you are a teacher or have had a child in a similar circumstance, then any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
 
The school will have to create option blocks for potentially up to 300 students. It won’t work for everyone.

I run options (and timetabling) at my school and we always aim to give every student 3 out of the their 4 first choice subjects. Some (often around 70%) are fortunate enough to get all 4 depending on their choices.

There are many things schools have to factor in, such as how many students want to do a subject, how many classes they can run, how many rooms they have available at any one time (particularly specialist rooms such as drama/music), whether staff are full time or part time. All of these factors have a significant impact on the schools flexibility.

However, schools also have to factor in the wants and wishes of the student (and parents) and I’m sure they will do their best to make it work. However, please remember there are likely hundreds of others with different combinations and they have to go with an approach which meets the needs of the majority, whilst being workable with the resources they have at their disposal. It’s quite simply impossible to make it perfect for everyone.
 
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I don't think there is much you can do I'm afraid.

Certainly for me, there was something called "boxes". Each box was a ring-fence around a group of subjects and you had to pick 1 subject from each box. E.g. one box was languages so you could have picked either French, Spanish or German. Humanities (history, geography and RE) had its own box. Arts topics were in a box too, so again picking 1 from there too. The silver bullet however was that there was 1 final box that also covered languages, humanities and arts, meaning that it was possible to pick a subject from there too. So as long as the timetabling permutations allowed it, it was possible to study either a 2nd language, a 2nd humanity or a 2nd art but the permutations weren't exhaustive.

Also, this was for a school of 1000 students, so would have been for a relatively large year group of approx. 300 4th + 5th years. The choices will be more restrictive if your 4th/5th year group is smaller than 300.

College could be an option for your daughter to do extra GCSE studies during 4th/5th years or during 6th form.
 
I sympathize with your position. But also understand the complexities of timetabling GCSE options.

I would suggest talking to a couple of universities that run the sort of course she is targeting.

Ask them what options they would like to see. The A levels they expect will be on their admissions pages.

Also consider extra curricular. Learn an instrument, nothing stopping her taking grade 5 theory outside school. Take drama in school.

Hope there are some good ideas there ...
 
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BDEE said:
Post-16 she is wanting to study film / music / TV production and has also identified a number of degree courses in the same field which she is interested in.

Her school are preventing her from choosing these options, as there is no combination which allows the choice of both music and drama.
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Unless she has a plan on being a youtube influencer or has very good connections in the media, such qualifications are worthless in the jobs market mate
 
I second that, good luck to her if you wants to go down that route, she will literally have to sell her soul or be a prodigy to have any success at that career choice.
 
Hodders said:
Also consider extra curricular. Learn an instrument, nothing stopping her taking grade 5 theory outside school. Take drama in school.
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100% this. Music is a subject which is very well catered for outside of school (and if my GCSE music is anything to go by, significantly better taught as well!)
 
I've got two mates that studied film related degrees and they now work for the Police. Ones a policeman and the other does DBS vetting.
I would steer her away from these subject choices.
 
Lots of good advice in here. If you are really serious about supporting her, look to send her to the best possible school or location that will enable this. Not "generic school 1s" list of options.
 
She'd have more options for her future if she did some more useful subjects. French is great, history maybe, music and drama are very specialist. This is all in my opinion, of course.
 
Depending on what area you want to go into you don't necessarily need a degree as you can do apprenticeships or start out as a runner/dogs body and work your way from there. A lot of the skills can be self taught or studied on short courses. Once you're working too you'll find what you want to actually do can change. I wanted to be an Editor when I started but then realised how many other roles there are that aren't taught at GCSE or A Level and I ended up moving into engineering and architecting for distribution (cinema, TV, streaming).

There's some good career maps here - https://www.screenskills.com/starting-your-career/career-maps/

Firms like Sky, BBC, ITV and Channel 4 also run good apprenticeship schemes.

UK Screen Alliance is also a good site to check out - https://www.ukscreenalliance.co.uk/

Regarding the GCSEs I'd pick Drama and do Music as an extra curricular.
 
Option blocks and limitations have always been a thing. They were when I did my GCSEs. The schools can only realistically provide so much in a time table that works for all students and teachers. You'll get it anywhere to an extent.

I would just encourage your kids to bias the option choices towards the subjects they prefer. Yes, Sports Studies is not going to help you become a lawyer, but if it's takes the edge off for some kids and makes them a bit happier throughout the school week, they may well end up achieving more overall. I think they should be able to drop languages entirely as I see it as a complete waste of brain power and memory commitment just on the basis that 99.9% of people that take a language in England, never go on to use it or develop it into a level that is useful. There's only so many times asking where the toilet is in French, is going to be needed.

A classic one is Geography vs History. These tend to be a choice where you end up having to take one or the other. I think a lot of it comes down to the teacher. If you had a very good/enthusiastic/nice teacher in either one over years 7-9, it can shape your experience of it. Unfortunately I mostly had **** teachers in both. Took Geography because I found History boring, only to find that actually Human Geography is boring AF as well. Physical stuff (Earthquakes, Rivers, Volcanos) were more interesting.
 
BDEE said:
Her school are preventing her from choosing these options, as there is no combination which allows the choice of both music and drama.
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I'd assume the obvious thing here is to drop music and carry on with whatever instrument she's playing etc.. surely the grades in a given instrument help demonstrate a similar capability.

Would the school let her sit the Music GCSE even if she doesn't formally take the classes, like get some tuition outside of school for that subject and still sit the examination (s)?

(I had a teacher who really wanted me to pursue a GCSE subject I was dropping to the point where he offered to tutor me during lunch breaks... dumb teenage me was like "extra work during lunchtime, lol nope".)

Last resort if the school doesn't even entertain that; you could probably enter her into the exam externally at say a local college after some private tuition.

I guess the issue here though is timetabling... whether that's because they're genuinely unable to cater for more options than they currently offer or because they've got some teacher organising timetabling who is out of their depth is another matter... there should be software available to optimise this stuff these days but it wouldn't surprise me if in some schools it's still run by someone not really competent enough and so they perhaps limit options available for more than they need to simply because they can't cope with the task otherwise.
 
Nothing you can do, even in another school. The blocks are the blocks. There are only so many teachers and rooms. Surprised music and drama can’t be chosen together though, I’d understand more for several languages for example. Ultimately it’ll matter little. Choose drama and study music outside of school.
 
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I remember being forced to do an Art subject. I hated Art and mucked around in the lessons for two years and got a U :D. Should have let me do PE, Geography and History.
 
Update : After persuasive and well-reasoned plea, they have now agreed to allow this option combo and opened it up for all students.

I won't respond to some of the (probably well-intended) career advice other than to say thanks, but it's not just "off the cuff" choices without a clear pathway planned.
 
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