Doing a language GCSE early - pros and cons?

DD1 did something similar. We had lived abroad for 5 years and DD had attended the local school for most of primary in the local language.

When we returned to UK DD took the GCSE in the first year of secondary and the A level in year 9. So by the time she took her 'proper' GCSEs she already had an A grade A level in the bag.

Taking the exams early was excellent for learning things like exam technique and building confidence.

As it turned out, when DD took her proper A levels she didn't do as well as hoped (there were reasons). That A grade A level proved to be a godsend as she was able to get on the course she wanted at university.

If DS is enjoying the study and is able to achieve a good grade then I would encourage him to keep going. It isn't all about whether or not an achievement is 'counted.

something else to keep in mind with early exams ( not necessarily relevant to this case, but just in general)

It is NOT the case that you can "try an exam early, and retake it later if you don't get the grade you want" lots of people think you can, but you can't.

You need to declare ALL exams taken on most applications, you can't leave off the earlier lower grade - that would be considered fraud.

So if you "try" maths in year 9 and get a 4, then retake in year 11 and get an 8, your maths grade is NOT 8.

Your first maths grade is 4 and your RETAKE maths grade is 8. In some situations the retake grade is all you need, but in other situations, you compare badly to someone who's first attempt in year 11 gained them a 6.

Again, not important for this particular child, but worth keeping in mind for others thinking of taking exams early for whatever reason

Marty The issue is that if you take 2 a year for 4 years, that is far less intense than 8 in one go. So it doesn't show the young person can cope with the intensity of the A level years.

For a while a number (but minority) of schools tried doing things like 2 in y9, 2 in y10 and then 5/6 in y11. This was 'frowned' upon, especially if early one included maths and Eng lang where they 'settled' for a lower grade than they would have got later etc.

That really isn't the same as taking one early as an extra (as in this case) or for experience (in the way that some schools do RE short course early).

I'm not british and finding this whole thing a bit confusing. So students have to take all of their subjects crammed in one year because otherwise it's too easy ? So basically the idea is just to make things harder for them... Because...?

The concern that they may have forgotten some of their skill is fair enough but then why the "done in one sitting" rule ? So if a student takes 10 gcse's at age 11 that's okay and it counts, but if they spread them out between ages 11 and 15 suddenly it's not ?

@TulipLightBulbs with regard to 2022 GCSEs up in their air no final decision has been made as to whether they will be TAG or actual exams at this point. As an external student evidencing to the centres satisfaction maybe harder for TAG.
Again my reference to the way universities look at GCSEs is true for certain Unis and they are doing it to stop what they say as certain schools 'gaming' the system by doing GCSEs early and possible obtaining better grades due to less work load. Plus all 8 sat together gives them a better idea how someone is likely to perform in Uni exams, but I say it is some not all. From my understanding more likely to be the top flight particularly where they are faced with students with a large number of 8s and 9s.
Through my profession I am seeing a large number of students applying for courses where everyone have a string of 8s and 9s and definitely it is felt if not sat in the same exam session they 'don't count'.
As I say long term plans need to be considered.

I think it is a very good idea, TulipLightBulbs. At the very least it isn't going to hurt him and if he does well it will be another string to his bow.

Most kids do a couple of GCSEs a year early, then they are out of the way and the pupils can concentrate on other subjects.

So disappointing how few schools offer A level German :( in my medium sized city there was only one sixth form destination (out of seven) that had anyone taking it in this year's yr 13. More will offer it to be fair (at least two others) but no takers or not enough.

If your school lets him take GCSE German a year early, but don't teach German, I don't see why they wouldn't let him sit A-level German too, if he wanted to continue at the same school. (We certainly welcome this!)

Why would someone bright enough to do GCSE maths 3 years early, and capable enough to want to do it for A level, not have gone on to do Additional/Further maths and/or statistics? Crazy!

To be fair @54321nought your points are valid (and similar to the one I made about home educated DC) but would surely not apply in this case. The OP's DS will clearly have enough GCSEs taken at one sitting to validate his application for sixth form or university.

And as I suggested, if he can keep up with study of German between end of yr 10 and end of yr 11 he should be fine to do A level, if he wants to. I agree tho, he would certainly have to do that. Teaching A level German (or French, or maths, indeed) to someone who hadn't looked at it for a year or more would be hard work. The student you mention who had had a three-year break from maths was very badly advised, I agree.

Not my experience as I've explained above as DD's school did half in Y10 and half in Y11, though I take your point about doing just 1 early.

Maybe we're talking at slightly cross purposes, though, as I was addressing the 'don't count' comment in terms of higher/further education – they certainly did count as far as DD's university applications were concerned, otherwise she would have been considered not to have GCSEs in 2 of her 3 A level subjects.

I agree it's not ideal to have a year not studying a subject you want to take for A level (let alone 3!), but it's perfectly manageable.

I work enrol students for sixth form every year.

We only look at GCSEs taken together, and disregard any taken early, as it is easy to get a top grade in any subject if it is the only one you are doing.

Also, we would not consider a student suitable for an A level course if they had not been studying that subject the previous year.

This leads to all sorts of upsets and disappointments. Last year we had an applicant who had taken GCSE maths 3 years early, and was very distressed not to be eligible for the maths A level course, but she hadn't done any maths for 3 years!

And of course, we have a lot of HE studenta who literally take one GCSE every 6 months for 5 years, and come out with 10 top grades, and are upset when we count that as having 2 GCSEs, as they only took 2 in year 11, so are not eligible for any A levels.

These students normally then take a 1 year level 2 class, and if they do well in that, they can then progress to level 3 ( although many actually can't cope with the level 2)

In your case, I would not worry too much. If your lad takes the exam at the end of year 10, then it will still be (just!) countable as being studied and taken at the same time as his other GCSEs

I would certainly not recommend taking it in year 9 though, we automatically disregard anything taken that early. Some other schools and colleges might not, but many do

A friend also told me GCSEs done earlier or later "don't count", so he might not be able to do it for A level at 6th form?

This is a myth, albeit a surprisingly common belief. DD did 6 GCSEs in Y10 and 6 in Y11, and then 2 of her A levels were in subjects she had finished in Y10. It made no difference to her university applications.

I did both French and Spanish early, which freed up some time for me to pick up German from scratch in Y11! Got A + A* for the early, and a B for German, which I was proud of in the year.

I really enjoyed the challenge, and was still able to do both French and Spanish at GCSE.

My eldest did a Latin GCSE as part of an initiative in our city for state schools. That was in year 10. She did it as an evening class and was able to cope fine.

sorry for typos, someone who was HE took that should say.

French and German teacher/tutor here.

I agree with others, two years abroad as a child does not make him a native speaker. Well done him for working so hard.

Early GCSEs don't help the school but that's not an issue here. I think the only caveat is that if someone who was HE too, for example, two GCSEs every year for four years, it would be easier to gain several high grades, so that might be viewed with suspicion by a uni looking for high GCSE grades (as in, would they have done so well at one sitting). I beliee universities want to see a number of GCSEs gained in one year, so to speak, but again, he will clearly do that at school.

His German GCSE will still certainly "count". If he wants to do A level at the usual age, the only concern would be that he would need to keep up his skills for the intervening year, but from what he has done it doesn't sound as tho that would be an issue.

my Ds was born in Germany and attended local schools until we moved when he was 8. He took igcse German when he was 11 and AS level when he was 14. We were living in China then and his school had no objection to him taking the exams early. He completed an internship with an Austrian company (in Austria) after his first year at university (not studying languages). Did not seem to be any negative impact associated with him sitting the exams early.

Ps I did mfl at uni and although there were no genuine “native speakers” there were def some who had spent a few years in the appropriate country.
Native speaker means lives and breathes the language as well as their 1st language. Not just good at it.

If he’s British and spent 2 years as a child in Austria, I’m not surprised his german is good but I don’t think any uni would consider him a “native speaker”.
In your shoes I’d encourage him to take it early and get a good grade. As long as he’s doing a good range of GCSEs in year 11 I can’t think of any disadvantages.

My last round of UCAS applications was 2 years ago, but I am 95% sure that it asks which languages you speak as part of the general form.

The state grammar that my DS1 is attending from September do a language GCSE in year 9. There is nothing stopping them taking that language at A Level (or University) as long as they get the right grade.

I did it early for similar reasons- was great to get one ‘in the bag’. Then did A-level early too. Go for it!