DS wants to repeat Year 13

Oh, sorry, EvilTwins says school won’t happen

Ok, eyes forwards, what would he like to do? Getting a job, in a place that trains managers and promotes staff, such as a supermarket might be a good bet.

OK: so your son claims to be remorseful and you would like to see him pull his socks up, knuckle down and succeed.

If he is allowed back to repeat yr 13 you will need to think very hard how you will support him.

The gym is not the problem. The phone is. Because he pisses time away glued to his phone.

For the love of god do something about his phone use. Make a contract with him: the phone stays with you when he goes to bed. The WiFi is turned off when he is doing his homework. The phone stays with you when he is doing his homework after school and at weekends.

He will have to catch up on this Yr 12 work as well as repeating the Y13 curriculum, because the A level
covers both.

I would restore gym membership but impose tight phone restrictions ,

If the school won’t allow him back, I would move towards seeing what he would like to do instead. Explore other options and qualifications or training he could look into etc.

No one on here knows what your school can do for your son

Other than those of us who understand how funding works. Giving the OP false hope will not help. I'm not trying to wind her up. I run a 6th form course. I understand how the funding works. Even if the school wants to give her DS another chance (and given his attitude over the last two years, I'm not sure why they would) unless they are in a very robust financial position, they can't do that. Exam entries alone cost hundreds of pounds. 6th form students attract about £4400 per year. No school has that amount of money spare.

You'd be amazed at how many times I've heard "How could I have physically forced him to go into school?" in my 20+ years as a teacher.

It's too late. Not sure how many times I can say it but And as for resitting year 13, if it means he gets his head down and gets his three a levels then I am for it but ONLY if he wises up and works next year and then moves on. Other than that, I wouldn't be suggesting Year 13 next year It's not going to happen. He cannot do that. He has blown his chances. The government will not fund it. He cannot return to school. Year 13 is not something that can simply be re-done because a teenager decides they want to. It's not like resitting GCSE Maths.

User20

Please don’t get more wound up due to this thread.

Life is short. Your DS has screwed up, he ‘appears’ to have realised this now (if it’s all an act you can deal with that later). Right now he needs your support. He needs you to believe in him. You know he’s a bright enough kid if he applies himself. Act like you believe he’s now going to make sensible decisions and start afresh.

Like most teenagers the ‘I might as well kill myself’ is probably a touch of the amateur dramatics, but what if it’s not? What if he really does understand how much he’s fucked up and really is in a state about what to do now...it could be a genuine cry for help.

Honestly, it’s time to stop being angry (and getting more wound up by some posters) and take a few deep breaths and think about the little boy he was and can still be underneath the huge teenager he is.

Write the letters, then talk to the school. No one on here knows what your school can do for your son.

Just hug him and think about the much bigger picture.

I think you need to sit down with him and his gcse certificates.
Did he fail English Literature and one of his sciences? Only having one science is very unusual for even an average student. Didn't you help pick his GCSE Options? I'm surprised that your school didn't explain to you why he wasn't doing at least 2 sciences considering that he was under 16?

OP it seems odd that you're now desperately trying to find out if he can re-sit Year 13 and claiming to be interested and supportive. Where was that interest and support when he "decided to stay home and watch tv when he was meant to be in school."?

AS is not the end qualification for sixth form students so is not taken into account in any funding conversations. This provides an opportunity for retaking at the end of year 12 this isn't applicable in year 13 once A Level exams have been sat.

My son who got similar GCSE's just refused to work for his AS levels and even though he passed all of his subjects at AS in Year 12 albeit with low grades one grade D and two grade E's. He point blank refused to do Year 13. He left school and we were furious but insisted he get a job. He worked in a warehouse for 10 months and he found out the hard way it was really hard work. He then asked us if he could have another go at doing A Levels. We told him if he could convince his school Sixth Form to let him try again we would agree. He managed to persuade the Head of Sixth Form but he was only allowed one year to complete them. He moved on to A2 for two subjects had a D and E grade in, but also re-sat AS as well and started a new subject which he had to attend both AS and A2 lessons. He did work much harder and somehow managed to come out with three C grades, he was only 3 marks off a B in Maths. He said he was happy with his grades but did not want to go to Uni. He then decided to study to do a Class Two lorry driving course and passed that and has not looked back. He just needed an extra year to grow up. He now earns almost as much as our daughter who got her degree and then Masters in Business. I would tell your son he has to get a job for a year and then see if that motivates him to change, otherwise he will just waste another year.

titchy is correct. ASs don't count as a full Level 3 qualfication. I have two students in my Year 13 cohort who did Year 12, took AS exams but then dropped out and came to me to do a BTEC Extended Diploma instead.

Both you and he need to accept that he's burned his bridges where it comes to school. There is clearly a lack of honesty and/or deliberate cover up on his part because what you perceive to be his GCSE results cannot be correct. It's too late now for remorse and wishing that he worked harder. He didn't.

Ha ha ha, he wants to go to uni and study law or criminology??!

Well, I want to fly to the moon...

His behaviour has not shown what he wants. He’s had two fucking years to get off his arse and work!

I would not support repeating a year. Time for tough love. Work. See how he gets on. Might drum into him the value of hard work and exam results.

ASs aren't a full level 3 qualification that's why.

Unfortunately he cannot offer to pay as a private candidate (sweet idea though that as) while he's enrolled at the school. This would be another funding consideration for the VP as they will have to pay hundreds for his exams without renumeration from the DFE. There is no way around this that I'm aware of if he is counted as an on-roll student. The alternative would be being a private candidate but then he cannot attend lessons or have any access to online resources from the school.

The DFE or governors will not need to be involved in a decision, although possibly the Headteacher would.

If he goes to the VP and asks - who else is involved in this process? Do they have to take it to the Department For education or the board of governors?

OP you seem unwilling to take it from two people who have an understanding of 6th form funding that this is not an option for your DS. It won't matter how remorseful he claims to be. The school will not be able to get funding for him for another year (and neither will an FE college) no matter who they ask. It's not personal, it's how the system works. Students are funded if they start a Level 3 course in the year they turn 19 but only if they don't already have Level 3 qualifications Getting a U in an A Level counts as a completed qualification. I'm not sure how much clearer it can be.

Even if your DS does not want to show you his GCSE results, the school will be able to do so. In a UK state school, he will not just have one science - he'll either have two grades for combined science or three for triple science. Did he not take English Lit either? There's no grade for that. And Maths & English Language will be numbers - whether or not you understand them. I strongly suggest you contact the school on Monday to get some facts straight, then you will be in a better position to help him.

Oh, one final thing that may be worth trying to negotiate with the school is if he withdraws from his ICT BTEC before the exam next week. From your post this suggests that he would finish year 13 with no Level three qualifications which mean that he could do year 13 next year and they'd get up to 85% of their original funding.

Please don't take this as a recommendation though as a) we don't have BTECs and I'm not completely sure they can be withdrawn from in the same way as A Levels which are increasing 100% examined so nothing has been 'banked' before June of year 13, and b) they still may not want to offer him a re-take year as it most likely sets a poor precendence for year 12 students who need to understand the importance of working in year 13 the first time round, and may appear unsupportive to teachers who have tried to help him this year, so the school may decide he should leave regardless of whether he's completed his remaining qualification.

How can you not know what GCSEs he has? What did his teachers tell you? Why did he drop one subject in year 10?