To think a school can’t just cancel a GCSE/A-Level course halfway through?

[ChocBanana]

This is on behalf of a friend who’s not on MN.
Her children have gone back to school today, one into Y11 and one into Y13. Both were taking the same subject, one at GCSE and one at A-Level.
They have been sent a letter today saying the school has dropped the subject with immediate effect and they won’t be able to take it this year.
They have said they will meet with each student “over the coming weeks” to discuss how to move forward. There was absolutely no prior notice and the teacher is still employed at the school. He only found out at the inset day on Monday.
I can’t find anything online to this effect to confirm or deny, but surely there is some kind of legal requirement to finish what they have started? I can almost understand not starting anyone new (my son was down to do the subject but is happy with the alternative because they have moved the timetable around so he can now take something he had to drop before).
But my friend is distraught and her 17 year old is frantically looking at his uni options because he doesn’t know if he will get in without this course.

Does anyone know whether this is legal/illegal and what law it come under? I’m going to help my friend to draft a response (English isn’t her first language).

Any ideas or advice?

This happened here, when the only Japanese teacher left. However since your teacher didn't leave, perhaps the pass rates were very poor this past academic year? Can you call school and talk to someone? For the A level, could you pay for a private tutor and ask school to put on the exam.

I honestly think a school should take advice before assuming there's no legal liability here. I can think of various courses of action that could well apply, not least discrimination if it is the case that it's mostly Chinese heritage students affected in this case.

In any case one of our local state schools (well it's an academy) prides itself on its mandarin programme and many parents choose the school because of it. They do outreach to local primaries too so local primary schools have done taster terms in Mandarin. I don't know if it's so niche absolutely everywhere, though I agree that across the country it's a minority subject. That's an argument for doing things differently going forwards though, not leaving this student high and dry.

Be prepared to help your friend make an appeal to the Governing Body, if initial approaches fail.

Yes. And I didn't say I was a governor.

For example - year 1, good admissions and a reasonable number of students on the course.
Year 2 - reduction in budget (highly competitive between these schools, much poaching). 2 students want to take the course. Teacher can teach another subject, where there is a need. Leadership team would be absolutely gutted about it by the way.
Re governance - this is an operational decision within the remit of the headteacher. So governors are told for information, as part of an overview of what's happening going into the new year. Decisions to set up partnerships with neighbouring schools, or suggest tutor services, may or may not be mentioned at a governors' meeting. That is also operational. I haven't looked at the national picture, but local to me A level Mandarin doesn't tend to be well subscribed.
If a complaint got as far as the governors (usually stage 3) they would be unlikely to recommend that the head change their decision. This because the head would present a compelling explanation of why the school could not afford to offer the course.

Don't get arsey about the schools, they don't control their funding. And yes - it stinks.

20% of state schools offer Mandarin. Uptake at A level nationally is around 1500 compared to 7900 for French and 2800 for German (2022 figures). But importantly, uptake of Mandarin is rising while French is falling, not least because of the government drive starting in 2017 driven by the country’s dire need of fluent speakers.

This weird preoccupation with native speakers is a red herring- anyone is free to do an A level in their heritage language - including English. As I have said “native speaker” actually comprises a wide range of skill levels - from zero to fluent % and many will be doing the A level precisely to learn the language. Secondly, many of the students are not culturally Chinese.

The characterisation of Mandarin as an A level you don’t “need” is bizarre. You have no idea if it is one of DS’s 3 A levels in which case he emphatically does need it and the school have stuffed up his uni application.

I absolutely agree with @Takoneko that ditching the A level midway is totally unacceptable. The difficult financial choices need to be made prior to offering the course not halfway along. The subject is irrelevant.

Do you mean by year 2 everyone has dropped out, or that the following year’s A level uptake is decreased? Either way the school has a moral obligation to follow through with the pupils they started even if they choose not to offer the subject going forward.

Its not illegal at all. A local FE college did this locally when they closed the sixth form while some students were half way through their alevels. They didn't give a shit and tried to palm the students off with btecs etc...... they did try and keep them but most students left.

I dont think you will have a leg to stand on sadly, could you look at transferring the a level student to a different school or college?

It does, actually. It's a formal title to describe a professional position. Like Headteacher, Chair of Governors, School Business Manager and Data Manager.

None of which would take caps in this context. Or this

I agree the native speaker = pointless A level is a bizarre characterisation. Why is it less legitimate because some aspects of the course were home taught? They still need to meet the requirements of the exam and proficiency in Mandarin is a valued qualification in the workplace.

I don't really know how this would play out in a tribunal but I just wanted to mention that just because the same outcome (ending a course part way through) could be lawful in one case, where all realistic options were considered and discounted for good reason, it might not be in another case, particularly if there's discriminatory impact. If the OP has all the facts, this teacher could have been employed to finish teaching the current students rather than having his hours reduced or his time redeployed.

I think this is more of a style guide kind of point than a grammatical rule. Why are you being weird about it?

Good grief! Anyway, the Clerk to Governors, or Governance Professional - whoever is undertaking the legal clerking role - is as much a job title as Headteacher. It also comes under the definition of 'Office Holder' as defined by the Inland Revenue.

Oh, and yes, I have known of courses pulled after a year because they are not financially viable. I'm not here to argue the toss about whether or not that should happen, just saying that it does. When it happens the Headteacher is usually unhappy to be in a situation where that decision had to be made.

Schools run on very limited funding, not fairy dust.

Where's the edit button gone? I wanted to add that I strongly disagree with the IR defining clerks etc as Office Holders, I don't think they meet the criteria. IR beg to differ.

Random caps is one of my gripes, I have many. 🤓

I’ve known courses not to be offered due to lack of funds but I’ve not heard of one being pulled mid-course. A strong argument for a wealthy private school if you can afford the fees.

What part of a permanent, substantive position which has an existence independent from the person who fills it, which goes on and is filled in succession by successive holders does the role of Clerk to the Governing Body, or Governance Professional fail to fulfil?

Language A Levels taken by native speakers are considered to be less valid by universities as they are second language qualifications. They are not designed for native speakers. There is a small literary component in terms of reading a short literary text and writing an essay about it, but it is by and large a language exam designed for students acquiring the skills of speaking, reading and writing a second language they have learned ab initio rather than as a mother tongue. A quarter of the course (or thereabouts, I forget the exact % as haven’t taught A Level in a while) is examined through an oral exam - a child who speaks the language at home will quite effortlessly get full marks.

As such, if you grow up speaking, say Mandarin, or French, or Russian at home and can speak it fluently, then you are at a huge advantage over fellow students without that exposure. It does not present the same level of challenge or achievement for a native speaker to pass a second language exam compared to a student whose only exposure is learning it at school. I did French A Level many moons ago and it was incredibly hard as someone with no exposure beyond the classroom - it required hours and hours of study at home. A native speaker would not need to put in hardly any work in comparison. This is all understood by universities and as such, any school worth its salt will not allow a native speaker to take a second language A Level in their native language as one of their three main A Levels.

Of course there are degrees of fluency and exposure of native languages at home, and I have certainly taught many bilingual children who couldn’t read or write with fluency in their mother tongue due to never being schooled in those skills. If a child were in this category, then a clear explanation of this to the university would be required if the child took their ‘native’ language as a third A Level. A child with a very obvious surname connected to the country the language they are taking an A Level in should always have an explanatory note attached to their reference to explain the level of fluency as universities may
make assumptions if they see, say, a child with an obviously Russian name taking a Russian A Level.

All this is nothing to do with the perceived usefulness of the language being studied. That’s not the issue. The issue is fairness for all candidates. A native speaker of a language is not starting from the same place as a second language speaker and allowing them to take the same qualification and according it the same value is not fair. Plus, if you have a large cohort of first language speakers taking a second language A Level, this increases the grade boundaries and makes it more challenging for students who are studying the A Level as a second language to get higher grades. It would be like an English child moving to a French school in France and taking the French Bac with second language English as one of their ‘specialisms’ - of course they’d get full marks. How would that be fair on the other students in their class? How could a university judge this students’ abilities in the same way as others in their cohort who didn’t have the same linguistic advantage?

This is why native speakers taking qualifications designed for second language speakers are so problematic. Hope that clears up the confusion. I am an international school teacher so have lots of experience with just this issue!

The pp’s comment - that characterising a native language A level as “pointless” is strange - stands.

Anyone who’s done or has kids/students doing language A levels knows the score: some universities will either exclude a true mother tongue language from their offer requirements or set a higher offer than their standard. Or a school will recommend doing the language as a 4th. But that’s only for students for whom the language is their first language, bilingual, or fluent.

As you belatedly acknowledge there are thousands of students with one or more foreign parent who don’t speak a word of the language and have to learn it, or have a smattering, or speak but don’t write it etc.

The issue is nothing to do with fairness - simply how much of an academic achievement a particular grade in a particular subject represents.

We had exactly the same thing at A level last year. DS completed Year 12 then his teacher left (not her fault or the schools). It was Psychology so only 1 teacher who taught A level.
School couldn’t do anything and couldn’t recruit another teacher.
There was talk of going to a nearby school to do it but the timings didn’t work as we are rural and at the time he couldn’t get there.

So he basically ended up teaching himself the entire Year 2 content of the course with the help of an amazing Tutor for the last 6 months. He ended up getting an A grade this summer, 2 marks off an A star (it’s getting reviewed).
It was incredibly hard work but he managed it.

I never used the word pointless in any of my posts. I didn't say anywhere that a native speaker A Level is pointless. I just said it has less value to universities. This is a fact, and one you acknowledge yourself.

When I refer to a native speaker, I mean a student who speaks the language like a native, with bilingual fluency. You may think it's nothing to do with fairness, but it is my belief - which I am perfectly entitled to hold - that any student who already has this ability, even if their writing or reading is a little shaky, should not be taking a qualification designed for second language speakers.

I stand by my comment that it is unfair for them to do so as it is not a qualification designed for them. I believe it is categorically unfair for students who already speak a language fluently to sit an exam designed for people who do not. I see it as cheating the system and cannot see any justification in allowing students to do this. Quite frankly, it's not cricket.

I used to teach in a bilingual international school and some of the weaker students wanted to take their mother tongue as a 'B' language at IB (as opposed to the 'A' qualification, which is a literary rather than linguistic course) to up their grades - we categorically refused, as we knew it would be grossly unfair to allow them to do so.

Obviously this only applies to truly bilingual students. Those who have a parent or other family member who has exposed them to a limited amount of a foreign language without them achieving fluency are an entirely different kettle of fish and would be treated like any other second language student, just with a bit of an advantage in having more support at home with homework. That goes without saying and I didn't think I had to say so explicitly, as it's stating the obvious. You are not a native speaker if you don't speak the language like a native!

I suppose it depends what you're seeking to prove by your qualification, but it seems odd to me to dismiss someone's bilingual proficiency as somehow gained by unfairness. Especially as so many students have such differing levels of privilege in different ways. I know universities look at context much more now when making offers, but A levels are still supposed to reflect a level of attainment, not effort expended.

Looking at it the other way, should a non native speaker who studies English get a higher mark because it's a qualification designed for native speakers?

@longestlurkerever

You’re comparing apples with oranges. English Language GCSE requires not just comprehension and linguistic accuracy, but the ability to understand how language is used in analysing linguistic choices in depth and explaining their effect, as well as writing creatively to a brief. Second language qualifications do not require these skills. Plenty of native English speakers fail English Language GCSE every year because it requires the ability to understand and manipulate language in a way not everyone has the capacity to do. However if these students were taking English as a second language GCSE, most would quite easily get 8s and 9s as long as they read the questions properly and followed instructions.

Again, you’re missing the point. I don’t think being bilingual is unfair. I think taking a qualification designed for people learning a second language from scratch when you already speak that language with native fluency is unfair. It’s not really an achievement for mother tongue native speakers of a language to take a second language GCSE. It would be like a British person taking the English test overseas university students are required to take to study in the UK. I would concede that the A Level is slightly harder to ‘walk’ in the same way as there is a small literary element, but for someone who is a native speaker of the language, it still doesn’t represent a huge challenge. That’s exactly why they take the qualifications - for an easy top grade for minimum effort. It is gaming the system and it is unfair.

As I have said above, this is obviously only the case for true native speakers.