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Does any school only offer to give you only 3 GCSE choices?

Just wanted to know as surely it gives an unfair advantage to that schools grades if it was compared to other schools. Is it even allowed?

edit: I don't mean to discredit the schools/students which only offer/had 3 GCSE choices.
(edited 1 year ago)
All schools are different. My kids had six or seven choices at some level (only maths and English were set in stone) and I'd be unsurprised if some special schools give no choices at all.

Not sure why you think a very small number of choices would be an advantage for the school? If you're thinking that they'd only let people do a minimal number of GCSEs so they'd have more time for each one, people would abandon it in droves the moment they started realising what a massive disadvantage they were at when it came to applying to sixth form and again to university.
Reply 2
surely you'll still end up with the same number of GCSEs? I had fewer choices than other people I know but I also had one more subject than them that I didn't get to choose... we all end up with the same number of GCSEs (minus triple science and further maths of couse)
Reply 3
Original post by skylark2
All schools are different. My kids had six or seven choices at some level (only maths and English were set in stone) and I'd be unsurprised if some special schools give no choices at all.

Not sure why you think a very small number of choices would be an advantage for the school? If you're thinking that they'd only let people do a minimal number of GCSEs so they'd have more time for each one, people would abandon it in droves the moment they started realising what a massive disadvantage they were at when it came to applying to sixth form and again to university.

I just thought that with 3 GCSEs students would be able to focus more on subjects rather than divide their attention between more subjects so their grades would be higher as the schools results would still be better and the students could have still have at least 9 subjects which should be enough for university.
Reply 4
Original post by gingur
surely you'll still end up with the same number of GCSEs? I had fewer choices than other people I know but I also had one more subject than them that I didn't get to choose... we all end up with the same number of GCSEs (minus triple science and further maths of couse)

I guess it would just depend on the school and if they offer that extra compulsory subject. I know of a school where people would finish with 9 GCSEs (English lit + Lang, Maths, triple science and 3 options with Citizenship offered if you weren't doing triple science) but most other schools I know have 4 choices and finish with 10 GCSEs.
my school gives us 3 choices but we still do 7 compulsory ones
Reply 6
Original post by kfcloud
my school gives us 3 choices but we still do 7 compulsory ones

most people only do 10 GCSEs. I did 11 because my school made me do further maths, etc. I'm sure private schools let people do extra as well. However universities (with a few exceptions) either don't care about GCSEs other than maths and english or have systems in place to make sure people who did more don't have an advantage (e.g. Nottingham Medical School only take into account your top 8 GCSE grades)
Original post by ax4
Just wanted to know as surely it gives an unfair advantage to that schools grades if it did compared to other schools. Is it even allowed?


my school only lets us choose 3 options at GCSE but at least it means I can give them more attention and focus on less topics?
Reply 8
Original post by KatieMcF
my school only lets us choose 3 options at GCSE but at least it means I can give them more attention and focus on less topics?

Yeah that's what I thought but I didn't mean to discredit anyone's achievements which I think my original message kind of sounded like unfortunately. But since this clearly is an option for schools I would've thought more schools would have it too.
I'm a bit confused - you seem to be starting from the assumption that all schools prescribe 6 GCSEs for their students and all students take 10 GCSEs. This simply isn't true.

There are already schools where everyone does 8 GCSEs, schools where everyone does 9, schools where everyone does 10, schools where everyone does 11, schools where different people do different numbers (normally by, for instance, higher sets doing Eng Lang and Eng Lit and lower sets only doing Eng Lit, higher sets doing triple science, lower sets doing double or single)... it's simply not a big deal (provided you get to do 8 - fewer than that and you start closing doors for yourself).

There's also a mathematical reason why your suggestion doesn't work. Some people are always going to get low grades in their GCSEs because they just don't have the level of ability needed to achieve passing grades. If a school only allows its high achievers to take a small number of GCSEs, they "lose" the statistical advantage that they'd get if those people get lots of top grades to counterbalance the low achievers' low grades. It's not as bad as it used to be because the rules have been tightened over the years - time was that schools would be entering their top students for 12, 13, 14, 15 GCSEs, they'd be taking maths and English every session from year 8 or 9 and so on, because all those passes "counted" in their stats and it was better for them if someone got 15 grade Bs than 9 grade As, and they quietly ignored that these kids were going to have to list vast numbers of maths resits in their UCAS form. Multiple attempts don't count for the school's stats now, nor do enormous numbers of subjects, and oh look suddenly nobody takes enormous numbers of GCSEs, or does early entries, any more. If schools thought that reducing the number of GCSEs people took would make their stats look better, they would do it.

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