School removed GCSE for yr 11 student?

Take notes during the meeting (get other parents to as well). If it doesn’t go well then you can ask for the schools complaints procedure to escalate the issue. If they still don’t allow her to sit the exam you can escalate the complaint to the DfE but that’s obviously a longer process and may be too late given the exams in a few months.

That’s positive then, there may be enough push back from parents that they allow the current year 11s to still sit the exam. If you can make the meeting I would go in with a prepared list of what you want to say. And point out that it’s not just the risk of not getting her college course (take the information so they can see the offer and her current predicted grades) but really stress that this is going to cause her stress and worry about getting into college and could negatively impact her other subject grades making the situation worse. They could allow students to chose if they change to the double award.

I’d be writing a letter to the HT and CC’g the governors. I agree with PPs that you cannot suddenly withdraw an option 6m before the exams. The syllabus for the double option will be slightly different too.

I’d fight this, frankly, and maybe argue that it is in fact discriminatory against children such as yours DC who will now have obtaining 5GCSEs put at risk due to their disregard of her educational needs re English/related subjects.

DC state school every one did double and triple had to be selected as a GCSE option - that was wales but DN English secondary did the same.

If kids then struggled they'd be move done from higher to intermediate or lower papers they wouldn't drop a GCSE to double - not least as that would cause timetable issues when everyone else was doing their option slot.

Different schools will handle the situation differently - but I do think this is a specular poor way to deal with the issue - as Op DD did well in the mocks - so there's not a need to drop down for her and it disadvantages her with her next step.

Yeh, but not a term and a hand before GCSEs!

Are you sure? I went to state grammar and had the choice but triple counted as an option block so most of us did the double to allow us to do another separate subject. People did drop to double if they weren’t getting the grades. Appreciate that might have changed.

we don’t have grammar schools here (but shock horror, many dc still get 7s, 8s and 9s. For dd1, they didn’t really allow enough time as it wasn’t an extra block, they just tried to squeeze the learning of 3 subjects into the time for 2. She still took 9 GCSEs but with triple science it would have been 10.

This won’t matter, there is no standard number of GCSEs really, 5 is usually the minimum taken (2 English, 1maths and 2 science) and I’ve worked at schools where some students have just taken those 5. 8 is fine. When it comes to uni they usually just check maths and English GCSEs.

I would ask for a meeting with the head. Schools are supposed to only drop subjects if it’s in the best interest of pupils and it clearly isn’t for your daughter. They’re also supposed to consult with parents and students and that doesn’t sound as if it’s been done here, other than the email. Can your DD see if other friends are in similar situations or other parents are annoyed by this and you could go in as a group? May have more of an impact that just once parent.

I would speak to the college and explain the situation, explain she has a tutor for English but has dyslexia. Given this is beyond her control they may make allowances. Also most colleges will allow students to resist maths or English whilst there, they may allow her to resist alongside her course or worst case scenario she could take a year to redo English if needed.

I would have been absolutely furious if my DCs schoolhad done something like this at this stage OP. There's only one term to go before the exams start for heaven's sake. This is the sort of thing that it would be reasonable to tell current year 9 before they start their GCSE courses and, at a push, the year 10s I suppose, but not the year that have got exams just around the corner. Doing double science is perfectly OK but arbitrarily changing the goalposts for whole year group, meaning one less GCSE than expected is not fair, particularly when it is so close to the exams and post 16 plans are already being made.
You won't be the only parent who is angry OP. Get together and make your views known.

Triple science simply double/combined with extra content and paper in each discipline. You still cover all three in double/combined but get two grades. Most schools take a decision on who takes triple in year 11, which is spent on the extra syllabus or revision accordingly. It does seem late to affect those already in years 10/11 but may be a teaching resource issue. Can you get a tutor to cover the additional content or speak to the college to explain ?

It doesn't happen in state grammar schools. I'm sure if there was an advantage to pupils they would offer double awards too.

Given her dyslexia your DD is being compromised to a greater extent than her peers. I would press back with that angle.

While other students that are affected are likely to just be able to put in a little more effort if they need to, for those like your DD who is already pushing the best of her ability, their 11th hour decision to scrap one of the only GCSEs that she excels in, is discriminatory, IMO.

I agree that it's far too late for them to be making this decision. Their exams are what? 5 months away?

What impact does it really have on them to continue to offer it to the Y11 cohort? Don't they still have to sit 3 exams, whether they get two GCSE's at the end or three??

They should have made it optional to those currently in Y11, not making a decision for them.

I would make it clear in my personal statement . "Originally I was to sit science GCSEs as separate subjects and was predicted xyz, however a whole school decision was made late in year 11 to switch to combined science"

Going back to the sixth form offer if she ends up doing combined science would her school teachers be prepared to confirm her predicted separate grades and would the sixth form then consider those. In 2020 GCSEs were awarded on this basis although the school did have to be ready to evidence then.

It's very unusual to pull a subject at gcse at this stage in year 11.

As other have mentioned it is usually because it's a relatively unusual subject and the teacher has left and school cannot recruit anyone to do it.

Changing triple to double at this stage is not helpful.

Speak to the school. Exam entries do not need to be in until January and alterations can be made (at a cost to the school) certainly up to Easter.

There will be other parents upset about this. Consider speaking to them and getting together to work out what you want.

At a minimum I'd suggest that she is allowed to enter for triple and revision workbooks etc are provided by the school. They'll still need to staff the lessons so they could I suppose focus on the content which is in the double and the triple.

It’s very common to start dc on triple and drop down to double award after February mocks. Dd1 got 8 for biology, 6 for chemistry but 4 for physics in the February mocks so was moved to double award (along with many others in the year) last year. She went on to get 7, 7 in the double award.

however, we knew that could happen from the start as the school didn’t have extra lessons for triple compared to double award so had to do home learning for a whole module. I remember feeling a bit gutted at the time but it’s been fine and took the pressure off a bit. She ended up surprising us by pulling her maths right up at the end too.

I completely see how confusing it would be but it happens fairly regularly in state schools due to time tabling.

Here is what I would do.
I would speak to each individual science teacher and ask if there is any reason your daughter would be better off just doing 2 given the circumstance.
I would speak to the college that she has her offer for and explain the circumstance and see what wiggle room they have.

They're may be other students in this boat and parents who can join you in addressing your concerns with the school.

I would go through the syllabus with her and see how much she has covered. It is likely that she has covered the majority leaving next year for practising past papers and revision so it's unlikely they can change the way they're teaching to accommodate her but they may be prepared to enroll her for the 3 science exams.

I know that you said you can't afford to pay for the exams yourself as a private candidate. The cost would be around 200 per exam. If you do find a way to do this I'm happy to explain how it works. Deadlines for registering for these are approaching so it needs to be a quick decision. It is unlikely she's be able to get additional allowances going this route (extra time etc)

I know her college offer was based on passing English. I would speak to them again. Given that around a third of students fail English due to the bell curve there must be some wiggle room especially if she's not choosing essay based courses. There will to be some provision there for resitting English.
From experience, with all these things it usually means finding the right person to ask. If the first person isn't able to listen and really think about it, ask someone else.
If it turned out she could afford to get a lower grade in English you could put the cost of tutoring towards science exams

Another thought is that if she is stronger in one science than another then the weaker subject could pull down her overall grade. It's worth adding that to you discussions with the school.

Good luck. Whatever happens your daughter will know you've got her back, even if you are unable to get the outcome changed

For nursing or paramedic science she will need 4/5 in maths and English anyway, so if she gets those and does well in her sciences she will be well on her way to 25 points.

Do all her grades count? For the academic 6th forms round here it's typically 44 points from their best 8 exams, but the colleges will accept lower grades across the board.

I don’t think it will as it’s a whole school decision that can be explained. But that doesn’t make it any more ok when it’s going to potentially impact her conditional college offer. I really would speak to college and see if they will review conditional offer in these specific circumstances.

I'd echo the others on here and say contact the college before anything else, and forward the correspondence from the school to them. They will respond and you can decide what to do from there. It's massively unfair of the school at this stage but it seems a decision has been made and there is nothing you can do to change that.

8 will be fine

At our school you either chose triple or double plus another subject. The third science was one of your options. So in the OPs case, the kids who chose triple will now have one less GCSE than those who chose double.

Forcing pupils to change GCSE option in year 11 is completely unacceptable. I'd be asking the school to reconsider their decision. Then I would be making a formal complaint to the governing body. And if that failed I would also be talking to a solicitor to see if there are any options for redress such as applying for a court ruling requiring the school to pay for a tutor and private examination.