Low GCSE expectations - what have your state schools done to support?

I think an awful lot here depends on the school and what they are set up to offer.

In most schools, it would be unusual to allow a student to drop 3/4 subjects this early on in Y10. Most schools also don't offer part time timetables long term, as they are not meant to be used in this way. As she progresses through Y11, it's more likely that you/she will be able to get the sort of accommodations that she wants.

Not every school has streams that offer additional maths/english lessons, either. So your options do depend a bit on what the school is able to offer.

The thing is, in Y11 especially, you do get a lot of students asking to drop a subject and use that time to "revise in the library" etc. In most cases, it isn't workable or appropriate- which is why schools may seem resistant at first.

Given she obviously has various challenges, it does perhaps make sense to look at an official part time timetable in the short term- which would mean her coming home to study, rather than studying in school. However, depending on how her timetable looks, it probably wouldn't be easy to set this up so that she just went in for English/Maths/Science.

The school's long term goal would likely be getting her back to more full time attendance in Y11.

You sound like you really want to help her which is great. Getting her tuition in maths and Eng will certainly help. However, your niece's parent will need to step us to supervise her doing work and revision at home. Even if she is allowed to drop subjects and sit in a room studying on a tablet, she actually needs to be reliable enough to use the time to study. If she is not self motivated, it will be a waste of time and she may also then turn to messing around with other kids who are out of lessons for whatever reason.

Further to my answers above, both my DC, neither of who had EHCPs were able to drop a subject.
DD1 was able to drop History Feb y11 after a recent dyspraxia diagnosis and bombing out of both History & Eng Lang mocks. Dropping history allowed for extra work on Eng Lang leading to passing it.
DD2 was able to drop Geography March y10 after not coping with general work load. Then covid hit and it all went to pot anyway.

We allow PT timetables but only very rarely. So we might let a student drop RE, and give them 2 extra periods in study base in that time.
A very very few students - all of whom have ECHP - are attending alternative provision, so they do English, Maths and maybe one option, but are educated elsewhere the rest of the time. It very much depends where you are - our AP is incredibly limited and we can only access it when someone else moves on. We currently have 3 y11 in AP and 5 in y10 desperately needing those places.

We absolutely do permit part time timetables, and this is sometimes kids going home at lunch, or only rocking up at 10 am and leaving early. Or going to learning support/library for some lessons. We offer extra lessons in maths and english from y7-y11 and a student at her level would definitely already be in those and doing at least one less GCSE, then in y10 and 11 we offer extra GCSE ( well foundation level really) science and again those students would typically have dropped at least 1 GCSE ( or never started the full complement).
The school may well also have a deal with some alternative providers to help kids like your niece. I appreciate the only parent left on the scene is massively overstretched but the school seem to have been rather less than proactive with a kid with such poor attendance and associated issues,

The parents seem quite hands off?

This could be an issue if the school think she won't be working / encouraged to work in the freed up periods. You can't realistically drive it from 3 hours away.

(My comments on Eng Lit are based on how well DD knows Macbeth despite never studying it at school, similarly A Christmas Carol and also An inspector Calls. If you watch something, read the study notes and discuss, you can get quite a long way.)

History is a lot of revision. As is Geography.
RE is imo more straightforward.

Anything with coursework is great if she can keep up with it, but dire if not.

English Lit is not so bad if the plays / books are available as films as watch them enough and quotes go in by osmosis, but the poetry stuff is tougher.

You say she 'won't choose to commute'. I kind of don't blame her. If DD used college transport it would be an hour door to door for her, which she wouldn't cope with. So we drive her and it takes us an hour round trip twice a day, 4 days a week which isn't doable for most families. We are lucky we can.

You don’t necessarily need the school to agree as she could still go to the lessons but you could basically just decide on the 5 and focus all outside school attention on them. Food tech wouldn’t be a bad one as that’s 50% course work! With my ds (asd) I just chose the 5 I thought I could understand enough of to help him pass (history, re and English lit) and then got him tutors for english lang and maths. He still went to the lessons for the others. He nearly passed science despite knowing nothing and doing no additional study, maybe as a lot of it is multiple choice.

My son's school let him drop one gcse subject. He still had to attend the lessons and sit at the back of the class with headphones on and a laptop to do catch up work/homework revision.

As parents, we got him enrolled with a private engiush and maths tutor. Getting him involved with army cadets was a life saver. He wanted a part time job so he wrote his cv and took it in to various places. Attended an interview by himself and was successful at getting a put wash job in a local pub. This boosted his confidence no end. It also keeps him off the streets when trouble is brewing with the local teenagers.

But in all honesty the school offered very little support and it was mainly up to us and our son to boost grades.

So at our school this is dealt with in a case by case basis. We do regularly put students on a part time timetable and I currently teach two Year 10s where we've done this- but in both cases it's because they have alternative educational provision elsewhere. There are charities who offer 'things' to vulnerable students (can't be more specific. Sorry. But they're a relaxed programme).

I teach a year 9 with a complex home life and all the resulting problems you'd expect. He's only in in the afternoons at the moment- but I think he's being offered support and the idea would be to get him in full time at some point.

And my Year 11 class contained several students not doing all the GCSEs. The problem would be what do you do with them when the others are in lessons. In our cases those kids were given an additional couple of support lessons- but I wouldn't say they were well run, and are mainly a babysitting club for tricky students. You don't want school refusers in a situation where lessons are disregulated.

Post pandemic school refusers are a big issue. We don't have a solution- but, yes, I'd suspect your school should be able to accommodate things.

Good luck.

Hi Op,

You sound like you are doing so much for her, hats off to you

It is highly unlikely a school would let a pupil drop so many GCSEs unless there were extremely severe circumstances, as the poster previously mentioned.

It may be possible to drop 1, and even then it usually involves many meetings etc so see of other options to avoid this have been tried.

However, it's Y10, and Spring term in Y11, possibly Autumn term, is where schools start the additional support with revision or booster classes - there is time to see improvement with your neice, and the school will likely want to see the mock GCSE results before making any decisions.

How many subjects will rely on coursework, usually this is just the options, can you help her as much as possible with this to boost her result?

Good luck

I keep x-posting with you What course is she looking at. Are you sure there isn't a level 2 version of it?

OK if it is trauma based and she can manage part days but not full days this is what I would do:

Between now and end of summer holidays focus on catching up some maths & science (and maybe favourite GCSE whatever that is) There are loads of online resources such as seneca, primrose kitten, corbett maths etc.

Then when she has got her year 11 timetable look at how it is organised and think about strategic subject dropping based on what level of attendance she can manage and how she feels about the subjects.

Even if she gets 5 passes she probably isn't going to be doing A levels is she? So quite probably better to do Level 2 BTEC (even if qualifying for level 3) as then she can keep up with work whilst recovering.

My DD is having trauma related therapy and it is exhausting . Also she can't manage 4 full days in college but doing an easier course means she can miss some sessions and still keep up.

Yes, my school did have students on reduced timetables in extreme circumstances but they did not achieve well and would have been much better off in the classroom.

BBC bitesize is a fantastic resource for catching up after the odd day of illness or to revise but can not compete with a classroom where learning takes place in many different forms. School isn't just about attainment it is also about learning to work with others and social conventions something she'll be missing if she is absent alot.

You say she might as well drop food tech but even if she never catches up she will learn useful skills. Even if she drops to 5 subjects it is unlikely she'll get 5s at GCSE if her attendance remains poor. Many students like your niece flourish when they start college and redo their GCSEs.

I would stop paying for the tutor and start paying for counselling for her so she can process and move on from whatever is holding her back.