GCSE courses at Headington Rye Oxford

GCSE option choices are the first significant academic decisions you will make in your journey through school and beyond to higher education and your future career. This booklet sets out to help you and your parents make these important choices by outlining the options schedule and the subjects offered, as well as the support provided.

With nearly 30 options available, choice is at the heart of the Headington Rye Oxford GCSE experience. To ensure that all our pupils can study the subjects and combination of subjects that are right for them, our option blocks are structured to enable each and every one of you to create a bespoke programme that reflects your interests, your strengths and your future ambitions. Beyond the core subjects of Mathematics and English Language, both essential for progress to university and the workplace, you will find a great deal of freedom in the way that you combine the subjects you decide to take through to GCSE.

Building on our long and successful experience of running the Extended Project Qualification in the Sixth Form, we introduced the Higher Project Qualification, the GCSE equivalent, for all those who would like to take the opportunity to work more independently and engage in longer term research - or the production of an artefact. There is also a Podcasting Route through to the HPQ, enabling you to develop essential digital communication skills in this rapidly expanding and increasingly popular broadcast medium.

We also offer five further ‘Plus One’ qualifications, all developed in house by specialist teams at Headington Rye. All Plus One courses foster intellectual curiosity and independence, and lead to accredited qualifications from Eduqual and the University of Buckingham. This exciting range of enrichment options consists of Headington Rye Awards in Creative Writing, Global Citizenship, Philosophy, Financial Literacy and new for 2026, Artificial Intelligence and Leiths cookery. They are taken in Year 10 alongside GCSE options.*

The infographic below, and the pages that follow, set out the HRO Option Shelves, showing you how to make the selections which together will constitute a personalised course of study that will absorb and engage you for the next two years. The Middle School team has created a schedule of events and opportunities to help you to make your choices in a careful, considered way, armed with the best advice and the clearest information. Your teachers, tutors, Head of Year, and Heads of Section will work with you and your parents as you finalise the choices that are right for you. We hope you will feel very much at the centre of this process.

During your GCSE years, we ensure that the academic rigour of your courses is balanced with our customary focus on a rounded education. Headington Rye Oxford’s extensive co-curricular programme will continue to give you those all-important opportunities to pursue your own interests and develop skills outside the classroom.

As you progress through your GCSE years, you will inevitably be looking ahead to the Sixth Form and to the new options and challenges on offer at A Level. The decisions you make now will ultimately contribute to your university applications in preparation for life beyond Headington Rye Oxford.