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😞

Book at mtg at school. At ours the kids who take the most vocational pathways know well in advance. They know if they are bottom sets. The discussions start before Xmas with the kids

You can call them and discuss what your concerns are before booking the assessment, so you’ll know you’re getting the right one.

I would go for a Dyslexia/Dyspraxia Assessment. They will check for processing speed etc within that. I would also book with an Educational Psychologist rather than an Assessor.

I had my DC assessed and went straight back to school with a very detailed report. They didn’t like it, but had to make the adjustments.

One thing schools don’t tell you is that they are not qualified to diagnose it. They just dismiss, dismiss, dismiss, especially if DC is well behaved/quiet.

Being able to work on a laptop with spell check & immersive reader, extra time and a reader/scribe for exams are just the main adjustments which have made a huge difference. No copying from the board, printed texts given in a larger dyslexia friendly font on tinted paper or an overlay also help.

Dyslexics can have slower processing which may explain why your DC is never able to finish tests. They also sometimes have visual stress, which is not checked in a standard eye test.

Oh yes, forgot to mention re school. I spent all week emailing the SenCo and the HoY requesting them to contact me back before half term. I also phoned through to school reception multiple times and left messages requesting a call back from HoY or SenCo before half term, making it clear what it was regarding.
Have received no email reply or call back from HoY, just never heard back from him after a week of emailing and calling. Even called reception to ask if he was off sick but they told me he was in.
Escalated to DepHead and had a phone conversation with him. He told me he knew nothing about the decision making process involved with DS because it had been solely advised by the SenCo. I directly asked him why not one member of staff had contacted me at any point to discuss this, and why I had not been made aware of concerns about DS's learning and progress. He answered by giving me a completely different answer to the question I had asked. I repeated my question and he answered with a different point again. Eventually he said "I'm reading through what the SenCo has written but it's a bit nuanced. You basically need to talk to the SenCo and I've forwarded your emails to her." The SenCo has never even spoken to or had a conversation with my DS. DS confirmed he's had no assessments or screening with her, he said he only knows what she looks like from seeing her around school, but doesn't have any input from her.
On Friday late afternoon, I finally received an email from the SenCo to tell me she will call me after half term. I requested a face to face meeting though, because I want to discuss this in person. I replied to her email to push for this and to ask to book a time, but received no reply back, and now it's half term.

Please see my post above re school.

Thank you.xx

Well done! I found it really hard to question school, they were really good at deflecting.
The assessment you have booked is likely to be a really positive experience for your son, even if they do find something. My son has dyslexia and assessor explained to him yes he had dyslexia but he was also really well in pattern matching and a number of other things and explained how that would impact his life. During the assessment she found out what he loved doing and then explained why the things he was great at would make him really good at those things. She described his ideal job and he followed that path, it's been life changing for him. His dyslexia presents itself mainly as problems copying, spelling and processing spoken information, he's actually ok at reading. He's doing really well now, and at university.
Best of luck with the assessment and your hopefully face to face meeting with school.

This is appalling! I am so sorry.

Also, I asked him what he meant by "nuanced" but his reply to this was that I should ask the SenCo.
I said that a decision such as this needs to surely be based on something more concrete than 'nuanced'.
By the way, at this point I'm not all guns blazing, fighting school to change DS to the standard pathway. It might be that this is the right thing for him. What I'm fighting for at this point is a conversation with the school about their decision, for an explanation from them so that I can listen to their reasoning for this decision, for them to answer my question about how long have they thought DS is struggling for and why haven't they communicated with me about this, and if they think he's struggling enough at school to put him on to a reduced gcse pathway then why haven't they put any screening or interventions in place for him and why are they letting him go through the rest of year 9 without any interventions at all, and for an acknowledgement from them that they should have reached out and communicated about this decision with me long before now, and that I should never have found all this out upon opening a blanket email sent to all parents on Monday only to open up DS's options submission form to find it was the reduced special measures form. It's insane that that's the first I knew of it, with no concern ever reported to me in 2.5 years of him being there.

No need to panic just yet. There will be more than one sixth form available and hopefully college options, and alternatives to A-level such as BTEC. The main thing is to come out of year 11 with a reasonable clutch of GCSEs including Maths and English. As pp said, 6 that you do well in is better than more that you don't! At my school some students mix A-level and BTEC so you could do one academic A-level in something you're passionate about like History or Geography (I think the OP's mentioned her son likes those) and then BTECs in various subjects which because they have a large aspect of continous assessment, really reduces stress for some types of student.

BTECs give you UCAS points.

I don't like the way the school staff are closing ranks. Hopefully after half term you will be able to get the meeting, but it would be unusual in my experience for a SENCO to be making the decision regarding which courses a student takes. Especially one who isn't on the SEN register! So the decision maker needs to be there.

Ask the educational psychologist if he or she will do standardised tests.

These were helpful to me when I was told (by the LA educational psychologist during DD's ECHNA in year 5) that she was "two years behind". The standardised tests carried out by an ed psych I booked privately showed that she is average, which is borne out by her now being average academically at a comprehensive in year 8.

Returning to the school, I wonder if you may ultimately need to do a Subject Access Request to find out what has been said over the years about DS.

"Nuanced" suggests to me that he was party to information that hasn't been shared with you.

To me it suggests that he is not entirely sure what the reasoning behind the decision-making process was, and is fudging around the issue a bit to be diplomatic. ‘Nuanced’ also suggests not particularly compelling reasons…
Good luck, @Arizona29 Do let us know how you (and dc) get on - we are rooting for you both!

Your approach sounds very sensible to me - find out why they've decided this and why this hadsn't been communicated and what tests they've done.

I too wonder if this may come down to a Subject access request - there a link below that may help if that does become necessary.

https://sendiass4bcp.org/support/parent-carer-resources/right-to-access-information/

We've not had much luck with SENCOs over the years - fought like hell for screen tests to be told all fine then blanked - taken for my kids to get to university to get near testing - just like me and then yep there were problems just like we all knew.

Thank you for this link!
I'll wait for my talk after half term and see what information I get from that, and then may need to use this request depending on how things go.
I'm sorry your DC didn't get the SenCo support they obviously needed at school. I hope they are doing well now.xx

Older two at univeristy now - doing well on courses they love - eldest final year and middle one first.

A-level were hard for different reasons - and with eldest do think we should have explored BTEC or mix of A-level and BTECs more for her but she got the grades to do course she wanted so worked out in end just extremely stressful for us all.

Hopefully your school is doing something behind the scenes to organise information about why they think this is best for your DS and/or put in some extra support and your next meeting is more useful.

This is so true. My daughter got high gcse results but she is still finding A levels hard. The leap is tremendous and the work load huge!

You can say no OP. I had the same thing with my daughter and only when I said no in writing did it generate a meeting. I’d had no warning either, previous parents evenings all good and she was middle ground in terms of assessments, always achieving a grade 4. The history teacher kind of implied that they were over full and that may be why this was happening. He was also cautious and didn’t want my DD to fail maths and English in favour of history.

At the meeting the head actually implied that I would be a bad parent not to allow this to happen. I hit back by saying I knew my child and that her mental health would be impacted if she removed her from the subjects she loved - French and history. I argued to remove her from PE (one day per week) but this was denied. I could hear her point - we were risking not hitting the grade 4 in maths and English. But again, why inform me so bloody late?!

In the end, we stuck to what we had. She gained a grade 7 in history and a 6 in French but a word of caution OP - my dd failed maths and English. Englis by one mark so it was remarked and again a fail. Due to her college course it didn’t cause a problem, but she resat in November and failed. The pressure is now on to pass in May as this is something that may follow her around for a long time.

So my advice would be to go to the meeting and listen. Although my dd failed the core exams, I still stand by the decision to keep her on the current path as it would have singled her out at school and also taken away the subjects she actually enjoyed. BUT, I remain frustrated that this option was put to us in the middle of year 10. Action should have been taken before and had I been informed, perhaps I could have supported my dd more. She now has a tutor and he’s confident that she will gain that pass in May.

You were told in the middle of year 10?! That's even worse than me being told in the middle of year 9!
I read your post with great interest. Thank you for sharing. I hope your DD is happy and doing well, and fingers crossed for May.💐

I accept this.
And I know they're difficult as I remember from when I did mine.
So DS may do A levels or he may not be able to apply for them due to gcse grades or he might get the grades and decide against them and do Btec as an alternative......but the point I am raising with school is that this is not their decision to take without consultation with us because I want to keep his options open to him and not have his possibility for A levels closed off to him by the school's decision in year 9.
Having said that, many posters have assured his reduced GCSEs would suffice the entry requirement for A levels (if he gets the grades and if he wants to do them).

Just a bit of hope. DS struggled with GCSEs - the sheer volume of subjects was tricky. He was diagnosed with dyslexia and finally ADHD in Yr10.

In the end he passed 8 with good marks in many of them - highest in English. He is now doing very well in A-levels as he feels supported and is focusing on subjects that he is interested in (rather than subjects like maths where he struggles). We did also look at B-tecs. There are many options.

The school seem utterly crap though so I’m glad you are on them and advocating for him. Good luck.

Bottom set for maths could mean he’ll he getting extra lessons to get him up to required standard, make an appointment with the head to see what’s going on.

@Arizona29yes I received a letter in the post second week in March. She had been studying her option subjects since year 9, so was well invested into her subjects and it seemed a shame to ditch them so close to Y11. I think a lot will depend on what he wants to do at college. My DD is doing hairdressing so although maths and English was desirable, they let her enter at level 2 (rather than 1) due to her high grades in her other subjects. Had she wanted to study more academic subjects like history (original plan), she wouldn’t have got in.

Well thete you go op, this is a cautionary tale for you! Your dc really really doesn't want ti be failing maths and/or English. Even if they are kst through onto the next level, They will be made to resit and that's a massive diversion from their A levels or whatever they do next.

@thinkofsomethingdifferent Rhats an interesting point. Can parents dictate to a school what subjects dc do? Not sure they can. They should be informed (and y10 is late) but I’m not sure parents can demand dc are taught optional subjects and how many they are taught. Is it written in law about parental rights? If this DS is doing 8, I cannot see how that is wrong.

What were his SAT results?
I find it strange that you have no knowledge of years of his actual marks in school.
His school will 100% have info on options pathways if you look on their website.