only three GCSEs?

[Marshallstreet]

Home educated dd is on a path to only gain three GCSE’s (if she is lucky).

She has been working extremely hard to get in to a selection of academies abroad for a certain activity (so sorry for being vague but it’s a small community so would potentially be outing). It turns out she has been waitlisted at all of them, against expectation, and it is overwhelmingly likely that she won’t have a place come September.

I know I have failed her by not making her take her academics more seriously but please understand it has been a very difficult situation, where she has this specific plan of what she wants to do, and enough aptitude to be seriously considered for places in these academies. She has had to be very focused on developing in this area and things have been incredibly intense, so we decided that she could go for it, as it couldn’t wait for later, while academics can always be caught up on.

Things are not great right now and we have to salvage what we can. She has one gcse from
last year which she took one year early, and is doing foundation maths and one additional subject now. I think the best she can hope for in her second subject is a 6 or 7 and she’d have to have luck on her side for that.

For September, could she go to school for a levels with only three GCSE’s? I am guessing no? Would she have to repeat year 11? we could home school a levels and provided she does well in those, what effect would her poor gcse outcomes have? Would employers and universities have an issue with it, if she does have good a levels?

I would blame the child for not studying hard enough TBF

This is child neglect. How on earth has this been allowed to happen?

She hasn't fucked up her life. She's added a year to her education, which is really common for all sorts of reasons. This reason is at least vaguely positive in that she tried to become elite at something and got wait listed.

Its not ideal but its not life ruining. There will be a remedy.

Don’t Panic OP … education is a life long pursuit, they don’t have guards on the doors of Universities turning people away over the age of 21.

This obsession we have, in the country of GCSE at 16, A-Levels at 18, Degree at 21 .. had left us with a highly qualified bunch of debt-riddled bar staff, and shelf-stackers.

Take some time to work out what’s right, pathways are not often linear.

DD had EBSA, and missed all of Y10 & Y11, she did manage her 5 grade 4 GCSE - which was great. She had undiagnosed ASD and anxiety .. we are now in a much better place. Her first attempt at college lasted 1 day (that year she got a Christmas job, which was very good for her), 2nd attempt at college lasted just over a year, if I’m honest the wheels started to fall off about 9 months in. Now on third attempt, she’s excelling at a Professional qualification, and she’ll stay on to do the higher level.

She’ll have a qualification in a well sought after profession (which she loves), she has a part-time job aligned to that, she’s learned to drive and has a car .. and at 20 has no student debt.. but it took us 3 years longer (19 not 16) to find the right course and college.

As I said, don’t panic, we are on the planet a long time.

The catastrophising about a child who has been able to pursue her passion at a high level and then go to college for an extra year is a bit extreme. Some posters seem to think that you might as well give up on life if you only have 3 GCSEs at 16, in which case a huge proportion of school children are also fucked 😂

Because the government let anyone play teacher

What qualification/industry is she doing?

This obsession we have, in the country of GCSE at 16, A-Levels at 18, Degree at 21 .. had left us with a highly qualified bunch of debt-riddled bar staff, and shelf-stackers. - I agree wholeheartedly with this.

Children are rammed into a tunnel and supposed to come out the other end with a string of bits of paper that do not necessarily help them to achieve their eventual goals. And it just becomes the norm. Anyone who deviates from this is vilified - see comment from a poster above who talks about playing at being a teacher.

I think OP has been carried away thinking that her DD would have a professional career as a tennis player or golfer (or whatever) and has focused on that to the exclusion of academics- rather than thinking they could do it better than school. They have probably worked very hard as a family- at the elite level, these sports are incredibly time consuming and expensive. In some sports there is also the unspoken message that academics should be on the back-burner as 'you can catch up with academics anytime'. Unfortunately, as OP is discovering, it's just not that easy to 'catch up' when you have fallen out of the standard pipeline and you never know when elite sport will chew your DC up and spit them out.

Quite. I’m reading this in horror. I know a few other adult casualties of home education where their frankly pig thick parents allowed them to do not much at all at home and shock horror they ended up with no qualifications and most employment opportunities shut off to them. Some had family wealth but others not. You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself for not ensuring that your daughter had the same level of qualifications that she would have gained at school. And surprise, it turns out she won’t be the next Tom Daly or Serena Williams. What a shocker.

@kscarpetta are you a home educator?

I'm guessing her applications abroad are for something like a tennis academy?

Anyway, what you need to do is find your nearest further education college. They will teach Level 2 courses (GCSE level). If she is bright and motivated, she can get them done in a year. And then she can look at options like A-levels.
Selective universities will usually require minimum five good GCSEs including English, maths and science at least even for other subjects so she should get them all done properly.

A school sixth form will not take her with three GCSEs to do A levels and well likely offer only a very small option of non-A level courses and GCSE retakes so a further education college will have a much better selection

What area of the country are you in and we can advise on FE colleges?

It's not all ruined - if she is bright and does focus, she would only be one year behind her peers in getting A levels (or Btecs or whatever she chose to do) .

I know you don't want to say what special academy abroad she was trying to get into but if it is sport, then some FE colleges have excellent programmes.

For example Barnet and Southgate College in London have a tennis programme alongside academic studies
https://www.barnetsouthgate.ac.uk/sports-academies/tennis-academy
As does Abbey College in Manchester
https://www.abbeymanchester.co.uk/college-courses/academic-studies-with-tennis/
Loughborough College supports elite training in many sports alongside academic studies
https://www.loucoll.ac.uk/sport/elite-sport

If she was hoping to go to some K-Pop academy, then there are various specialist performing arts colleges.

Don't most people balance sport alongside studies?

Tom Daly actually has As and A*s at GCSE.

There are some sports where 'home educating' so the child can basically train full-time is a thing. It's such a gamble though. I expect some families get sucked in under pressure from ambitious coaches etc.

True and he also has very impressive A levels. And Serena also has an education. Most sports stars also make sure they at least finish school and many pursue higher education. It’s extremely negligent for parents to just let their kids sack off education because they will pursue their hobby, be that sports or music or whatever. There was a boy at my school who played for England U16 for a sport and he still managed to get 9 GCSEs and this girl has done one subject last year and two this year. It’s pathetic.

Some sixth forms will flex for kids who have been home-schooled, but that's usually where they have been studying a fairly standard range of subjects, but haven't necessarily taken exams (because of the expense or because they wanted to prioritise learning over exam technique). They'd probably still want evidence of suitable prep for A-levels - even if she chose subjects which don't follow on from a particular GCSE, they'd want to know she can write essays, etc.
If she doesn't have at least 4s in English and maths, she has to continue with those alongside anything else at college, which rules out some sixth forms.

Possible options:
Some colleges offer a GCSE year, which enables students to top up poor GCSEs by doing a few more.
Some private schools offer something similar, primarily aimed at pupils coming in from overseas and needing to make sure they have the groundwork (and English language skills) for A-levels, but they would probably work well for her too.
Continue home-educating and put her in for some GCSEs next year.
Look at other routes into her chosen activity.
Completely re-think future plans, in which case look for level 2 (GCSE-equivalent-level) courses in local colleges (which will often lead on to a level 3 course).

It sounds as if the priority is finding a way to train in her activity, so the main thing is to find out what she needs to do to be accepted onto a suitable course. As others have said, having English and maths may be important later on, but other GCSEs are less essential; they are mainly a stepping stone onto next courses.

Ben Stokes only has one GCSE but he's a bloody exception. Like it's good to balance studies with sport. If a career as a professional athlete doesn't work out you still have your educational qualification.

If you are in London, Brampton College offer a pathway of 7 GCSEs in one year.

We are days away from the GCSEs
in fat my son has taken one already

has it not ever been clear before now that your daughter’s sporting achievements arent perhaps going to result in to what you’ve pinned everything on for the last however many years?

You think she’ll be lucky to even get 3 GCSEs

That doesn’t just indicate the sport has been prioritised, that indicates that literally nothing or at least the tiniest of bare minimums has been done for GCSEs over the last two years

The government have made it a requirement for them to pass at grade 4 minimum.

My eldest had 3A*s before even starting year 11

And your point is?

It's not a legal requirement - lots of kids never get a grade 4, and home educated children don't have to take GCSEs at all.