GCSE Options

Really interested to hear thoughts and opinions on choosing your GCSE options. Today the portal opens for my son to make his choices and whilst Computer Science, PE and Food Prep and Nutrition are confirmed in his mind he is struggling to chose between French and Geography. We've got a fair understanding of what each will involve. He is very sporty and wants a career in sport and enjoys both subjects so we are at a crossroads.

Decisions, decisions!!

What do you think??

Reply 1

Glemon

16

Hi! For context, I took the core subjects (in my school this included RE) as well as German, history, Media studies, and Art textiles. Both French and Geography seem like great options. This advice is based on having to choose my GCSEs and A levels and the experience of my friends who chose these subjects. Some things to consider-

1.

Which subject is he stronger in?
French can be difficult and if he really struggles he could risk being put on foundation level. Geography is well known for being less skills-based and more about content knowledge. In terms of skills, I was really struggling at the beginning of my German GCSE but ended up getting a 7 which I was happy with.

2.

What does he enjoy more?
I know you said he enjoys both but which one does he more consistently enjoy- e.g enjoy even when he's struggling?

3.

Which subject will give him a more varied study program?
It looks like he has quite a few mathsy subjects already, so maybe geography will make his subjects overwhelmingly maths-based?... He may like this I don't know.

I hope this helps!

OP

Thanks so much @Glemon this is really useful especially point 3, I hadn't even considered that aspect. French definitely was the favourite until the teacher left!! So we are balancing that out too.

Reply 3

Sillystrawberry7

8

Original post by ClaireBear81

Really interested to hear thoughts and opinions on choosing your GCSE options. Today the portal opens for my son to make his choices and whilst Computer Science, PE and Food Prep and Nutrition are confirmed in his mind he is struggling to chose between French and Geography. We've got a fair understanding of what each will involve. He is very sporty and wants a career in sport and enjoys both subjects so we are at a crossroads.

Decisions, decisions!!

What do you think??

as a student, I perform much higher in geography as the grade boundaries are really high for French. unless you are fluent, it's basically impossible to get a 9 and very hard to get an 8. Obviously, it's also about preference. Perhaps you could take a look at the past papers for each subject to see what types of questions come up for each?

Reply 4

squemily16

8

Original post by ClaireBear81

Really interested to hear thoughts and opinions on choosing your GCSE options. Today the portal opens for my son to make his choices and whilst Computer Science, PE and Food Prep and Nutrition are confirmed in his mind he is struggling to chose between French and Geography. We've got a fair understanding of what each will involve. He is very sporty and wants a career in sport and enjoys both subjects so we are at a crossroads.

Decisions, decisions!!

What do you think??

Hi there, I’m a Y13 and took French, Geography and Statistics with the core subjects. I got a 7 in French and a 9 in Geography.
I enjoyed French and desperately wanted to be better at it, but struggled a lot with revising listening and reading, which i think is where my downfall was. Writing was ok for me, as was speaking after I did pretty intense prep for it.
Geography I found easier, especially as there was a lot more content recall which was easier to revise than skills. Geography also has “right” answers, which I preferred over history which is a lot more interpretation-based.
That’s my experience of both of them, the only thing I regret is not having worked harder in revising French (and to have got the 3 marks to get to the next grade), but I’ve got to where I want to be with A Levels, so I’m ok with it. Let me know if you/your son have anymore questions!

OP

Original post by Sillystrawberry7

Original post by ClaireBear81

Really interested to hear thoughts and opinions on choosing your GCSE options. Today the portal opens for my son to make his choices and whilst Computer Science, PE and Food Prep and Nutrition are confirmed in his mind he is struggling to chose between French and Geography. We've got a fair understanding of what each will involve. He is very sporty and wants a career in sport and enjoys both subjects so we are at a crossroads.

Decisions, decisions!!

What do you think??

as a student, I perform much higher in geography as the grade boundaries are really high for French. unless you are fluent, it's basically impossible to get a 9 and very hard to get an 8. Obviously, it's also about preference. Perhaps you could take a look at the past papers for each subject to see what types of questions come up for each?

Thank you so much, really grateful for your insights and it’s a great idea to look at some past papers.

OP

Original post by squemily16

Original post by ClaireBear81

Really interested to hear thoughts and opinions on choosing your GCSE options. Today the portal opens for my son to make his choices and whilst Computer Science, PE and Food Prep and Nutrition are confirmed in his mind he is struggling to chose between French and Geography. We've got a fair understanding of what each will involve. He is very sporty and wants a career in sport and enjoys both subjects so we are at a crossroads.

Decisions, decisions!!

What do you think??

Hi there, I’m a Y13 and took French, Geography and Statistics with the core subjects. I got a 7 in French and a 9 in Geography.
I enjoyed French and desperately wanted to be better at it, but struggled a lot with revising listening and reading, which i think is where my downfall was. Writing was ok for me, as was speaking after I did pretty intense prep for it.
Geography I found easier, especially as there was a lot more content recall which was easier to revise than skills. Geography also has “right” answers, which I preferred over history which is a lot more interpretation-based.
That’s my experience of both of them, the only thing I regret is not having worked harder in revising French (and to have got the 3 marks to get to the next grade), but I’ve got to where I want to be with A Levels, so I’m ok with it. Let me know if you/your son have anymore questions!

Thanks so much and well done on your fantastic results. This is so helpful and useful to understand your experiences.

Reply 7

agent_duck343

16

Original post by ClaireBear81

Really interested to hear thoughts and opinions on choosing your GCSE options. Today the portal opens for my son to make his choices and whilst Computer Science, PE and Food Prep and Nutrition are confirmed in his mind he is struggling to chose between French and Geography. We've got a fair understanding of what each will involve. He is very sporty and wants a career in sport and enjoys both subjects so we are at a crossroads.

Decisions, decisions!!

What do you think??

Hi
I am currently in year 11 and am taking all the core subjects (including RS) with spanish, geography, food and computing.

I don’t do french so I can’t speak specifically about that but I’d say languages in general can be quite difficult so unless your son is quite good at picking up the language he may struggle. A good thing is that the tests are quite good time wise and as long as you include various features it is fairly simple
I really enjoy geography and there isn’t much to it except learning facts and statistics and there are a LOT of case studies (I do AQA) so this gcse is mostly about memorising stuff. Also I’m not sure about other exams boards but the grade boundaries are fairly low so it is easier to get a good grade. Although the exams are really tight for time as there are longer answer questions but the whole thing is basically one mark a minute.

I’d advise thinking about what he is better at - learning and adapting or just memorising as this will hopefully help

Hope this helps

Reply 8

slitheringfoxes

9

hi im in year 11right now and i do triple science, art and i do both french and geography and personally for me i do higher french but its quite hard especially if your first language is english and thats your own language but french is a challenging subject to pick but its quite rewarding in some ways. however the exams are hard like i found the speaking exam pretty hard to do
i do geography as well and i like geography a lot but there is a lot of content in like the case studies but if you revise and go over the case stuides and concepts often then its fairly easy but theres a lot of writing to do in a short amount of time. altough geography does have some maths its is pretty basic maths and in the exams you get a calculator too depending on the exam board though.
in general i found geography far far easier than french though but i think maybe if you both look at the gcse content for the subjects and past papers you both might be able to figure out which one to pick after. hope that your son can figure out which one he wants to pick soon

Reply 9

whoskaavya

8

hi, im currently also picking my options. just for context, my core subjects are maths, english lit, english lang, physics, bio, chem and a modern language (im picking spanish) as well as 3 options (mine are computing, latin, and most likely history). my back up is probably music or french
of course i have no experience but im considering the following things:

•

which i am better at (which do i get the better marks/which comes easier)

•

which has a higher percentage of 7-9s (obviously this is NOT foolproof but gives an idea of what the teachers are like and how hard the subject is)

•

which gives me options in the future (im fairly sure in what i want to do for a levels, but just in case i change my mind, which ones have widely applicable skills - e.g. art is very specific, history is more applicable since its an essay subject)

•

what is involved the exam (e.g. i am not taking french because it has a speaking part and my french pronunciation is awful)

•

who are the teachers (again NOT foolproof, but for example in my school i've had both Spanish teachers and find that their teaching style works for me and helps me learn - if you dont know which teachers teach gsces dont bother with this)

•

also i would recommend talkong to the teachers - i've talked to all the teachers for my gsce options, just to get a sense of whether they think i would be good at it, whether i would struggle, and what i need to work on if i were to take it
i hope this helps :smile: