ok so for me, for the first half of year 10 i worked with my entire class doing a group project on identity as a whole but without an end piece taking pictures in class, then at the end of year 10 with mocks you have your first experience of working by yourself, where you pick a different theme. then basically for year 11 i think you just spend your time on your y11 mocks, filling your portfolio and actual gcse work.
now for the work:
most of the gcse consists of researching artists and reviewing your work - that's basically what gets you the grades so you have to be prepared to do quite a lot of work outside the classroom just writing up your practical stuff and researching
for the images, most of the time you take them outside of school because you kind of have control over your own project, but you could also use the resources of your school (e.g my school has a studio, dark room, film cameras etc)
for me, i edit most of my images in school as i don't have photoshop at home, but you don't always have to work digitally
exams:
so the exam is spanned over two days, where you have five hours each day to complete your final piece, and write up what you did. all the photoshoots, experiments, developments, development of compositions and research lead up to this.
i think 30%/40% of your final grade is based on coursework and your yr11 mock grade so ig that's cool
i would say, if you enjoy photography take it but understand that it's not all about just taking pictures, the bulk of it is written work. honestly because of how chill my teacher is and the fact i like photography makes it less of a subject for me and more just a hobby that i have to do work for.
i know people in my class who get 9s in every bit of their coursework but i don't really try as hard and i put things off until the last minute and i still get 7s in my work so if you basically understand what you're doing it will be fine.
i hope this helped? if you have any more questions i'll answer them
