Secondary Considerations

[Princess Morripov]

I had 10.

[Flora Poste]

14! We did 9 - Eng Lit/ Lang, Maths, French, Double Science and 3 options.

[ParisGal]

I'm really surprised at RE being a core subject.

For GCSE we had Maths, English & English Lit., French, either Physics + Chemistry + Biology or Double Science. Everyone had to do PE, but there was no qualification attached. So 6 or 7 to start with.

Then either History or Geography, and another two free choices - I chose German and Music, bringing me to 10. There was also RE, Latin, Art, possibly Home Economics, and I think that was it? There were only about 70 pupils per year.

[Kenickie]

I went to a Catholic school, PG.

I did 9. We only got to choose between single and double science, and if you did single you only did 8.

We could choose history or geography, food tech or IT, Spanish or French and that was it. I chose history, IT and Spanish.

You could do music as an extra in the early mornings but I went for one week and then thought 'fuck that'.

[Kleio]

They put my class in for loads of extras like a GCSE statistics paper. I’m not sure why but we all managed.

My niece had to do her options recently and it seemed so complicated. She didn’t have an awful lot of choice as she was given a pathway and could only chooser based on what the school had determined she was good at. I’m dreading helping Cube with his next year.

[Texaco Shirley]

L’s wasn’t too complicated. Re, English, maths and double science are core. Then they choose 3 others plus a backup which must include at least 1 humanity.

[Luce]

I think RE is only a compulsory GCSE in catholic schools.

14 GCSEs! Blimey. I got 9. English Lit, English Lang, Double science (had biology, chemistry and physics exams but it only counted as a double award) and Maths were compulsory, we then had to pick at least one language (French, Spanish or German) and one technology and the rest was made up of choosing from humanities so two from RE/Geography/History/Art. Phew! I've no idea where Felix will land when he has to do this next year.

[Pippedydeadeye]

All the stuff Squeak currently wants to do at A level isn’t available at GCSE, so in a lot of ways it’s not that important to her, while obv she wants/needs to do well. She’s interested in law, politics, psychology and RUGBY.

[wendy james]

I love the idea of a rugby GCSE or A level.

Our only compulsory subjects (at a CofE school) were Maths, English Lit, English Lang and Dual Science. It was a free-for-all on the remaining 4 options. I can't remember my initial 4, only that I was the only person in the 300-strong year who wanted to do Music and PE, which couldn't be timetabled, so I ended up with French, German, Economics and Music. I'm fairly sure I'd have got better than a D if I'd gone for PE.

[Pippedydeadeye]

Two local colleges do actually offer a rugby programme alongside A-levels, we’re really lucky to live near Loughborough.

[wendy james]

That sounds amazing; is it something she has her eye on? I joined college on Uniformed Services Preparation Course, which was a programme run alongside A-levels. Never finished it mind, but that wasn't the course's fault.

[Pippedydeadeye]

She’s really keen to try to go pro and the colleges are the development pathway for Loughborough Lightning & Northampton Saints.

[Edith Bacon]

I think RE is only a compulsory GCSE in catholic schools.

A’s school isn’t Catholic - in non-covid times they would all sit the RE GCSE in Y10, to get it out of the way. I think, rightly or wrongly, they see it an an easy win, a bonus one to give them confidence for the other GCSEs.

Anyway, whatever their reasoning, that hasn’t happened over the last two years and now they have a bunch of kids doing an exam in a subject they have no interest in, potentially detracting from their other subjects.

[Kenickie]

I think there is a specialist Catholic one though - we did very little on any other religions.

[ParisGal]

My secondary had RE as a core subject pre GCSE, the first year was pretty much Bible stories, but in the following years we covered Judaism and Hinudism which was good. I don't know what the GCSE syllabus was though.

[Texaco Shirley]

I’m not sure if this is the right thread but I wanted to share as it made me laugh.

We’ve been playing Taskmaster and one of the tasks was to write an acrostic poem about plumbing using the letters of stopcock. L and his internet weirdo friend were a team and came up with this:

Send out the plumber
The u-bend is blocked
Open the water tank
Pour in the chemicals
Chemicals flood the tank
Oh no, the tank is overflowing
Christ I’ve lost my job
Kan’t even spell

[Lily]

I am impressed!

[Edith Bacon]

[Pippedydeadeye]

That’s excellent.

[Marth]

Very clever