GCSE reduced subjects advice needed

[Arizona29]

I started a different thread about this yesterday but am starting a new one here because I've got a new question and I know many readers never read OP updates on a thread!
DS year 9 had been put onto a GCSE pathway for additional support.
He has no SEN diagnosed.
He has never had any intervention classes at school.
School have never made me aware at any point since year 7 that they feel DS needs additional support.
I have not received any communication whatsoever about him being put on to an additional support GCSE pathway. It has been like a bolt out of the blue and I only found out on Monday.
Parents evening last week made no mention of it.
So I spoke to a member of staff about it today.
It is not a mistake, as suggested by posters on my other thread.
The member of staff has told me the following:
That DS has been put on a pathway for year 10 & 11 where he will study
Maths
English
Science
1 humanity OR 1 language (his choice but only 1 of these)
2 practical based subjects of his choice such as DT, art, music, cookery, dance, photography, etc.
3 extra Maths intervention sessions a fortnight
3 extra English intervention sessions a fortnight
He cannot choose 2 humanities.
He cannot choose 1 humanity & 1 language.
He cannot choose 2 humanities & 1 language.
it is 1 humanity only.
He is only 1 of 16 students who has been put on this pathway out of the whole of year 9.
The 'standard' Ebacc pathway is
English, maths, science, 1 humanity, 1 language, then 2 further options which can include a second humanity, even a third one, but DS had not been given this pathway as an option.
I was confused when I posted on my other thread yesterday, and I remain confused.
I still don't understand how DS has been put on this additional support pathway with no communication whatsoever about any learning delay or concerns whatsoever from school in the 2.5 years he's been there.
I asked this question directly today, and it wasn't answered. It was glossed over.
DS is really upset.
A. He doesn't want to do only 1 humanity and no language. He feels he's had all his choices removed from him.
B. He says nobody at school has talked to him about this.
C. He feels excluded from the standard pathway that all his friends are doing.
D. He is asking me do his school think he's stupid and incapable
E. He fears stigma about this amongst his peers, and feels he is going to get comments and 'jokes' about not being able to do what everyone else is doing.
He has never had a conversation with, or any input from, the SenCo.
I have never had a conversation with the SenCo about DS.
The SenCo has never contacted me about DS to discuss him.
Again, he has no SEN.
So.
My questions to people here who have knowledge and experience:

1. What the hell is going on here?
2. Can they enforce this? Does DS have any choice or any say in the matter??
3. What right do school have to remove his choice to do 2 humanities, or 1 humanity + 1 language? Without any prior conversation with him or with me?
4. AIBU to feel they are 'dumbing down' his options?
5. Why does DS have to choose 2 options from a list of practical subjects? This isn't the pathway he wants to follow - cookery, or DT, or dance, or drama, etc. But he's now got to pick 2 of these subjects.

The list of the 2 extra choices on the standard Ebacc pathway contains additional academic choices.
Whereas the list of 2 extra choices on the additional support pathway DS has been placed on contains no academic choice whatsoever.
If he only does Maths, English, Science + 1 humanity, plus 2 practical non academic subjects, is this going to exclude him from doing A levels and a degree??
DS most definitely wants a career that will require A levels and degree. Will this additional needs pathway block him from going on to do A levels & degree because he won't have enough GCSE subjects?
DS is an intelligent boy. I can't believe the school are restricting his GCSE choices like this and putting him on this pathway, having never once put him into any additional intervention measures since starting in year 7.
His year 9 assessment scores were all below the year group average. Not way below. But they were below. His results do not reflect his intelligence or capability. He said he knew all the answers but didn't get to complete the assessments as ran out of time. So the unanswered questions that he hadn't got to pulled his total score down, even though all the questions he did answer were correct.
Basically I feel like I've got an intelligent boy who hasn't performed well in the year 9 assessments and as a result has been placed on an intervention GCSE pathway that enforces a reduced number of GCSEs and being forced to take 2 practical subjects instead, yet with no consent from or discussion with DS or myself about this.
I have tried really hard to speak to the SenCo since Monday when I found this out, but I am not receiving any replies to the emails I have sent her requesting for her to contact me to discuss this. I've been told this has all been based on her recommendation, yet she's never even had a conversation with me or with DS.
I am really worried aboug the impact this will have on DS's options, choices, future success and I'm worried about this affecting his self esteem.
Only 16 kids out of an entire huge year 9 cohort have been assessed as unable to do the Ebacc route and my intelligent DS is one of them? He's in the bottom 10% of kids who isn't allowed to do the standard Ebacc pathway that the other 90% of kids are following and yet he has no SEN and has never been given additional interventions at school and who is really bright?
From what I know of his blunt and highly insensitive and never-endingly mocking peers, he is not wrong when he says he is going to get put downs and negative comments from peers about this.
He has such hopes for his future career and these restricted and limited GCSEs are going to block that, because his career hopes require A levels & degree.
Help😞

I’d be interested in sats y6. Plus assessment data from y7 to now. Schools are all over this and op needs to ask for it. This might make the decision make sense.

School communication has obviously been very poor here, but I do want to reassure you on a few points (I am a teacher and spent several years teaching in mainstream and also at a sixth form college):

1. the Ebacc is an arbitrary notion that Michael Gove had of what kids should be studying. No more than that. It doesn’t serve every child well and very few people think it should be held up as the ‘standard’.
2. Choosing A levels you need a decent grade in those subjects or related ones- so 6 or over. That’s because the evidence suggests that students who don’t get a 6 will struggle to pass at A level. I think at my college we needed them to have 5 passes, with grade 6 or higher in their chosen subjects, and if they were doing STEM they also had to have good passes in those subjects. Humanities wanted the decent grade in English. (The skills needed in subjects like politics or sociology aren’t really tested at GCSE so they use English plus whatever essay-type subjects had been studied, like history.) Anyone who arrived without a 4 in maths or English language had to retake them alongside a levels, but those kids were rare.
3. They’ve told all the parents that the deadline for options forms is non-negotiable because they don’t want everyone arguing and forgetting and trickling them in- they want to start sorting out numbers for sets and so on. But for individual cases like your son’s where there is clearly a discrepancy between what you and he thought would happen, and what has happened, it isn’t set in stone.
4. I would be very surprised if some senior staff are not in next week, and lots of classroom teachers too. Keep emailing them all, particularly the HT and those subject teachers who wanted him to choose their subject, and ask them why this has happened.

I hope you get this sorted out! But if he does do fewer subjects it won’t hold him back- it’s the grades he needs and if he does benefit from fewer different topics, then great. I work with ND learners now and lots of ours do best when they can focus on a narrower range of subjects- not because they aren’t bright and intelligent, but because that’s how they are best able to work.

You make a really important point. Schools are a little ‘damned if they do, damned if they don’t’ on this. If they praise/encourage/provide positive feedback for a child who is meeting their low target, the parents are potentially getting the wrong impression. But this is so obviously better than constantly telling a kid who is doing as well as they can, that they’re not doing enough and are ‘failing’ because they are getting 3s not 7s. Clear targets help - i.e. ‘Your child’s target is a 4’, so when you say they’re on target and ‘doing well’ this is not likely to be misinterpreted. On the other hand, sharing targets with kids has been criticised as ‘giving a ceiling’ and being a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’. It’s a minefield.

OP, I am a secondary school teacher and these are my thoughts:

1. Your son’s school has communicated this very poorly and you and your son are right to feel you have been let down
2. Fewer GCSEs is not going to prevent your child from accessing A Level or university. Low grades will.
3. The EBacc is made-up government nonsense for holding schools accountable (ironically, to stop too many schools doing what they’ve done to your son but doing it to make their results look good rather than for the interests of the child). No college or university is going to care if he’s done a certain set of subjects. My school is a grammar school and while most of our students do the EBacc, we have plenty of students who don’t and it’s not a problem - they do what they enjoy.
4. ‘Non-academic’ subjects don’t really exist at GCSE - they’re all difficult and often the coursework heavy ones are very challenging. However, if your son doesn’t want to do them then he’s likely to do a lot worse anyway, so there’s no point.
5. Don’t rush to make a decision because of their deadline. They created this problem by failing to communicate effectively with you in advance. (We haven’t even started talking about options with our Year 8s yet - they start GCSEs in Year 9 - and we haven’t even started children changing options until well into the autumn term. I seriously doubt that your son’s school will have a genuine hard deadline.)

I really don’t think only doing 8 GCSE’s matters that much. Preferable imo, the kids are under too much pressure with 10. I think the reason they have done it is to allow him extra time for maths to get it up to a pass. If he gets 8 GCSE’s inc Maths & English he’ll be able to go onto college or a levels. The best state sixth form in the country is in my city and they just calculate a score from your best 8 GCSE’s including maths and English for admissions purposes.

Hope someone from the school responds to you soon op. Sounds like quite a big thing to be sprung on you at this stage. Is there anything on the schools website about GCSE choices that explains about science and English for example?

I have a DC who is being offered 8 GCSEs and support in the 9th slot. I can definitely see the advantages. They don’t need more than 8 and getting good grades in those 8 is more important than doing 9.

The choosing is hard though and it does feel narrow.

My DC is thinking of all three sciences (separately - dual award is not an option but dropping one is), Maths, 2 English, Art and Drama.

They have already dropped languages. The alternative is history instead of physics (or both but no support). They won’t consider dropping Art or Drama.

Creative subjects are hard work and would be a slog for your son if he isn’t interested. He would do better studying something he enjoys.

Going into GCSEs feeling like you have chosen them makes a difference. I hope you can find someone willing to listen to you and your DS.

I actually thought the Ebacc was sensible for all round intelligent dc who should be able to do a broad portfolio of subjects. If the universities had openly said they wanted it, more would have done the subjects. At my local grammars, the vast majority did anyway. The range of subjects prevented early specialism and that was good. Once no one was prepared to require it, all hope of maintaining a broad education was lost. Not sure if elite universities don’t care about breadth - I’ve no evidence at all - but some look at GCSEs.

From what I know about kids with learning challenges, bright kids can often mask up to a point but then the demands get too much, usually at some point in secondary, and they begin to fail without knowing why - because their coping strategies don't work anymore.

I agree with other posters that worth getting him assessed, especially for working memory and processing speed. If you show his processing speed is very low, he should get extra time in exams.

But when you look at private assessment, you have to pick a specific condition that you want to be assessed for. So how do you know what assessment to book, if you don't know what's wrong?

If you get an educational psychologist to do an assessment, you can just describe the issues the child is facing, e.g. slow in exams, bright but struggles to keep up, low achieving despite seeming intelligence.

Their job is to look for underlying reasons/diagnose.

Example, student of mine referred to ed psych for dyslexia. Also picked up slow processing, ASD, ADHD, dysgraphia. Parents had no idea about anything other than the dyslexia.

No advice @Arizona29 but just wanted to wish you all the best. Your anxiety is coming through, totally understandably. You want the very best for your DS and I hope you get things sorted.

You book in to see an EP.

they do a whole range of assessments - they for my son took about three hours - and they give you recommendations and suggestions.

Yes, it’s a pain. Your starter by point should be an Educational Psychologist assessment for dyslexia. They do a whole suite of different types of tests as part of the assessment, some of which explicitly measure working memory and processing speed. If there is a deficit in processing speed then there is a strong case for additional time in exams, which sounds like what they need.

Then you should do some research on the other aspects - dyscalculia / dysgraphia / adhd / autism, just to see if you recognise any traits in your dc. And think if any relevant family history.

Especially re: adhd, if there is a problem with focus, which is causing then not to finish tests.

And / autism - where anxiety (or an inflexible way of doing things) may be causing a bit of shutdown.

But it would be a bit unusual (but not impossible, especially if you have traits yourself!) if you had no inkling that they may have autism by now - although if it is fairly borderline then symptoms can get much worse at times of stress / anxiety (and this is a very stressful time for year 9s).

So, start with dyslexia (Ed Psych assessment) and do some research. And ask the ed psych for further signposting as well. If they are worth their salt, they should provide a decent report with recommendations to the school for what accommodations there needs to be to allow your dc to thrive.

So why did he perform below average? A bright intelligent child would perform above average.

Not if he was running out of time due to slower processing, or getting distracted due to ADHD, or misreading complex questions due to undiagnosed dyslexia an having no strategies to compensate.

So therefore it sounds like he needs additional support with his exams, which the school have identified!

Youve got some really good advice here - dyslexia presents in lots of ways one of which is slower processing or finding it hard to read long chunks of text or structuring answers and getting them on paper. Spelling actually is only a tiny part of it.

if you can get his books home and ask him to talk you through some. Frame it supportively - wanting to understand this decision. Is he finding it hard to finish work in class too? To get organised? Are there unexplainable gaps or gaps where his work is incomplete?

the comms sound appalling tbh - we e been talking options since September and how they work.

Does the school have a sixth form? I’d look at entry requirements for local places and see what he needs to target and if this offer will get him there. Ring several times today if need be and say you need an urgent conversation with head of year to help you meet their options deadline.

if your parents eve chats were all ‘he’s doing g well’ did they not mention grades at all? Because they could have meant he’s doing well to meet our g5 expectations but clearly that’s not his understanding. I’d be surprised he’s not had any feedback before now but it might not have been grade based

8 high grades would be fine - average state is between 8-10, but if it is 6 I would be concerned as it may make it hard to meet entry requirement for a levels. Creative options also aren’t ‘easier’ imo just different especially if they’re still GCSEs. Happy to dm if it’d be helpful

Actually no they haven't.

They have put him onto the reduced academics pathway with no warning to the OP. This is different.
The reduced academics pathway is suitable for some DC (e.g. mine would have benefitted but that's another story).
But potentially all this DC needs is a screening assessment, possibly leading to extra time, and/or some strategies to resolve why he is running out of time.

The issue is school have done this with no prior warning to the OP so she doesn't understand the basis on which they have made their decision. Hence the panic.

OP I think the question you haven't answered yet that a few people have asked is how did your DS do on the year 6 sats? As these would be a useful indicator of how he's managing in a timed assessment which is more pressured?

Also may I ask, did you take GCSE's yourself? It's been the norm in the UK for many decades now to take 2 English GCSE's (English Literature and English Language) and to take double award science which covers the 3 main scientific disciplines of Chemistry, Physics and Biology and gives 2 science GCSE's. But most parents just know this as they remember it from taking their own GCSE's, since right back as far as the mid-90's this has been the norm?

I second all the other points about using an educational psychologist. It sounds to me (from what you’ve said) he may have a processing issue - very bright, articulate boy who just takes a bit more time to work through exams. Couple that with (maybe) dyslexia or some sort of auditory processing issue and wham - he’s perfectly capable of the work, but just takes more time. Also, Eng Lit/Lang, Maths, Science (2) is 5 GCSEs even without any others.

One thing to note OP is that while you are seeking an assessment from an Ed Psych you should also get the ball rolling with the SENCO and/or head of year for access arrangements, if you think they’re appropriate.

For example, if DS is diagnosed with dyslexia he won’t automatically be entitled to extra time, there’s quite a few steps the school must follow for this.

Something like rest breaks I think is a more straightforward arrangement to get though.

You also need to be open to the idea that your DS may just be struggling academically and does not have SEN, or that he does have SEN and this pathway may still be the most appropriate for him.

Getting a diagnosis of e.g dyslexia will unfortunately be unlikely to change much at school, unless your school is particularly good with SEN.

If he remains on this pathway and you can afford a tutor it would be worth getting one that specialises in exam and revision technique.

A lot of these conditions don't have specific diagnostic crtieria. It doesn't actually even matter because what you suspect it seems is that your son has low processing speed and low working memory but performs well in other compoinents of intelligence. It may not even be anything beyond that. But the main thing is to make sure that whatever path your son takes is the one that allows him to fully meet his potential. At least if you have an assessment and the Ed Psych says that the reduced pathway is the right one, you will have a much better understanding. Or they could say that you son can access the full pathway but needs x,y,z support to do so.

You could request something like the WISC-IV test whcih would look at working memory and processing speed among other things.. But if you consult with an educational psychologist about your son's profile they could advise the best assessment for him.

Be guided by the school. They are professionals who have the child’s interest at heart. That said, my son in law-now a solicitor, was only diagnosed as dyslexic at university. His mum was a primary school head and he went to a fee paying secondary school.

I have a masters degree
I needed extra time with my exams
I have extra time for tasks in work

Processing speed is not a mark of your overall ability to understand ideas.

Me too! I was lucky for my MA that it was entirely coursework based (thesis) so I could take as long as I wanted in my writing.

But I definitely have slow processing. I'm useless in verbal interaction on challenging topics. I just can't think quickly enough to provide responses. I need to cogitate.