Can I share our good news with you all?

[DeathyMcDeathStarFace]

Ds1 has high functioning aspergers, he's very intelligent and shows it with subjects like maths, computing, sciences etc. He can do a lot of things in English and PE, but they are not his strong points, he goes as far as saying he hates English, and he is not very expressive at all.

Just over one and a half years ago he sat his GCSEs, got some A*s, As, Bs etc but, with the English (and the new grading system of 1 - 9, which for his year was only for Maths and English, all other subjects were A - G grades) he managed a grade of 2.

This is not classed as a pass grade, but the school know him and allowed him to do his A-levels, while having more English lessons to re-sit his English GCSE.

After a few months he re-sat, got a 2 again,

After another few months he re-sat for a second time, got a 2 again,

Started his second year of A-levels September 2018, continued with English. Sat his exam again recently while the year 11s were doing their mock exams and he was doing A-level mocks. Finally, after a delay of an extra week, got the results today....

HE PASSED, WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO!

We are soooooooo pleased for him, he hates English but has not given up, his school did not give up on him, his teachers persevered and he can stop doing extra English lessons for the rest of his A-levels.

He only had one more chance to re-sit before leaving school. He is, to put it mildly, chuffed, as we (and I am sure his teachers) are too.

No wonder you're so proud! That's incredible perseverance!

Congratulations to him (and to you for the amount of support you must be giving him).

Yay !!!

whoo hoo! Well done young Deathy

Our Aspie DS has the same thing with English, at least it's good to know it's possible to re-take.

Brilliant news, well done to your ds!!

Very well done to him. X

Love threads like this, sharing good news.
Well done to all of you!

Congratulations!
well done DSDeathyMcDeathstarface

After DS GCSE mock results our fears have surfaced that he may well be facing this too.

Yay! Well done to your lovely boy! Well done to you too for teaching him resilience and encouraging him all the way.

Wow well done to your DS for never giving up, huge respect to him!

Thank you everyone, I have just realised my shoulders feel a bit lighter, I didn't realise how much it was weighing down on me, hopefully ds is feeling better too. I might have a little cry once everyone is in bed, of relief and happiness.

He doesn't show his emotions overly much but he came in from school with a smile on his face today, a pretty rare sight. When he handed me the envelope he had my first thought was 'has he passed?' but I couldn't believe it until I saw it written on the certificate.

@WhoNose88 many years ago dh (possibly undiagnosed aspie), who is good with languages in general, failed his English GCSEs and had to re-sit twice while doing his A-levels, then went to evening classes with his mum before he passed (with good grades).

Two years later, when I did my GCSEs, I passed first time, but friends didn't. They were planning on doing A-levels but weren't allowed, I'm not sure why not. Knowing them as well as I did it is possible they didn't do well enough in other subjects too, so they had to do a different qualification, something like a BTEC or GNVQ, not exactly sure.

Even if ds had failed again this last time school would have allowed him to finish his A-levels as they know he is capable of passing them, they seemed to take him as an individual and looked at him and his capabilities, rather than following a formula (get a certain grade in English and Maths and you can do A-levels) they look at individual abilities, SEN etc and guide into the right courses for them. (But they didn't explain the process to us, only him, and he didn't take it in. It took a secondary school teacher at church to tell us what was going to happen.)

Well done!!!!

It's always a thrill when a pupil passes an exam they find really difficult. You must be so proud of him for his perseverance, he's stuck it out so long. And it's paid off!!!

Many, many congratulations!

Whoop whoop! That is so lovely to hear/read.

Parent of ASD child here who also happens to teach English in a specialist provision. English can be very hard for some of my ASD students, although I have had a few students who were absolutely excellent at creative writing but dumbstruck by the new GCSE exams and the way you have to answer the questions. Not easy! (In fact the new GCSE system is making even NT kids tear their hair out, and me too. Ridiculous!)

Well done to your DC!!!

What I love about your post Op is the fact that your ds persevered.
I am constantly instilling in my dcs the importance of resilience. Every very successful person I know persevered despite setbacks and failures
Well done to your ds and also well done to you. I am sure that your support was instrumental in him passing

That’s very inspiring perseverance!

I am so delighted for him and for you. .

What an amazing achievement, and what an amazing boy.

You should be proud, and take a little bit of that credit for yourself x

So very pleased, we went through something similar with DD, a year older than your DS and in the last cohort that did the old English syllabus including coursework. She had hearing problems from a toddler to early teens, including hearing aids all through primary, which obviously affected her English.

She missed first attempt at English Language by 2 marks, went to re-mark with no success.

Started at college, we got a tutor (who I didn’t particularly take to but DD seemed to like her). She re took in Nov and again missed it by a mark or two.

At that point the head of English at the college called us and suggested that she re did her coursework, which had been carried over from school as it was the same exam board, but was a low C. The idea being to improve it enough to get her over the line in the summer (her last attempt at the old syllabus). I questioned the logic of this but he said please, just trust me. She re-did 4 pieces of coursework in about 6 weeks.

It affected her BTEC course (she missed deadlines and got lower marks as a result) BUT I cried when she passed her English in the summer of 2017. The relief I felt was indescribable and I can fully understand how happy you are tonight.

She obstinately carried on with her BTEC last year, despite us suggesting she re start a different course once the English was out of the way. She passed but found the 2 yrs a strain overall and is now having a gap year (or 2) before deciding what to do, working and volunteering and planning travel and volunteering abroad.

She has no idea what to do long term, but whatever she decides, it will be made much easier knowing she has got 7+ GCSEs including the holy grail of Maths and English.

We have so many friends whose kids get a string of A*s that just wouldn’t understand our pure joy that she had got her English at last. Some actually make it clear that they look down on kids with anything below A, but I am proud of my girl. She got there in the end.

Well done to your DS, as you say, perseverance is everything and will hopefully stand them in good stead in the future. Sometimes those that get it the hard way appreciate it more.

Well done your DS!
Received a similar email recently from an acquaintance whose son had passed their driving test after multiple attempts (also Aspergers).
I remember feeling similar when DS put his head underwater for the first time at age 8 - felt like such a massive achievement but when his peers are getting 50m swimming badges it’s hard to know who to tell.

That is AWESOME
what a testimony to the perseverance of your ds and of the school.
really, really well done.

You school also sounds fab.
Can I ask you to write a note to school, saying a bit of what you said here, about how they treated ds as an individual, and persevered with him until he passed? It would make a huge difference to the teachers, and it is the sort of thing which really helps schools with ofsted etc.

Goodness Deathy I'm not surprised you're happy. Persevering like that and finally getting his pass is so good. That's going to open doors for him all his life :)

chem I know that feeling. When dd finally got riding a bike I was in tears. Fortunately I'm part of an autism support group so I was able to do my Woohoos there :)

I had a friend last night telling me something her 19 year old dd had done for the first time. She was almost embarrased saying it, but I knew what a huge step it was, and we had a whoop moment together.
Tell those who know you, they will whoop with you, even if their own kids are in a different place.

That is brilliant!! Well done to your DS for persevering!

Oh lovely thread! Well done your boy!