GCSE reduced subjects advice needed

English, maths, science, 1 humanity or language, 2 practical subjects. No more. That's 6. So that makes me worried because that's 2 less than the normal amount.

Here you generally need 5 GCSE at level 2 pass (4/5 in England) for A-levels including maths and English Lang - depends on area and subjects wanted at A-level - plus there is Btec route to uni as well as alternative to A-levels.

All post 16 choices are easier if you get English Language and Maths and 3 other subjects at least level 4 better level 5 ( C in wales).

Is the English just English Language - one everyone looks for or would it be two GCSE ie include English Lit - I'd e-mail Head of English and English teacher ask why he been put on thsi pathway what GCSE they currently expect and do they think the extra support is needed for your son.

I would do the same for maths - his current teacher and head of department - what level is he at what are you looking at for GCSE grade and are they aware this path has been suggested and do they think it us what he needs.

Then you'd be clear if this extra maths and english support is needed. Ideally that would have been clear from reports and p/t meet but DC school not always been clear and often had to be very direct to get answers.

Is science - single - double or tripe - first question - then is he wanting to do A-levels in science - if so he'll need double GCSE at min.

Then I'd e-mail head, head of year, current form tutor - and ask why this has come out the blue - no-one spoken to DS or you about why this is needed and why it's best for your DS. So you'd like to know why this us being suggested for him - what data is this based on. I'd also raise the pratcical subjects that he's not really interetsed in them, doesnt show aptitude for and they don't match his career aspirations - are these being offered because they fit round extra maths/English lessons or for other reasons.

Then I'd again e-mail SENCO and CC head in - ask if he been tested for anything - if they'be had any input into the pathway for DS being offered and if they or you should be looking at testing him for underlying problems before GCSE start.

That would be what I'd do first if it was one of mine - and I'd expect reponses in a few days - if not I'd email/letter write again reminding them of their internal deadlines for chocises to be set and asking for reponse.

This could be a good thing for him - certainly better than many of DD2 friends who were dropping last minute with no extra support for core subjects. However the schools communication seems very poor and you may need to be very direct and very persistant to get information needed to make best choice for him.

I agree with this. That is why the OP's son may do better on the reduced GCSE pathway. I do agree with the OP though that the communication about it has been very badly handled by the school.

I haven't read through all of the replies so I am probably repeating other's but it sounds like he will still be able to obtain GCSEs in
English lit
English lang
Maths
Science
Science
Humanity or Lang
Practical option
Practical option

That's 8 GCSEs and will no way block entry to A levels or a degree.

Can you afford an Educational Psychology report to identify his strengths and weaknesses?

Can you afford a tutor for maths and English?

TbH if he is in bottom sets then I would grab this with both hands as it will increase his chances of passing those GCSEs.

I would ask for a meeting with the senco. Ask what tests they will be doing? Will he get extra time in exams?

Finally what were his yeat 6 SATs scores?

First of all I want to empathise, I totally understand that this is difficult for you and your son. However, I think that there are a few things you need to untangle. The important thing now is deciding how best to move forward.

From what you have said, the communication from the school has been poor. I think sometimes messaging about attainment can, be a bit opaque to say the least. I would also totally agree that a discussion with your son (and possibly yourself) should have happened to talk through why he has been offered this pathway. However, this didnt happen and to some extent I think you need to put that to one side.

To make decisions about what to do next, you have to look honestly at his attainment. At my DD's school although parents evening is often 'a nice chat', we get a progress report with some very blunt info. For every subject, we get their predicted GCSE grade (based on Y6 SATs), the grade they would need to be at at the end of their current academic to meet that, the grade they are currently working at (based mainly on their most recent assessment) and whether they are at/below/above target. Even without that info, for setted subjects it is possible to work out where they sit in the cohort (& because the school gets roughly average results) the likely GCSE grade range. They have set 1, set 2 and two equivalent set 3s. If you are in set 1 you are in the top 25% and 6/7+ is likely possibly, set 2 will likely be 4-6 and set three mainly 4 and below with a few 5s. 4+ is possible from set 3, but roughly a quarter of the cohort wont achieve a 4 in year 11. At DD's school children can and do move sets based on performance. SATs dont define your set. If you do well in assessments you move up, do less well (even if you did well on SATs) you move down.
On MN every child can seem to be getting 7+ and doing A levels. However, lots of kids arent. Unless this is an admin error, this wont have been done randomly. They will be looking at your son's current attainment and likely progress. Even though it is difficult, I think you and your son need to look at the concrete info you have about his attainment (sets, grades, scores relative to cohort average etc.) and discuss how he is doing and if he stays on the same trajectory how he is likely to do at GCSE. Passes in english & maths will be really important going forward. If a smaller number of GCSEs and some extra maths and english support will help him achieve these, it might be the right pathway for him. If he does well with this reduced number of GCSEs, A levels and uni will be possible.

If after looking at the attainment info you have, you think they are significantly under-estimsting his likely trajectory then I would push for a meeting with a relevant staff member to discuss. They might change it if you present a strong case, but I dont think you can force them. I do think you can expect them to discuss it with you though. Unless you can change school, you are going to have to work with them.

I totally get the emotional impact. Kids can make snidey comments and it doesnt feel great to find out your child isnt doing as well as you hoped/expected. However, you really need to put that to one side and think about what is best for your son. Real friends wont give a shit what pathway he is on. Whichever pathway he is on, if he works hard and does well in the offered qualifications he will have options at level 3.

My son is doing A levels without a language at GCSE- not a problem (obviously not doing the language at A Level though). I can't imagine how many humanities he did being a problem either, again it might limit A level choices though.

I think you also need to get your school to share their criteria for passing to A Levels and if they don't do A Levels to share the outcomes and subsequent paths taken by the students who have taken the reduced pathway.

It is true that A Levels are not for everyone but if no students on the reduced pathway take A Levels then you have a right to demand that you be given time to investigate why your apparently previously average student is now being placed at the bottom 10% without and attempt to understand if he could be supported to continue to achieve at his previously average level.

Can you get hold of his SATS? and any other assessments? Build an argument as to why this 10% assessment does not reflect the bright intelligent boy that you see.

If it is because he only completed 25% of the assessment in the time available but got everything correct.. then the first thing to investigate would be processing speed, to see if more time and focused support to help him improve his speed in exams would be sufficient to allow him to achieve his potential.

I think the issue is OP and other posters are conflating intelligence with academic ability. You can be bright and switched on, but not able to learn to an academic standard. There's no shame in it either. Lots of children do badly at school but thrive when taking vocational qualifications. I've actually started a thread in Further Education about bouncing back from poor GCSE results with BTECs. Lots of amazing success stories in it!

I don't know, it seems feasible to me that some things wouldn't be picked up until the child had to sit formal exams, and the first time would be in year 9 I guess? Aside from the year 6 SATS which I assume are quite different in their level of difficulty so maybe he managed them better.

I agree that there is likely more going on here with the DS and it doesn't sound like he would have been in line for top sets but even so it seems the school have handled it quite badly to not inform him or his parents about what his performance in the assessments would mean for his GCSE choices. Unless they did inform him and he didn't pass it on to OP, given he hadn't told her that he failed to complete exam papers in the given time.

What options do you have?

Can you change school if necessary?

Can you get an educational psychologist assessment in the next few weeks.. or arrange one and inform school that you wish to hold off on making decisions before the results of that assessment?

Maybe the SEN board might be able to steer you in the right direction.

I picked two searches from Google..

https://www.davidsongifted.org/gifted-blog/understanding-diagnosing-and-coping-with-slow-processing-speed/

https://cfpsychology.co.uk/children/cognitive-assessments-for-children/?_gl=17gz8rn_upMQ.._gs*MQ.. Average of 3 weeks to get an appointment and cost of £950.. so quite a significant amount.

I think you have grounds to ask for additional time to investigate the reasons why your son performed poorly on the year 9 assessments and whether it is possible for him to be supported to remain on the standard pathway.

Good luck.. fight for him!!

My son was flying through school until year 9. Then his grades started to fall. The school didn't do anything about it, they just thought he was lazy and a day dreamer. After, multiple meetings dozens of emails and me fighting his corner his was diagnosed with narcolepsy in year 12. You must be his advocate.

Sadly I agree with this. Bright kids don't end up in the bottom sets. Perhaps the middle sets if they have undiagnosed SEN, but the bottom set kids are usually the lowest ability/achievers or those who refuse to do the work.

It's not so much the number of GCSEs that matters for A levels than the grades he gets. Here, they need 6 GCSEs at grade 6 to do A levels. But if you score less, you can do 2 A levels and a Btech, 1A level and 2 Btechs and so on. You need a 6 in English and Maths for A levels here, whatever subject you study. Imo it's not a bad thing to do only 8 and be pushed up for English and Maths. However, i would query the not being able to pick other humanities. Drama is a lot of work and is hard, especially if you need english intervention. Geography would imo be easier. Dance wont be any good if hes not interested, and the coursework is heavy. Same with art or photography. So i would push back on this to make sure he does subjects he can do. My guess is, it is a timetabling issue, where the interventions take place during MFL lessons. I would also have very stern words with him about the effort required. Even if he knows the answers but run out of time (did you check his papers to see if thats true?), unless you manage to get him extra time, thats exactly what will happen in the exams. You need to establish whether hes been coasting because there was no pressure or whether he really need the support. I would then decide whether to push back with the school.

@Arizona29 just to flag there’s some misinformation here.

You don’t need eight GCSEs to go to uni. You don’t need eight to go to sixth form. And eight is actually the second commonest number of GCSEs to sit.

Youve had a lot of good advice tho around accepting that your ds needs support and may be better off with a reduced number (8 not 9/10). Honestly I would try to work with the school in this. Unless he wants to do medicine or engineering at uni, he may well be fine with passes at core GCSE subjects and then A levels or Btecs post 16.

English is normally 2 separate GCSEs and Science is normally Dual or Triple Award so will be classed as 2 or 3 GCSEs.

@GreenCaterpillarOnALeaf Where I live, few on reduced GCSEs needing additional help go on to do A levels. The op should not be encouraged to think this is a realistic option. Most schools require at least a 6 at GCSE for A levels, and that looks like a stretch. Being realistic and building a career from there is a far better approach.

From the sounds of it he is struggling and he needs to focus on getting his English and Maths. He will still be able to do A levels somewhere, and his options as to what A levels may be limited, but not having English and Maths will hold him back more. It’s better to have less GCSEs at a higher grade than more GCSEs at lower grades.

The school aren’t doing this to punish him or be mean to him, this is an attempt to help him. If you really have never heard anything about him struggling then you need to chase up why there was such poor communication, but that’s a separate issue.

@WhatAreYouDoingSundayBaby I’m not entirely sure the op is telling the truth. What were his sats results? Why is he in the bottom set? That’s never academic results “as expected”. Expected for him, maybe, but not against how other dc perform. I think the op has closed her eyes to his academic performance. She believes he’s bright but let’s see exam results. No one is in a bottom set at secondary who is doing well. In fact most are the lowest achievers and always have been. Some slide there because they refuse to work and are difficult to manage. The op really needs to evaluate what’s been happening and not cling to her narrative.

Doing practical subjects won't prevent him doing A-Levels. Not getting good GCSE grades will. You've said yourself he was working below the expected level, practical subjects are usually easier to pass and the extra intervention will help him pass the essential GCSE's. I'd follow the schools leads on this, it's not in their interests for your DS to fail and they wouldn't go to the trouble of putting limits on him and extra intervention if they didn't feel it was necessary. I'd be unhappy with the lack of communication and be raising this with them but I wouldn't fight against it. They will be putting him on this pathway to give him the best chance of doing well.

Sorry, long reply incoming @Arizona29

If you genuinely feel he is bright, but he was not able to get down on paper in the allotted time what he needed to, and so underperformed, then I am afraid you need to consider that he DOES have SEN needs.

In y9 a teacher casually referenced my DS’s autism at a parents evening, because her own boys were on the spectrum so she recognised it. We were left reeling… he did not have a diagnosis and no concerns had ever been raised. When I spoke to school they said they are not allowed to raise the possibility of SEN unless we raised it first. We were oblivious [despite having an older child with AuDHD and being ND friendly, so to speak... it presents completely differently from one child to another, one sex to another so we ‘missed it’]. When we asked why no-one had raised it with us when it was obviously impacting his in class performance and confidence, the Dty Head said ‘it never seemed the right time’.

Cue: frantic scramble to secure private assessments as NHS waiting lists would not allow us resolve his support and accommodation needs before GCSEs. He got extra time added to his exams very last minute [which sounds to be what your DS may need], but without additional support in class/lessons so it was still too late: he got 7 mediocre GCSEs and a BTEC but no place at 6th form as they required 7s.

He is now at a fab tech college, predicted A/A* in A Levels and off to uni interviews this weekend. But only because we had to sort out his assessments and move him to a 6th form setting that was geared towards kids who have an assortment of SEN needs (it’s not a remedial class, just a tech college that offers vocational/BTEC/apprentice courses with a tiny number of A Level and Access course pathways).

So, I think you need to sit with his HT and insist the SENCo is involved. You need to ascertain if they suspect there is a learning support need - autism, ADHD, dyslexia/dyspraxia etc. You need to consider whether you can fund getting the assessment done privately as you could have everything DS needs in place before he starts year 10. You also need to ascertain whether with that additional support/exam time he might remain on the main pathway, perhaps dropping one subject so that he could attend maths or English support - the latter was my DS’s issue, as was really understanding what was needed in exam questions - he, too, ‘knew the answers’ but was not understanding that it needed to be evidenced on the answer sheets.

And I would consider external tutoring in these topics/exam techniques as it positively impacts performance in all the other subjects. we did this for DS for Y12 only, and it helped him elevate his post GCSE grades from predicted AS levels of DCC to achieving AAB, so that he is now predicted A*A**A for A levels. The confidence he gained from great tutors really helped.

It cost us a fortune and we had to whack it on credit cards initially, but we felt he only had one shot at GCSEs. And my DH is still fuming that no one raised it with us in y7/8 when we might have got a referral via the GP and an appropriate support plan in school, but we have had to focus on where he is now. His self esteem was shot after his GCSE results and he didn’t speak to any of his class mates again after results day as he felt so humiliated (he’d been predicted 7-9s), though he has bumped into them recently and begun to open up, but only because he has made such progress.

I guess what I am saying is go into this asking - why do you think my bright boy is underperforming? What explanations might there be for why he is unable to get what is in his head onto the exam papers in the standard time allotted - and what assessments does he therefore need you and his dad to arrange? What do you see when you observe my boy in class (ie distractibility, focus, talkativeness, etc). Assuming you can get an assessment done and a diagnostic report highlights an issue, what options does your DS have in Y10/11? Could he potentially stay on a modified version of the main pathway, perhaps dropping a MFL for extra English (this was standard at my DSs school) or will they only consider the supported/reduced pathway. Happy to be DMd if you need.

What he needs to access A levels will depend on the school or college he goes to. Some ask for 8 or more grade 8s and 9s. Others would accept 5 x grade 5s. Check what’s available locally - don’t just look at your school.

As an aside, bottom set Maths could mean he’ll find science a bit of a struggle. Please don’t insist on him following a pathway that you think he deserves, or that makes him feel better. Have an open mind and be prepared to accept that this pathway may be more suitable. It’s never nice being told your kid isn’t that strong academically, but you need to find a way to get him the best results given he appears to be struggling a bit.

Can I also suggest you look into A level alternatives - BTECs, T levels etc. Great for kids that don’t get everything down on paper at one end of year exam, but still enable him to go to uni. A levels may not be the right path for him.

The only thing I would say is I don't know how you have got to year 9 to now your child is performing poorly in maths or struggling in other subjects. Have you never looked at homework to gauge what level they are at or asked at school?

WHY do people keep saying things like this to OP???

She has been quite clear that at parents evenings and in reports her DS has always been reported as performing as expected, which is why this is such a shock.

It seems that the formal year 9 exams/assessments are what have flagged this issue, rather than his more general performance, aside from being moved down a set in maths recently.

Kindly, he may be bright and intelligent but his scores are below average for his yesr group and he has been moved down to bottom set for Maths. Unless he is at a selective school this suggests otherwise OR it suggests there is a possible undiagnosed SEN such as slow processing or dyslexia especially as you mention his scores were low because he failed to finish papers. If possible and you can afford it have him assessed privately ASAP so that you know for sure and can address the situation with the school.

I would make an appointment with the Head or HOY and get to the bottom of why they have decided this course of action.

In the absence of SEN or a change of mind by them the other option is to try to change schools.

6 GCSEs in those subjects would be more than enough to do A levels and go to university. You can’t go to university without a pass in Maths and English though. Taking a reduced number of GCSES and getting higher grades could be the best option.

My main concern would be that he is being limited to choosing “practical” subjects.

If he does need extra support in Maths and English, they aren’t going to be suitable choices at A level. He isn’t interested in the practical subjects so they aren’t going to be great A level choices for him. That leaves him with a choice of sciences (which require good maths skills)) plus whatever language or humanity he picks or a subject that you are allowed to start from scratch at A level eg psychology. His A level options are being severely restricted.

Practical GCSES aren’t an easy option. Subjects like art are a real time thief because of the amount of coursework. Not a great choice if he needs to concentrate on revising on his other subjects. Some practical subjects require talent eg music, art, PE. You can still do well without talent because they have a lot of academic work too but it seems madness to suggest that a student that the school thinks needs academic support takes a subject that requires academic ability and a practical ability or skill that they may not have 🤷‍♀️

And if he isn’t interested in a subjects, he won’t do well.

A reduced number of GCSES might be the best option but I would be fighting the school restricting his choices to practical subjects. I suspect it might be a one size fits all approach to make timetabling easier.

I think you are panicking a bit, you need to breathe.

First as others have explained, English is 2 as is Science, so he would have 8.

Second you have until the end of the month, and even with half term there is time to sort this.

Next, the HT is saying to everyone they can't change their mind, but that is so they can timetable things. At minimum you could ask to put in 2 forms whilst thus gets sorted out, one for normal pathway and one for the SEN route.

8 GCSEs is fine for A levels. However there are also BTECs which you can go onto university with (see the threads in Further Education).

So deep breath.

In your situation I would

• put in 2 forms
• get a meeting with form tutor / senco / whoever made the pathway decision
• ask for processing screening

But you need to keep an open mind. Doing fewer subjects may allow him to succeed better. If this is the case then 'his friends laughing at him' is not a good reason for him to be on the wrong pathway.

OP I can understand why you're stressed, but this deadline will be being enforced in general across the school so that people don't think they can chop and change subjects past that date, not for a situation like yours where clarification and discussion is clearly needed.

Hopefully the school will come back to you soon and you will be able to have a meeting with the Head of Year or somebody helpful.

I do think you potentially need to be prepared for them to stand by their recommendation though given that your DS has been unable to finish his assessments, which does point to an issue (even if it's just exam anxiety) which could severely affect his performance in GCSEs and definitely could prevent him doing A-Levels/Degree if he fails them.