I'm also glad that D&T wasn't compulsory. As my tech teacher in year 9 said: "There's always someone, usually Emma!"

We have to do English language, English literature or media studies (I do english lit), maths, double science or applied science (I do double science), lifeskills and four options (I do History, music, French and Spanish).

The year after me has to do compulsory ICT and so only has 3 options.

Me too! I hate DT... I already gave it up once in Year 8 and then I changed schools and had to do it again until I chose my GCSE options!

I didnt mind DT but i was rubbish at it! In my report once, the teacher put 'enthusiastic but lacks skill!'...ouch...

I'm choosing my GCSE subjects next April and I have no idea what to choose... but I'm definitely not doing DT! Or Geography I don't think... (for me) they are really boring, History's too sad (as in boo hoo) because there's always someone dying!!! I'm still not sure if I should do music GCSE because don't you get points anyway for playing an instrument at a higher level or something? It sounds okay though!

How many people here have schools that offer vocational GCSE's? (Out of curiousity) Or for that matter NVQ's?

At my school Enlish Lang, English Lit, Maths, Double Science a Modern Language and a DT were compulsary. You could then choose 2 GCSE subjects, or 1 Vocational GCSE (as they are worth 2 GCSE's) like Childcare, or Engineering, or 1 NVQ like haridressing and 1 normal GCSE.

As I wanted to do Geography and History, I never did any of the vocational options (it also meant I couldn't do Music, Ceramics, Spanish or Media Studies, which I wanted to!)

My school offers vocational GCSE's- Health and Social Care, Leisure and Tourism and applied Buissness. Also some people go to Loughborough college on a "bridge course".

History isn't always sad!
I did a great course for GCSE - The American West and Medicine Through Time, very interesting and not really sad at all!

My school does childcare and Health and Social Care. Some people in the year below me might be going to college to do hairdressing.

My old school (I left 8 years ago, and they didn't do them then!) now does vocational GCSEs, well at least one - Health and Social Care - and probably others that I don't know about (I know of that one because a friend's daughter does it)

I think the only vocational subject offered at my school is Applied ICT, worth 2 GCSEs.

What are GNVQ's, by the way? I've heard that they're worth 4 GCSEs or something...?

I'm confused about GNVQs as well... would anyone care to clarify, or are we all as clueless as each other?

When I defined GNVQs on Google I got:
General National Vocational Qualifications are an extension of NVQs within the NVQ Framework. They are equivalent to four GCSEs (level 2 GNVQs), two A-Levels (level 3 GNVQs), and higher education degrees (level 4 GNVQs).

GNVQ ICT is the new 'trick' to getting students 5 A*-C GCSEs. I'm led to believe it's as least as easy as GCSE ICT, so if students get that and one GCSE, as far as the league tables they've got 5 GCSEs .

Are GNVQs weighted the same as GCSEs? I've heard that in some places they don't accept GNVQs...

They don't. Well when I said I was doing GNVQ ICT and I applied to my 6th form, they specified that it would only count as 1 grade towards the requirements, so GNVQ plus 4 other A*-C grades. But they are officially worth 4 GCSE's. They are marked as either fail, pass, merit or distinction. A pass being worth 4 C's, merit worth 4 B's and distinction worth 4 A's.

Officially, yes; in practice, it depends on the institution. In the same way that officially, ABRSM grades are worth UCAS points, but in my experience with my university offers, the ones based on points were 'so-many-points from 3 or 4 A-levels excluding general studies'.

The only vocational-type subject that we can do at our school is GCSE Applied Business, worth 2 GCSEs. But my school aren't running it for my year group going into year 10 because there wasn't enough demand for the course to make it worthwhile for the school to teach it.

My school were going to run double business studies, but there were only about 10 people who wanted to do it, so they changed it to a single award, which meant I could take GCSE music.

Load sof people at our school are taking applied bussiness. They were offering applied maths!!

I'm going into yr 10 next Tuesday ( ) and I'm taking:

English Lang and Lit
Maths
Science (dual award)
French
Food Tech
RE
Geography
Spanish (at the school down the road)
Archaeology

That's 11!!

Good luck! I've never heard of GCSE Archeology, none of the schools nearby offer it. It sounds interesting though.

[post deleted]
Please ignore me, I can't count to 11!

I can only do three subjects unless my school suddenly says you can do more. I'm doing:

- Music
- Graphics (drawing)
- Geography

My school is a Business & Enterprise one so I have to do ICT, which I don't mind because I would have picked that one anyway, but at least that's one more subject I can do.

Car Expert

In the good old days before the current AS/A2 system, my sixth form made everyone (other than the further maths students) do an extra GCSE in the sixth form from a list of non-typical subjects. Amongst them was Archæology, and it was actually quite popular - the class size was around 20 each year.

There's about 20 in my class... but we do it once a month after school for 2 hours, so it's not really that stressful, except it's really hard so it is actually quite stressful...

I used to want to be an archaeologist when i was little!

So did I (but not anymore). It's probably what comes from having two history teachers as parents!!!

i've just had results for mine, which were eng lit, eng lang, maths, statistics, biology, chemistry, physics, music, drama, german and IT. and in a week i will be starting AS's in music, eng lit, maths and human biology

I will be taking A2 music, french, psychology, AS general studies, and I seem to have been enrolled on key skills (again) which I will be taking up with my faculty director. Hmmm.

art music geography ict(double)

At our school we have to do General Studies and Key Skills.
I am doing for AS - English Literature, History, Sociology and Music.

*tags along by adding A-level choices*

Maths
Further Maths
Additional Further Maths
Physics
Electronics

And unless I can get out of this (which I will do my very best to) - General Studies

me too!!! that seems to be a challenging but really interesting job.............but does it really work in reality?? its like....you won't earn anything until you discover something right?

Wrong. You are paid to excavate a site. It's like saying that teachers don't get paid until people prove they learned smmething


Well our guide leader manages it perfectly fine.

All I can say is you must be good at Maths!

Or insane

Both most probably. It's actually just a double Maths course, but the top people ending up taking 15 or 18 modules in the end, which is equivalent to 2.5 or 3 A-levels.

With some teachers maybe that would be a good thing, give them an incentive to learn how to teach properly... my GCSE French teacher would be first on that list!

I agree... put my year 9 German teacher on the list!



Wow, you must be a maths genius

*grins*

My sister is doing Archaeology at Uni, and that can lead to all sorts of things, even forensic science and pathology. She's simply doing it becasue she enjoys it, and has no idea where she'll end up, but its as useful as any generic degree.

And lots of digging is done on a volunteer basis, I've even done a bit myself on rescue sites where everyone available is needed to get as much out of the ground as possible before everything is destroyed.

That sounds really interesting tamsin! What sort of thing is that?

Well, basically you get handed a trowel, given a spot and told "Yell if you see anything" (they don't want stuff to be destroyed by people who don't have a clue what they're doing: like me)

I've also done a bit of floatation (sifting out bits in water. from dug out mud to check for very small pieces of worked stone and similar)

Me, to be honest, I found it all too much like hard work! I'm a very lazy person.