School removed GCSE for yr 11 student?

[LolaLouise]

Posting here for traffic as i really need advice.

My daughter is in year 11, she is very strong in maths and science so picked the triple award science in her year 9 options as this would give her 3 strong GCSE grades. Today she has gone into school and we have been informed the school have withdrawn triple science as an option, and all year 11 students will be entered in to the double award instead. This means my daughter is now doing 1 less subject at GCSE than her peers, and now potentially cant get on to the college course she wanted as she was counting on the 3 sciences for the 5 grades 5+ she needs to be accepted.

Is there anything we can do? where do we stand? How can a school take away a GCSE from students 6 months before they finish?

OP has explained that her daughter is dyslexic. There is a vast difference between reading scientific and mathematical text, and reading (and especially writing) literature.

It does happen at our kids state grammar.
They all start on triple science and then some drop down to double science at the start of year 11.

Also after mocks, some students also dropped another subject. I don’t know if there was still an opportunity to drop to double science at that point. As they start off doing 11 GCSEs, it does mean the student is still taking 9 even if both happens, and they stop to double science and drop another subject. Plus it is an individual decision made in the interests of that particular student. Not the situation here.

What support or access arrangements are there in place for the dyslexia?

It doesn't disadvantage students who prefer arts/humanities if triple sciences are offered because they can do two single science subjects.

The double science wasn't offered at my DC grammar. I can't see the advantage really because the pupils who aren't able to do three single ones can just drop to two. They are probably not going to do science A Levels anyway if they don't want to do three triple. For those that do science A levels covering more at GCSE will be an advantage.

There is a huge shortage of science teachers. Sometimes this is the only way of managing a situation. Its shit but

Double science won't jeopardise anything. She will have the other gcses as well

I think it’s unfair at this stage for many of the students who have worked hard towards three GCSEs.

However, if not enough parents complain then it’s a lose-lose situation, as they won’t be teaching/revising the last third of the syllabus if it’s just one or two exceptions sitting the extra paper for the sciences.

I think firstly find out from the school how much of the syllabus has been covered/not covered, as it may be the last topics are harder or they are no where near finished and therefore her mock grades aren’t a good indicator of her final grade.
Then I would contact the college and explain, leading the way for exceptional circumstances if she doesn’t manage the 5+ in 5 subjects in the end.

On a side note, does the school offer further maths GCSE? As if she’s strong at maths, that could be an option or possibly they could offer after school intervention for those wishing to sit three science GCSEs.

Most likely they are worried about their own results table. Or are losing specialised staff at Christmas. But Year 11s should definitely be prioritised!

If you can find a school that offers that. I was talking about my DC's school where that isn't an option. Everyone except* *the bottom set does all 3. Bottom set does double award.
I think it is unusual to allow 2 individual sciences these days. Unless they have changed in the last few years there isn't a single school in a 30+ mile radius of where I live - independent, grammar or comprehensive - that offers that option. I looked in some detail at the science provision and results of every secondary within an hour's drive of our house when looking for my DC and they all offered double, all 3 or some kind of ability (not preference)based decider between the 2. Nowhere allowed 2 out of 3 which is ideally what one of my DC would have preferred.

In England in state schools it is basically not permitted to do two or fewer individual sciences.

You can do triple - 3 GCSEs in the 3 sciences or combined which is 2 GCSEs in the 3 sciences.

Single used to be available (1 gcse but needed to cover all three sciences) but I think no longer is as the students at my school who used to do it now do entry level instead.

Good luck with arguing your point at the school.

If they won't reinstate it for this year's GCSE cohort at least, I would push for her still to be entered for separate sciences and switch the private tuition from English to Science. That might be as much as they would agree to. If you can't even get that, I would look at whether she could sit the separate sciences at a different exam centre (for example the college).

Since she's struggling so much in English, it sounds like a better option for her would be to try to get as high a grade as she can in the subjects she's good at, and then take some time next year to focus on English language (drop literature) as a resit. This may mean deferring college for a year, but in the long term her options will be severly limited without a 5 at GCSE in English language and Maths. She would probably benefit from the time to concentrate on bringing that grade up without worrying about the other subjects.

If you are not confident of 5 x5 grades at GCSE it would be wise to have a back up plan rather than A levels.

What sciences would she do at A level? A warning those who get a 7 at GCSE can find A level sciences really challenging.

The Op has said in later posts A-levels aren't the plan.

There is a plan b - her DD would just prefer to do the T-level with more placements that she already has a conditional offer on based on getting 5 GCSE above 5 and doing 3 science GCSE.

The school doing this so late is the problem - and while Op can try and raise her DD other grades this late decision does reduce OP DD options and does disadvantage her.

As I said, they do triple sciences at the grammar schools where I live. They can drop one so will be doing two. I think that is less complicated for the school time table wise. The comprehensives do double and if those pupils go to grammar at sixth form for science A levels it is harder for them.

None... She's not applied for A levels...

Her dyselxia arrangements are she has use of a laptop, a reader (though not just for her she is in a smaller room with 9 students and the reader is supporting all the kids in there) and 25% extra time.

To the poster who asked why she is struggling with English but not Sciences. Lol. Please educate yourself. Dyslexia is not just about reading. Yes she finds longer blocks of text harder to read, but she also struggles with writing longer pieces. She struggles to organise her thoughts, which results in her writing often being disjointed or repetitive. She also struggles with language and will use the wrong word or a similar word that has an entirely different meaning accidentally. The laptop is helping with this as she is more able to delete sections or reorganise it, particularly with the english language which is what we are focussing on, but its not solving it entirely. The laptop also doesnt have spelling or grammar checks which is another area she struggles with.

This would really affect my DD too shes also chosen seperate science as one of her 3 optional GCSEs .
I hope there’s been enough pushback from parents that this gets changes.
i think if say they had pulled history as a GCSE a term before the exams the responses you have here would be different

OP, I think a lot of people reading here can't get their heads round the difficulties this decision leaves your DD facing.

If she was doing brilliantly at History, English and RE, nobody would be suggesting that a child with dyscalculia should just pull their maths up when History got cancelled.

It's also hard for people to comprehend the situation when you have a SEN child on a reduced timetable who is going to score high in some subjects, fail others and doesn't have the luxury of 3-4 spare GCSEs to play with.

I'm in a somewhat similar situation with a very SEN DD who is ultimately going to come out with 7 GCSEs in total. Half of those are likely to be grade 8/9 with almost no effort and the other half I am hoping to drag up to a 5 but it's going to be like climbing Everest. I would be furious if school suddenly ditched her best subjects.

I can't honestly see why it is a major issue for the school to enter your child for triple and everyone else for combined? You may need to do some extra work at home, but that sounds an easier task than trying to pull up a subject she struggles with.

I would definitely contact HT, governors, SEND and the college she has the offer from.

It sounds as though there are enough concerned parents to push back at the meeting you spoke of OP, so that might concentrate minds in school.

She has the permitted arrangements in place for the exams, to support her dyslexia, she has a tutor, she has plenty of parental support and she’s clearly a hard worker. I’d still see what flexibility the college might offer too, when they have the information about the science situation. There may be others in a similar situation.

Off topic, I know but I'm interested in why her laptop software doesn't have a spell check. Have the school given a rationale?

By contrast my DD doesn't have dyslexia and uses a spellchecker extensively. Much of her written work is typed as her state school have a bring you own device expectation. I appreciate there are arguments for and against spellcheckers although most workplaces routinely use them but I'm curious to know why a school has provided a device without.

Spellcheck etc has to be disabled for exam conditions.

Yes I do understand that. I was just a bit surprised she isn't allowed it day-to-day as it might help with learning. I guess school thinks it's better without.

Wholeheartedly agree with you OP and I hope you manage to get the school to change their minds.

To offer a bit of reassurance though, I think the Extended Diploma is a better qualification than the T level and would offer a very tried and tested route to uni so it won't be the end of the world if that's what she ends up having to do.

You realise there’s a few state grammars, have you done a survey? It maybe doesn’t happen in your state grammar.

She has it day to day, i was answering about her exam support when it is turned off. She cannot simply learn - if that was the case dyslexia could be cured.

I wouldnt normally suggest this, as I suspect the school have a timetabling issue and this is thier only solution and for most people double science is good enough and 8 gcses is a fairly usual number.

But on this instance I might ask for the equalities impact statement they did and whether they considered the impact on neurodiverse students

There are many grammars in my area. They publish their GCSE results so can see they are doing individual science GCSEs.

Edited: I can see one is doing the combined too but most pupils do the triple.