33 replies to this topic

[89red]

my daughter is about to choose her options, but has no idea what area of the workplace she wants to go into.

any pitfalls to look out for?

any tips of the trade....as they say?


awaiting enlightenment with antissipashoon...........( as you can see all i left school with was my cycling certificate)

89red

[Mini Man Dan]

Choose the subjects she enjoys? Erm no real tips, so probably no help to you

[Mayfair85]

Basically whatever she is likes/is good at. Come A-level most places only look at your grades, not necessarily the subject; other than perhaps the more academic being rated higher. That said, presumably there is a standard block thats compulsory, and that should include everything she needs for most A-levels.

If she follows the standard girly trait of being good with words and writing essays, then History or Humanities can be good, or if she's better with numbers something like electronics or engineering might be good. Textiles seems to be pretty popular with girls in my school too.

I hope you follow me, my train of thought can be a little difficult to comprehend sometimes.

[tomsbluemini]

Choose the subjects she enjoys? Erm no real tips, so probably no help to you

What's she good at?

the main thing is to pick a subject because she wants to do it, not because the teachers are nice... 9 times out of 10, you end up with the teacher you hate the most!!!

languages are a good thing, at least one. I was lucky enough to do French and German, but one of those will be a real advantage especially if she follows them on to A level.

Tom

[Ethel]

I opted for getting drunk on homebrew at lunchtime and sleeping through most of the afternoon lessons in year 9

That's 3rd year in old money.

[89red]

shes defo doing , maths , english , triple science, 1/2 rs, 1/2pe, history which leaves two from her favorites of

P.E ......shes grade 2 and competes in national events in trampolining, strong swimmer, does dance classes ( by being high standard at trampoline and swimming how much of an advantage would this be to getting a high result?)

Art ..........enjoys drawing and teacher thinks she has talent


ICT....... is good at ict but hates the teacher


Frence......is good at french but does'nt enjoy it.


is already doing gcse music

[Angelic_Fruitcake]

She should probably do ICT if she can, I don't have it as I took art instead and they always quiz me about my IT skills at interviews as I've no formal qualification in it...

[Mini Man Dan]

With regards to P.E I found that if you participated in a sport outside of school it definately helped. But I also found out that there is quite a bit of theory work involved.

[Hannioli]

It's not hugely important what gcse's she picks to be entirely honest, so long as she performs reasonably well in English, Maths and Science that's all employers care about if you only come out with GCSE's. Once she has A levels, GCSE's will predominantly be ignored!!

From the rest, if she does sports outside of school then there's really no need for a GCSE in PE and if she wants to do say Sports Science at University, she doesn't even need PE.

As has been said before, ICT is really valued by all employers nowadays so it's always good to have

With the rest of it, I say do what she enjoys most!!

[Natalie]

Subjects she enjoys and that she's good at
I felt pressured into doing single award sciences by my mum & dad because "it would look better than drama" and I was rubbish at it

[Racer_Pete]

For mine I picked
Photography
& ICT
really enjoy the photography, But everyone has diffrent things they like.

[Jake Blues]

I'd go with PE and Art as easy subjects to balance the more demanding ones.
As was said earlier the biggies are Maths and English then Science. To be honest most employers don't trust GCSEs anyway so it's A levels that really count for a job after college.
I know it's looking ahead but the more varied a person's interests are the more interesting a CV will be and the more likely you are to get an interview.

[Mini Adam]

Hiya!

I've just made my choices (just moved into GCSE years) I definately advise she does ICT. I am not trying to boast or anything but I go to the best school in England (it gets best GCSE and A Level results) and no it's not a private school, but they strongly advise to do ICT becasue so many jobs need it now!.

Also, I do not enjoy french but was advised to do it becasue it's so helpfull to have a second language, as I say I do not want to boast but I do go to the best school and im pretty sure they would know what they are talking about when they advise subjects to take!

As for P.E, you mentioned she was good at several sports, this is a slight help but not really that much as P.E is mainly human biology, i.e learning about the muscles, heart etc. I was advised only to do this if I really was looking at wanting to be a P.E teacher and even then it's not needed. At my school you also had to be quite good to do it as they only alloed 30 people from the 100 to do it becasue it was an afterschool lesson as it was only introduced this year at our school. I opted not to do it as I was also doing biology. If she is doing biology she is beter of doing ICT and French instead of P.E

Hope this helps

Adam

Edited by Mini Adam, 13 March 2008 - 05:17 PM.

[tomsbluemini]

MUSIC!!!!! do music! it's so much fun!

Does she play any instruments or anything? which exam board do they use? I can give you a couple of tips if you like...

Tom

[tino]

I will go against everyone who say's take IT.

If its anything like what we did at my school, what you learn is next to useless in further life. Although it might just not apply to my field that im currently studying in, engineering.

I choose my subjects based on what teachers I liked, not if I was good at it, but thats mainly because If I did't like the teacher then I would't do the work.

P.E is a good choice although as you progress it becomes less about the physical side an more about acedemic, eg becoming more like Biology on the human body.

Art people see as a easy subject, it is but it demands alot of time to be put towards it. Or so I found from my friends.

A language is a big plus when you go out to work. Its something that very few brits can do we seem to just assume everyone will speak our language, but if she does'nt enjoy it then it will just become a chore.

Its best for her to just choose what she wants an enjoy's the most. As long as you have English,Maths,Science at a decent grade an you can continue what you want to do to further education it's not to important to be honest.