To ask if SEN children in mainstream should always do all 8+ GCSEs?

My DD is dropping one. I know at another school any pupil can do extra English and maths instead of a language if that isn't a realistic goal for them, no EHCP needed. Is your son happy at school and enjoying learning at his own pace? If so maybe stick with it and they may readjust things after he has started the courses and they see how things are going. If it's all too much for him anyway you could call an emergency EHCP review and try to find a more suitable school for him.

It’s the school and SENCO you need to work with, and start ASAP.

Our EHCP was horribly out of date and basically irrelevant. But we worked directly with the school so that DD could cut down to what worked for her.

DD was allowed to drop PE, art and dance/drama, and reduce from 10 to 8 GCSEs. So she had less work and more free time to focus on her subjects. It made a huge difference.

Are you happy with the school SENCO generally?

If you can afford or if rhe school/senco can push for a re -evaluation I think that would be really helpful, as you need an expert to give an up to date and tested view of what his capability, capacity and current needs are. I think if you have that it'll be much easier to fight the "he might surprise you" nonsense because youll have science/experts on your side. I think it'll be important to get the school on board asap, as it sounds like a difficult conversation with your child as to what their future might actually look like compared to their peers and siblings, which could be hard.
My son is in a similar (although different) situation, and because mainstream school is so inflexible and so stressful for him (luckily we've been able to afford a private primary for a few years but now need secondary) we are looking at options like tutoring at home, which means we can decide the syllabus, gcses etc. I'm not sure if you've thought about options if mainstream school just doesn't work? There are tutoring hubs near us that provide 5 gcses (normally English, maths, science and 1 other) and then the rest of the time they can fill with college courses (a lot of colleges offer courses from aged 14 instead of school), sports, drama, art clubs etc. Ideally we won't need that route but we have a list of back up options for if secondary "normal" style schooling isn't working. I would suggest researching a few options and seeing what might be a good fall back if the school push for 8 gcses and he begins to find that overwhelming and stressful, as preserving mental health is so important.
Ideally pushing for an ehcp review, getting a state funded assessment of need etc should all be provided but we have found it all so difficult and painful and we have been lucky enough to pay for it ourselves - it's made the world of difference to understanding what our son needs. If you have the option don't be afraid to take things into your own hands, it feels a bit like defeat at first but when you realise how hopelessly slow and broken the send system is, and how much better the options are if you can diy, it's insane. It shouldn't be that way, but I can't see it changing. Our Ed psych review was maybe £1000 which I appreciate is costly, but it took 6 weeks to see her and another 5 weeks for the report - done. Meanwhile the school and send system will tell you it's impossible and waiting lists are years long. It's ridiculous.

Overall I think the system is lacking, for students that cannot take a full set of GCSEs I do wonder if they would be better suited to a more vocational set up of a school.

A thriving location where they learn less quadratic equations and more baking, catering, metalwork, woodwork, engineering, dance, photography, textiles, art, plumbing, electrics, bricklaying etc. learning skills that are not so much sit down and be quiet more get up, move around and find out. Ideally I’d love for these schools to be seen as equal to mainstream.
Yet no, we send them to general mainstream as there isn’t the funding, and there will be even less now. Those with behavioural issues are having issues daily as they hate sitting down to write, all the while other mainstream children have their own issues / trying to learn . How can a teacher with 32 students facilitate everything? How about an inspiring room with fun things to learn?
I do part see why schools cannot accommodate lots of changes, every 3 or so classes in each year have a set timetable, to release students here and there for set subjects would be tricky and need more staff which often there are no funds for. The EHCP is meant to equate to funding but would not fund enough to cover for extra teachers to cover all the slots in all the subjects. It would be a part baked solution.

First of all, it's not about having SEN or EHCP, It's about the individual. My SEN daughter did 11 GCSEs and the lowest she got were two "7"s. I work in SEND in a grammar school. We have students with EHCPs getting results similar to my daughter, and then getting 3-4 A*s. People with SEN are individuals and to ask if they should generally have a reduced timetables is ablest. For some having support makes the playing field equal. Others with SEN needs a lot of support and still find it hard to reach the general goals. It's about the individual, what do they need, how can they be helped? What can your son do, what can't he do , what's difficult, how does the environment suit him?

What do the resource base provide? I did 8 GCSEs in a mainstream school years ago (while my peers did 10) and I worked with my one-to-one teaching assistant while the lessons the subjects I'd dropped were on for my peers. Could your child go and work in the resource base? Unless they are really set up for this, I don't imagine the school could just slot your child in to extra English and Maths.

DS is taking 5 GCSE’s two of which are practical and this doesn’t include English. This leaves space for interventions and fuctional English. He’s in mainstream.

The demand for him to sit 8 GCSEs will be because it has an impact on the schools Progress 8 score (it has nothing to do with meeting your son's needs).

If he's likely to get a grade on GCSE maths and English (and I means any grade at all) then there's no point him doing functional skills. Colleges generally don't like students coming with level 1/2 functional skills as it negatively effects the funding they get for gcse resits which your son will have to do. Also functional skills are not easier - I would say in maths they're actually more difficult for many students as the comprehension required is greater than on a maths GCSE.

For info: I teach GCSE maths and psychology in a specialist KS4 only setting where we teach mainly GCSE but do enter for functional skills entry levels where students would not achieve a GCSE grade. I also have 3 DC, 1 with a dual diagnosis of ASD and ADHD.

The advice from pp on getting your son's needs reassessed and his ehcp reviewed is good. The LA should have an echp caseworker attached to your son who should be involved with his annual review. The echo give the LA statutory obligations to make provision and they delegate to the school. So if school are not following the ehcp/meeting need or are refusing to update it then your first point of call is the LA.

There's probably no point going guns blazing at the school; better to approach the issues calmly and methodically to get them resolved. The nuclear option is a send tribunal after all other routes have been exhausted (not shouting your mouth off at some teacher who have the power to do sweet FA)

OP, look at the DfE’s consultation on school performance measure proposals (docs published yesterday - read word documents at the bottom here ). There is a section on students for whom 8 qualifications isn’t suitable. It isn’t the whole answer to your q but might help you gain traction when speaking with your child’s school if they see the government is consulting in it.

Do you mean 8 subjects or 8 GCSEs? English and science both count for two.
I work in a mainstream high-school and some SEN pupils do functional skills some do Maths and or English.
Surely there's no point putting him in for GCSEs if he wont pass them and it wont look good on their results.

I agree with calling an early ‘emergency’ review. I would be looking at alternative provision.

I moved my dd from mainstream to SEN specialist setting for year 7. She had the potential to sit some GCSE’s but would have struggled in mainstream. She managed to sit 3 GCSE’s in SEN school, managed to get a 5 in maths but failed English and science (science was a last minute entry). She’s now 19 and still doing functional skills in English in a SEN college, she will likely leave education in June as she has not been offered what was promised (a catering course). She wants to do Art at a MS college but LA will likely refuse as she would need 1:1 support.

Children being forced to take x amount of GCSE’s is just proof of how education is no longer suitable for a lot of children. Education needs to be more tailored to suit all abilities.

I know you can formally request a reassessment of needs, but personally, I wouldn’t.

Its an early/emergency review you asking for and as @ExistingonCoffee said Ipsea have template letters.

As part of this you can request a reassessment of needs. Its what I did. Is the school senco supportive?

Request an early review now. On their website, IPSEA has a model letter you can use. Ensure all the necessary advice and information is sought and circulated prior to the AR meeting. This is essential to ensuring a productive AR meeting.

You can request a formal reassessment of needs, and IPSEA has a model letter for that, but I wouldn’t personally. That is because you may still end up appealing anyway only having wasted the time taken up by the reassessment of needs. I would use the AR process to pursue amendments.

That is not true. Ipsea have a template letters if he has not been seen or asked by an EP since yr5? Its imperative he is seen and they have an up to date assessment to inform what his needs are and how they should be met moving forward.

Get the template letters from ipsea, edit, send it to school senci, head, ehco coordinator and head of send AND the director of childrens services at your local authority. He is absolutely entitled to an up today assessment of need.

All of this was handled for us by the head of the RP. There's nothing in DS's EHCP about reduced workload either but it was just baked in that the workload should be set to help him succeed, not fail. It flexed quite a lot through the 2 years too, according to what he could cope with.

Also dropping one GCSE (often MFL) in favour of extra maths and English is already baked in as a mainstream option in a lot of schools, not just for SEN but for anyone who is going to have work hard for their maths and English passes.

Obvs you may have already had these conversations but I would try to get a meeting with the RP lead and see what they can do. I don't know what his strengths are but eg removing Eng Lit and replacing with extra homework time or something could be transformative. The rules absolutely should be different for RP children, the extra staff are there for them so they should be able to come out of class when needed. And the evidence that they need this extra provision has already been provided, which is how they got the RP place.

@HolyCowrie I'm afraid too many schools have this blanket policy and it does no one any favours.
My son is now 21 and at uni. He had ASD and had a very poor start to life, he was in special school when I adopted him at age 8.
We were very lucky it seems to have a school which focused on the individual.
My son did 5 GCSEs and 3 BTECs. The BTECs took a lot of pressure off as they were mostly course work and were done and dusted before GCSE exams started.
We are some years on and things change so I wouldn't want to offer advice other than don't wait for the wheels to fall off. That will put more stress on to your son.
I did stress to my son that he shouldn't look at what others are doing or achieving and to just do the best he could.
We looked ahead to college courses and found that he would have lots of options with just Maths and English. He was confident about Maths so we put most effort into English, including extra tuition outside school.
Having just seen your last post. My son went to college and did a BTEC - as I say now at uni. Things got much better for him when he could do the things he was good at - Maths and Science and not writing essays and trying to analyse Shakespeare
Good luck

My son has a EHCP, he was told he did not have to sot all of them and one of the GCSEs could be practical (adnan i think) and also there is always the option to go for the foundation paper instead of the higher paper.
you shouldnt have to fight for this, it is pretty standard and can be discussed with sendco

ARPs are all different. In ours it's completely bespoke to the child. There was a form that had to be filled in for the main school, which I padded out with fictitious GCSEs for the timetabling, but by agreement with the ARP DC never went to a single lesson of them and spent those timetable slots in the unit doing life skills or homework.

Incidentally sciences can be sat as single awards including at foundation level, eg he could be entered for foundation level chemistry and not physics or biol at all. Whether school can accommodate that might be tricky - we did it by coming out of class lessons and getting individual tutoring in the ARP.

Please dont wait for it all to go wrong, this will cause so much harm. What does his EHCP say? When was he last assessed by an educational Psychologist? If it was ages ago its worth asking for reassessment of needs perhaps .

Definitely argue that he needs qualifications that will support his future. Do a bit if research on what you think might suit, ie functional skills . Gcses in favourite subjects maybe if you feel he could but there are lots of options. Does his school only offer gcses?

This is usually a school level decision ie there isn’t usually a local authority or academy trust level policy.

i worked at a school with a Sen unit and our usual policy was to double enter for the gcse and for entry level however that was for students who might not even get a grade 1 at GCSE. If school think he will get between 1-3 then they are likely to resist dropping lots.

schools make different decisions on extra maths and English. Some have large numbers doing reduced GCSEs and a very big additional tuition group others prefer to do it in other ways - 1:1, tutor time groups etc,

This is dont understand what there is to gain by overwhelming a child and forcing them to fail.

Why not take a reduced amount of gcses or equivalent functional skills qualifications that they can pass. So get English and maths and then what subjects does your child enjoy? What would support their future life,,development and transition to adulthood. Far better to study and enjoy a smaller amount of exams that they can hopefully achieve (to a level appropriate to them) in than force them to take 8 gcses only for them to fail them all AND likely damage their mental health and well being.