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We had GCSE options meeting this morning at school with Y9 DD. Her choices are Drama, Dance, Music with History as reserve. Needless to say the teacher wasn't too keen on this as DD is one of their bright students. Before the Parents evening in Dec, DD wasn't even considering Music but then she wasn't too sure about what her history teacher had to say, not bad, just cautious. Subsequently a 20 minute session turned into 45 minutes, Head of History was called in and DD ended up in tears

They were very nice about it but it's reaching a compromise which is going to be difficult. We chose to put DD in a normal school and not stage school as she has so many outside opportunities for her activities but it's still difficult. Now I'm thinking, could I find someone outside of school prepared to teach DD GCSE Music?

Well my DD's school have put on GCSE Drama classes outside school time, so although I don't know the answer to your question specifically, I'm pretty sure where there's a will, there's a way. Good luck - hope you sort it

DD chose history over music for GCSE and is now doing A level history and loves it! It is a great subject !!!

We did look into external tuition for GCSE music and did manage to find someone locally who was prepared to help, but in the end DD decided that would be too much and just stuck to her normal music lessons and ABRSM exams.

You do have my sympathies though ... tough choices to make at that age!

What about speaking to one of the school music teachers to see if you can do it outside school time on a peripatetic basis - obviously you'd have to pay but they may be happy for the extra cash?

I had a talented student who did A level Music in his spare time And he got a A grade

In my school Dance is taught after school. I think both these subjects can be done successfully out side school.

At my dd's school they helpfully offered her music GCSE as an after school club in Year 9 as they know there are other priorities trying to fit in an all round curriculum. It also means she takes it at the end of Year 10 instead of the usual 3 year course so freeing them up to do other things in Year 11 so it works all ways.This probably means that this sort of thing happens all the time, so it may be worth checking with your school.

You may find some instrument teachers can teach GCSE music - in the same way that that some ballet teachers will do dance GCSEs and A level. My dd's violin teacher offered to do GCSE music work with dd when we were planning flexi-schooling for a year.

You might find it more difficult to do this privately due to the way that controlled assessments have to be done under exam conditions. Private teachers wouldn;t be able to register as an exam centre easily it costs quit a lot of money so you would still have to enter the exam through a school or college. Some dance/drama schools who are big enough could achieve it though I guess.

...but if it was through a music teacher at the school, they may be able to arrange for the person to join into the assessments with the kids officially doing it within the school day?

The problem is Nicola that the controlled assesments for example one of the compositions are 10 hours (not including research time) spread over a number of weeks and this is usually done in class. A similar amount of controlled time is allocated for recording of performances.

One of the exam boards requires its teachers to have gone on a compulsory standardisation course as a lot of the marking is done by the teacher.

islandofsodor is spot on here. League tables at GCSE are so important that it's going to be very difficult to convince the school to accept outside candidates, because their failure hurts them (not that it would happen - but it could?). You also have to keep OFSTED in mind too.

Many GCSE specs also include group work - you know, "form a band, rehearse a song and record it" - how could you do these elements?

Modern school practice means that a teachers often assesses and then another checks the assessment before the external moderator or examiner gets to see it. To make it worse, schools income comes from registrations, so if they did do it, it would not doubt be at full cost - which can be hugely expensive.

If she's into music - then why not do proper music exams? They now have proper unit credit, and are considered to have a standard that counts. On top of this, they are 100% music, not diluted with all sorts of non-musical components.

I've discovered over the years, the question most revealing when interviewing GCSE leavers for college courses was simply their grades. The subject didn't really matter that much. A and A* were attractive. C probably meant they could have done a little better, but didn't try quite hard enough, and D and below we ignored. Our private attitude was that they signified a general lack of achievement. If somebody had all good grades, and one iffy one - we just discounted it - maybe just a person/subject mismatch, but more than one D or E means much more.

Geography and History tend to have favouritism in certain areas - In my own experience, we saw history far more than geography - but for our performing arts course, we were interested in dance, drama, music, art, maths English and science. These, for us, were the common ones. GCSE dance has been popular for a few years now, but seems to now be on the wane again - many schools with excellent dance records changing emphasis when a new head takes over and hates the 'fluffy' subjects - a common term for the non-English/Maths/Science subjects.

Playing an instrument, or being able to sing properly is really useful = and not really appreciated. Always worth checking how musical, the music teacher actually is. It's quite common for them to be NQTs and rather limited in their own abilities - ask a few questions, then you might decide history is likely to be better delivered!

Hello there,

Thanks for all the answers and suggestions. In the end, history won with Music being the reserve. Don't find out until April for definite but it has made me more determined to organise individual singing lessons and hopefully she will progress through the lower Grades quickly? Is there a set amount of time for each Grade? Let's hope I can find a teacher who has a lesson free when DD is not doing something else !

Usually it's left to the teacher to determine when they're ready and able to pass - so sometimes progress can be very quick, but progress past grade 4 means the dreaded music theory - and this is pretty tough, if they're not familiar with more traditional music and written music. Sight singing is often the bit that needs proper work and study - so many people who have good ears, can do many of the other bits quite easily - but actually reading music is difficult for the fast leaners.