The Student Room Group

Which GCSE should be mandatory?

Personally I think:

English Language
English Literature
Mathematics
Biology
Chemistry
Physics
Language subject
Physical education

And 2-4 additional.

Latin maybe?

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English and Maths


I would do another one covering citizenship, adulthood, mental health, personal finance, cooking and careers guidance.
Original post by Harriso1
Personally I think:

English Language
English Literature
Mathematics
Biology
Chemistry
Physics
Language subject
Physical education

And 2-4 additional.

Latin maybe?


Those are all well and good but you'll start to struggle to timetable all of those into a teaching week without seriously extending the school day. Schools design option 'columns' to fit timetabling meaning students can only pick certain subjects to avoid clashes with others. Typically, if you take triple science (Physics, Chemistry and Biology) then you lose 2-3 options depending on the school meaning you can only pick 1 other option. This is in contrast to someone who takes combined science and can then take 3-4 other subjects.

As a teacher, my choices would be:
English (Language & Literature)
Maths
Science (Combined or Entry Level minimum)
MFL

I can all but guarantee that an MFL subject will be compulsory when the national curriculum is reviewed again in the future as MFL was introduced as compulsory in primary education not too long ago. I disagree with PE being a compulsory GCSE, although I would agree to combine PE theory into Biology - this is how it is structured in most other countries and it works rather well.

RE/RS has and most likely will always be a compulsory subject but it isn't a compulsory GCSE contrary to popular belief.

PSHE being compulsory too, there should be some formal recognition for it.
Original post by 999tigger
English and Maths


I would do another one covering citizenship, adulthood, mental health, personal finance, cooking and careers guidance.


Mental health GCSE. You cannot be serious
I don't think people should be made to take a language. They will have good opportunity to pick up a language, probably to a more worthwhile proficiency (unless you fancy wandering around France telling people what is in your pencil case) later in life. I thought PE was required of schools, but it doesn't really have to be examined by a GCSE since this also examines theory and skills, whereas it should only really be for fitness purposes.

Latin is as dead a tongue as you get and there is really no reason for it to be taught as a compulsory GCSE.
Reply 5
English language, Maths (foundation), sign language, PE, PSHE, one of the sciences depending on interest and a humanity.
latin's a bit pointless imo
Reply 7
Original post by Purmerend
Those are all well and good but you'll start to struggle to timetable all of those into a teaching week without seriously extending the school day. Schools design option 'columns' to fit timetabling meaning students can only pick certain subjects to avoid clashes with others. Typically, if you take triple science (Physics, Chemistry and Biology) then you lose 2-3 options depending on the school meaning you can only pick 1 other option. This is in contrast to someone who takes combined science and can then take 3-4 other subjects.

As a teacher, my choices would be:
English (Language & Literature)
Maths
Science (Combined or Entry Level minimum)
MFL

I can all but guarantee that an MFL subject will be compulsory when the national curriculum is reviewed again in the future as MFL was introduced as compulsory in primary education not too long ago. I disagree with PE being a compulsory GCSE, although I would agree to combine PE theory into Biology - this is how it is structured in most other countries and it works rather well.

RE/RS has and most likely will always be a compulsory subject but it isn't a compulsory GCSE contrary to popular belief.

PSHE being compulsory too, there should be some formal recognition for it.


I would extend the day by 1/2 hours. I agree with incorporating the theory of physical education into biology. All the schools should have the same 'column' system so certain pupils aren't at a disadvantage.
Reply 8
Sex education
latin and pe? come on now...
I’d argue English (Lit/Lang), Maths, Science, ICT (I think in modern society it’s pretty essential to know technology at least to a basic level) and then either a Citizenship / Politics GCSE.

Outside of that, students can pick whatever subjects they wanna. Also, encorporate much better sex education, and some kind of life skills. Although I know that 2 years ago I’d have been annoyed if I had to take a class on cooking when I could be revising for exams, so 🤷🏻*♀️
Original post by Beth286
English language, Maths (foundation), sign language, PE, PSHE, one of the sciences depending on interest and a humanity.


Don't see how this would be practical with how few users of sign language there are.
Original post by Londonsfinest
Mental health GCSE. You cannot be serious


Not just on that but mental health is an important issue that affects many students even going into adulthood.

I think anxiety, self esteem and depression are very serious issues that young people have difficulty coping with.

Do you have anything constructive to say?
Original post by The RAR
Sex education


Already compulsory as part of PSHE - just that there's no formal qualification at the end of it.
Original post by 999tigger
Not just on that but mental health is an important issue that affects many students even going into adulthood.

I think anxiety, self esteem and depression are very serious issues that young people have difficulty coping with.

Do you have anything constructive to say?


Again, mental health is, or should be, covered in PSHE. I don't see the benefit of having a separate mental health GCSE. I would argue for there to be an end qualification for PSHE though.
Original post by Purmerend
Again, mental health is, or should be, covered in PSHE. I don't see the benefit of having a separate mental health GCSE. I would argue for there to be an end qualification for PSHE though.


Again if you bother to read I never advocated a separate GCSE for such.
Original post by 999tigger
Again if you bother to read I never advocated a separate GCSE for such.


If you read my post, I never said you did.
Original post by 999tigger
English and Maths


I would do another one covering citizenship, adulthood, mental health, personal finance, cooking and careers guidance.


Original post by 999tigger
Not just on that but mental health is an important issue that affects many students even going into adulthood.

I think anxiety, self esteem and depression are very serious issues that young people have difficulty coping with.

Do you have anything constructive to say?


Whilst I agree that mental health is an important issue, I think a GCSE in mental health is a bit far. All of the issues you've mentioned is what PSHE is for, I don't think you need qualifications in mental health, adulthood, citizenship, personal finance, cooking and careers. School is the place where academic subjects should be taught, it's not the place where these sort of issues should be formerly taught. Schools don't teach everybody personal finance, adulthood and cooking yet most people seem to pick it up.
Original post by Jpw1097
Whilst I agree that mental health is an important issue, I think a GCSE in mental health is a bit far. All of the issues you've mentioned is what PSHE is for, I don't think you need qualifications in mental health, adulthood, citizenship, personal finance, cooking and careers. School is the place where academic subjects should be taught, it's not the place where these sort of issues should be formerly taught. Schools don't teach everybody personal finance, adulthood and cooking yet most people seem to pick it up.


Ok and thats why students are so deficient in these key life skills.

I never said it should be a whole GCSE. I dont know why you persist with this. Clearly PSHE is inadequate.
I don't see why the responsibility should be on schools to teach students every life skill. There should be some responsibility to give a brief overview. Responsibilities should be placed onto medical professionals and the NHS to come into schools and deliver talks on mental health separately.

Teachers are ill-equipped and not properly qualified to teach students about mental health. Notwithstanding the constrained curriculum time to teach this stuff in depth at the sacrifice of academic subjects, which must and should continue to have priority. If you reduce time for academic subjects to do more PSHE, people will complain and students subject knowledge will suffer. This will have a negative impact on further and higher education.

As a teacher, I don't have time to go reading around PSHE when I have a full timetable for my own subject, with planning, assessing and reports to write on top of that. I use my own life experiences and that of others to inform my PSHE planning. The current feeling in education and the DfE is that the PSHE currently delivered by schools is adequate. Some life experiences need to be learnt from experience.

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