Has anyone got experience of GCSE Art either directly or as a parent? One of my daughters is considering it (she is more science/maths/english biased) as a less academic subject which will provide some welcome variation.

My concern is it will require lots of hours of work which could distract from other subjects and it surely must be quite subjective to mark?

But I don’t have an artistic bone in my body so could be way off!

Mine is doing this…and like yours is quite sciency/mathsy. Yes it is time consuming, although she has managed to get everything on time without much in the way of drama. Subjectivity is less of an issue than I’d previously thought, as they seem to be looking for evidence of research, an appreciation of theory and thoughtfulness as to what kids are doing, rather than the look of the finished pieces themself. Having said that, the quality of the work I’ve seen from mine and her classmates is quite good, and whilst not necessarily something I’d want in my living room it’s way better than I could ever do myself and I’m quite impressed. They have had a lot of guidance from the teachers. Her art teachers have been ace…switched on, no messing about and with clear direction on whats expected. I’d imagine that of her teachers had been shit then it would have been quite a bit of drama.

She is thinking about taking it for A level…but on balance decided that it would be better to do Geog – and the time issue was biggest factor in that decision. She has enjoyed doing art…..but I think she’s taken it as far as she wants to go with it for now.

At A-level it’s a colossal drain on time, at GCSE… not so much! Speaking on behalf of a number of close friends who did one/both.

There are an incredibly wide and varied number of career paths that it might benefit, not all of them flouncey and pointless.

One of mine did GCSE Art (and AS). School has cool art facilities and it is taken seriously.

My only take from it is that for GCSE don’t worry about it; nobody really cares. There might be a bit more out of class work to do, because as above, it’s about the process as much as the result. Self motivation seems important because of this, but between you and me, mine put in the bare minimum (take’s after me) and still got a good grade. I think the main draw for her was the school trips they got to do for A level, Venice/Florence and New York (she paid).

Boy 1 did Art GCSE, achieved an A without a massive amount of time consumed. But he is very good at it. The more academic subjects he struggled with, but he has mild dyslexia and speech and language difficulties.

He has found the jump up to A level harder, still finds the art within his capabilities, but he’s also taking archaeology, geology and film studies. All of which are heavy on the literacy side rather than practical. Saying that, art is by no means all practical, there is still lots of research, design and evaluation that needs to be completed.

If your daughter has any ability then I think it’s a good subject to take to give her a more “rounded” set of skills.

Firstborn did it(and ResMat) to GCSE, she’s pretty good. It’s much more time consuming than book based subjects, but I’d say more rewarding too. If your daughter is a high flyer and you/or the school give reasonable suppport, they will do great. If they are middle of the road academically you might prefer the time to go on more work on the core stuff. Success at GCSE I’d say deppends on work ethic and using all the resources like the Letts and other revision guides tailored to your exam board’s version of the subject.

From the point of a teacher of another subject. It seemed to be a Big drain on time. Gallery trips, extended preparation and exams etc. Don’t doubt the experience is good but it was frustrating for me as pupils lost a lot of time always at the most crucial time for coursework etc. Might have just been piss poor planning by the high heid yins.

had two mates do art at GCSE, although this is going back about 17 years.

one took it seriously and spent ages on each drawing. the other used to hash a sketch with his biro before class during break, admittedly his drawing were cool, bu the effort he put into it was laughable.

the first one recieved a low mark, the other got an A+.

far too subjective, IMO.

I’m scottish so not a direct comparison.

I did Maths Physics Chemistry English Geography Graphical Communication IT and Art.

If it wasn’t for Art and Geography which actually interested me I would have walked out of the door with nothing about half way through my first year of highers. Unfortunately after that I decided Maths was a good degree choice and ignored my own advice and it was the most miserable waste of 4 years of my life I have ever spent. (I later learnt my folks had misgivings about me going to uni at all)

I have no degree but a whole bunch of skills and a good job (finally)

Everyone is different obviously but if my parents had dictated no art because it might affect my studying for academic subjects I would hold alot of resentment towards them.

Without trying to sound blunt (I am not a parent) are you asking this for her benefit or your own preconceptions of what is important?

I’m very sciency/mathy (now studying automotive engineering at uni) and I really enjoyed doing it (and got an A) as it was something different to the routine of normal lessons.

One note is that I also decided not to take any humanities (which my teachers tried to block but backed down when I said I already had my uni course decided on) and took D&T and Graphics instead which meant I had 3 very high coursework subjects, which at points was hard work (but still better than history! 😉 )

I should also point out I am a strong believer is minimal amount of work to pass.and that in general I think my whole school experience was a waste of time!

GCSE is (was) pretty light touch. You just generate coursework in lessons and have an examined piece. You have less homework if anything than a booked based subject. A level is busier but if you can do art then every day is just fun and a piss easy route to an A. If you can’t im sure it’s hard work. But probably no harder than doing sciences if you’re not sciency. Horses for courses.

We were told it takes a lot of time so my eldest decided not to bother (and apparantly she was nailed on for an A*)
You need to consider just what a GCSE in Art is going to help with (as opposed to DT which may actually be useful.) and universities may well look at what GSCEs were taken when allocating places – does art help? Personally I don’t think so.

Did art GSCE and then A level as well …. 20 odd years ago mind.

This my sound strange but Art was, in a way my, hardest subject…

IT EATS TIME ….

You can fiddle about for hours putting final touches on a main piece or produce more prep work after the final piece is “finished”…it’s so open ended….. There’s no right answer or conclusion.

I can still remember all the hours I put in for them, more the a level obviously… Got a D for the A level and a A or B for the GSCE.

Not sure I’d advise my kids to take it

Do art if you like art.

Is it useful? Course it bloody is if you want to go into creative fields.

Unis won’t give a monkeys what GCSEs you do and they certainly won’t think any less of you if you chose art. It’s not general studies its a real subject.

Architecture, media, design, advertising all helped by art.

As eddie said above.

I teach architecture and the students who did art at GCSE/A-level generally have a far better idea of space, colour and how to present their work – skills which will be useful whatever field they end up in.

For a 14 year old, surely the priority should be with what she enjoys (as long as it’s not at the expense of a subject she wants to go on and study at A-level).

I’m first year at uni so I have pretty recent experience. Firstly, GCSEs don’t really matter that much as long as you do well enough to get into the college courses you want.

From my experience at college though, doing something non-academic is a MUST. However, art A-level swallows a ridiculous amount of time and with probably detriment other grades.

I did music technology and it was perfect. Just gave me something to look forward to at college. I think I would actually have gone insane if I stuck with all science and maths. However, the majority of art students I knew at A-level found it an absolute nightmare, so if she’s musical, it might be a good idea to try music at GCSE and see if she enjoys it. The music facilities at college will be a lot better than the ones at school though.

Daughter is year 11. She spends huge amounts of time on her art projects etc – but it is her thing. She’s A* & wants to do double or triple art A level.

She has mates who are less interested & spend much less time on the subject, they still seem to get Bs/ Cs

Not Art but I did have reservations when my daughter wanted to do Photography at GCSE as I felt that it was a waste and also a drain on time. I’d have preferred her to do something more academic.

But…. she’s proved me wrong. Her core subjects are all going well and it’s nice to see her motivated and excited about a subject. She’s more likely to use a camera than French in adult life so maybe it’s a good choice anyway!

Son’s school did GCSE art at 14 (Y9) in a year (involved some Saturday mornings at school). He got an overall A
It’s helping him enormously in anything involving diagrams such as geography, biology, etc and gets good coursework assessments as a result

It’s only a GCSE – I seem to remember they were a piece of piss when I did them and they’ve supposedly been steadily making them easier ever since. 😉

I’m an art teacher, so any specific questions fire away.

GCSE art could be hugely time consuming, but doesn’t have to be. If the course and teaching are planned well I shouldn’t really require any more homework time than other subject (except maybe at pinch points like the exam prep period – but again if the school has any sense the art exam will be out of the way before other exams really kick in).

As has been said, a background in GCSE art will be very useful for any even vaguely creative career or education path. Wider than that, it teaches a research > experiment > develop > outcome process that is applicable to an awful lot of life situations.

Don’t worry about the assessment being subjective – it isn’t. There are a tight set of 4 assessment criteria that are judged against a numerical scale and none of these (effectively contextual research, experimentation & review, record & reflect, realise outcomes & connect to research) are concerned with whether the work is ‘liked’ or not. There is also a check and balance to try and avoid subjectivity as the work is assessed by the teachers but then an external moderator visit to check that assessment.

I did art 2 years ago for GCSE its more of a hoop jumping exercise that anything else. Its OK work load wise at gcse and relatively enjoyable (wish i had done history instead). i’ve got a friend who does it at a level and he reckons its way too much work so at GCSE it may be worth doing but done bother at a level.

Daughter is year 11. She spends huge amounts of time on her art projects etc – but it is her thing. She’s A* & wants to do double or triple art A level.

Unless she is aboulutely certain that she wants to take art further as a career, I would be very wary indeed of taking three art subjects to A level, or even two to be honest. I taught 3d art in a sixth form college that had five art courses available and our advice was always that two AS art subjects out of four started could be taken in the first year but with the understanding only one taken on to A2. This obviously restricted their choice of what to drop at the end of the first year. Very occasionally we would allow two for those students who had demonstrated exceptional ability and organisational skills. Please get current careers advice on the suitability of this from the school and/or potential university admissions as I am two or three years out of date now.

I did art at gcse and a level. Am 38 now so obviously a while ago and have no idea how it may have changed in the meantime.

What I do know is that it was the only thing that I remember favourably from school days. I don’t remember the workload being high. And I did absolutely the least work possible at school.

I got A in both exams and it felt easy compared to other subjects which seemed boring and time consuming by comparison. If my kids wanted to do art at school and were talented/passionate about it I would be right behind them.

It enriched my school experience to the point that I was able to tolerate it.

Edit – due to experience as a climber I worked as an industrial designer/sculptor designing and building climbing walls for ~10years right out of A levels. Worked in a lot of cool places. Norway, California, oregan and all over the uk. Was consulting in America and earning very good money.

Have since changed careers but used those skills a lot for many years.

23 years ago I did art GCSE art and really enjoyed it and easily got an A. A level was a different matter though, it required much more dedication and had less freedom. I also did physics and applied maths A levels – interesting combo – my grades in them were much better. I went on to do Industrial design.

Thanks all – interesting and informative replies.

Her choice will come down to 2 from Italian, Geography and Art. She’s already got a Spanish GCSE. She’s definitely doing 3 sciences and History.