My son is ending Year 8 and this week they've started their Year 9 lessons. He is potentially interested in a career in computer programming and he loves history although doesn't see history being involved in a career. With this in mind the options he has chosen is ICT and History. Next year he'll be able to choose more options.
Son had his first GCSE ICT lesson today and has come away a little downbeat :( He said nearly half the class are boys who are know to muck around and be disruptive in lessons which today as expected they did. Teacher set them a task to do and the software available to do said task is dated 2000. Son has the same software at home but a much more up-to-date version, he said it took him ages to do the task because it is so old nothing seemed familiar on screen. He has complained to me before about the software being very outdated but I somehow thought that for a GCSE course they would use something a little more modern and relevant to the task.
The other options he had to choose from were Media Studies (we thought this would be a "soft" option), Sport (son isn't sporty and doesn't enjoy it much), Geography (not a favorite subject but he may consider this for the next round of options), Language (he's doing Spanish as a subject anyway but didn't want this as a GCSE option), Music (not musical at all).
Has anyone's child done ICT as a GCSE and what did you or your child think about it? What software did they get to use and how outdated or new was the software? I don't expect a school to have the most up-to-date version of everything but 12 years old seems a little dated. I would also expect the industry standard software to be used but maybe I'm just getting this all wrong in my head.
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Secondary education
Have we made a mistake with GCSE options?
34 replies
SophiaWinters · 03/07/2012 16:59
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zzzzz ·
04/07/2012 08:59
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