To move my DS year 10 who has an ECHP from a mainstream secondary school whose target grades are around grades 2/3 to a Private School and ask DS to start year 8 in January at the Private School to a Private school and ask him

This is a bad idea.

there are specialist privates that may well work for your son but this school does not sound like
it is one of them.

Two years down will not work for him socially it would do him a great disservice, this doesn’t sound the right school for your son.

Op would you have wanted your 12 year old DD in a class with a 14/15 year old boy? Who was not “emotionally ready” to be with own peers? Whatever that means

OP you can't knock a bairn down 2 years. Hell never forgive you for it and I'd hazard a guess that other parents will kick up a right stink when they find out.

This school doesn't sound as if it's going to be the right fit for your son.

This obsession with GCSE grades on here is wild. They should have never changed the grading. Kids predicted 2s and 3s should be in a special school indeed. Fucking hell.

I was assuming it's a family adoption.

Op please do not put your son down 2 years, absolutely insane suggestion.

I really don't think putting him back is going to help. He'd probably be better off taking his current GCSE's and then either doing access courses or foundation courses at college in something he finds interesting. Maybe a 3-4 year stint at college before uni to give him time to catch up emotionally.

The current plan is going to ruin his self esteem. He may need to swap schools due to the bullying if the school is unwilling to tackle that, but to a school willing to meet him at his level rather than forcing him to fit around them.

I have asked three salient questions to assist @redange . Until I hear back, the question of tutoring, reader scribes etc. never mind the school chosen are moot. Believe me I've delved for myself and others and advised. As I'm sure others on this thread have. I've seen absolute miracles in the right educational placements.

Does he have a scribe and reader in place for gcse?

I really hope this isn't real because the idea of putting an adopted child with an EHCP predicted 2s and 3s into a hot-housing fee paying school 2 years below his age is a really cruel thing to do and is setting him up to fail.

Not sure how someone managed to adopted a child with birth children a years age either side, since the usual age gap is the adopted child being the youngest by at least 4 years and hardly any children are adopted under age 1 so OP would have already had a new baby when placed with the DS, which I can't see any placing agency doing at all in the UK.

Does he want to go to uni OP? Does he have any idea what he might want to do as a job? Anything he's really interested in? I wouldn't send him to that private school, it sound like somewhere he'd hate and being with kids 2 years younger will be really horrible for him.

I know kids who were working at a similar level who have taken GCSEs 3 times trying to pass, it's not something I'd want to put mine through. Also trying to do level 3 qualifications when you've only scraped by level 2 can be extremely difficult if not impossible.

Would he be better off going to college, doing functional skills and practical courses, some do take students from 14. It depends what he wants to do of course. but putting kids through GCSE exams just for them to fail them all is really cruel IMO - and I've seen it more times then I'd like.

As for your DH and your girls, welcome to the world of teenage girls, which can be a universal challenge for all of us - and no finishing school is required anymore! Remind him who he married, having met at uni. Your girls will be just fine.

The bullying needs addressing through the school, but no, I would not move your DS down two academic years! I would get him really specialist tutors to sit with him to improve putting his ideas to paper. If you have the funds for this, that is where my money would go.

Any LA proposing to cease to maintain just because a parent is making their own arrangements via an independent school is acting unlawfully regardless of whether it is immediately or longer term. If the LA tried to cease, parents should challenge it.

He wouldn't lose the ehc to begin with but it is a risky strategy longer term.

I think this is an absolutely mad plan and I'm very surprised the school came up with it. If they are an academically intensive (even if non selective) school where he's expected to do lots of homework alone to keep up, it's going to be the wrong place for DS whether he goes back two years or not. With how you've described his profile, it also may not work - it sounds less like he needs to repeat content than he needs a completely different teaching style and maybe a reduced curriculum to focus on passing English and Maths, or to play to his strengths.

There are private schools who will offer this kind of child-centred and adapted curriculum and your DS may well thrive at one of these and eventually do eg A Levels. But I don't think that will be the school you're looking at now.

And I have 25 years experience as an ed psych and unless there is a load of complexity the OP hasn't explained, or severe SEMH, communication issues or similar, I have never known a child be moved to a specialist setting just because they were predicted grades 2-3 in GCSEs.

No, not always complex children and the like. I have 25 years experience in specialist settings. I don't think the OP's child belongs in a mainstream setting for what it's worth, but with SEND schools bursting at the seams it's highly unlikely that he would be given a place.

I think this is a terrible idea. It sounds like completely the wrong place for DS. If you think the EHCP isn’t currently meeting DS’s needs, have you requested an early review?

refuse to name this new school in the ehc, in which case you would surely lose the ehc.

I don’t think OP’s plan is the right way forward. However, this isn’t the case. Parents can decide to make their own arrangements by funding an independent school and the EHCP won’t cease. The LA won’t be responsible for funding the provision/placement unless named in I, but the EHCP won’t cease.

Dropping 2 years is insane socially.
I would drop him one year but pick a gentler school supplemented with tutoring rather than a 2 hours a night sort of school. If he finds school difficult now, losing after school free time could physically, emotionally and mentally ruin him.
Did you pick a school that sounds like a hothouse because of his high achieving siblings? Maybe his strengths are elsewhere and he’d be best off doing vocational qualifications after GCSEs and focus on getting the English and maths GCSE passes that make transition smoother.
GCSEs are stressful enough when school isn’t difficult. Unless your son is not fulfilling his potential because he’s using teen stubbornness not to work, I think that you’d be best off looking for private schools that do a wider range of qualifications that suit him rather than hope that 2 hours a night of homework helps him catch up.

My ds passed GCSEs but didn’t discover a love of learning until he went to college and learned practical qualifications. It’s really helped his confidence finding his “thing” and gets him respect from his siblings whose strengths lie elsewhere.

The suggestion by the school of moving your ds back by two years just to match your ds to an academic year group is a truly terrible one. It is lazy and disrespectful of the school to consider this appropriate rather than them considering your and other children’s emotional well-being and the legal right to reasonable adjustments. Do not touch this school with a barge pole.

You’ve described your ds as being extremely articulate and able to take on and discuss some really complex concepts and situations. Putting him with students two years younger will make him stand out even more and remove the opportunity to explore these skills. Also, think what sport would look like. For any matches, he would be put back with his chronological age group, with students he doesn’t know.

A small, nurturing school, with good, flexible SEND support with additional 1 to 1 tutoring in his more challenging subjects would be much more appropriate.

@redange then get him a tutor

i still feel you are trying to adapt him into what you think he should be doing degree etc rather than trying to find what works for him

this isn’t the option

With an ehc you have to go through the local authority. I understand you can pay for the new school but the ehc is a legal document and the LA has assessed his needs and the school he is at is deemed to be the right place for him. They may disagree that this plan, of dropping 2 years, is in his best interests and refuse to name this new school in the ehc, in which case you would surely lose the ehc.

I'm a fellow adopter and I used to work in a sendiass team, helping parents with ehc plans. Frankly, it is a terrible idea to drop 2 school years for several reasons and local authorities don't like it. Most kids with sen are not failing to achieve because they need a bit more time - they need a more tailored curriculum or environment to reach their potential, but redoing school years will just demoralise them, make them stand out, make other kids ( and their parents) wary as your child is so much more physically advanced.

But the main reason is that he will basically be able to leave school in year 9.

Private, non sen schools often talk up their offering to parents but find it hard to deliver. Some schools are so desperate for new pupils they will say anything.

Imo you have to think of what your son wants too. He could easily refuse to go and be a school refuser, and what then?

Yes, but complex children with autism and the like no doubt. We have one near us that offers GCSEs to a small group. What they don't do is take any child who is just looking at grade 2/3 gcses as if any child working at that level should not be in mainstream.

Not always the case at all. I've worked in 2 specialist settings that offer a good handful of GCSEs to smaller groups of students.
Not all SEND schools have the same curriculum offer

Specialist SEND schools operate way, way below this level. Don't forget 40 percent of children don't get grade 4 for their gcses. Do you really think 40 percent of children should be in specialist?

OP if you want to move him to support him socially if he has become a target due to his wealth, I would be looking at A non academic private school that is nurturing. There are some that specialize in this way in most districts.