Anybody willing to speak up for a 3 year ks4?

[Verycold]

I started another thread about my dd's gcse options. She is in year 8 and will start her gcses in year 9. It is an Ofsted outstanding in all categories superselective. Their reasoning for the three year ks4 is that it gives time to do extras, go deeper, do extracurricular stuff. On the other thread this was much criticized, so I am now hoping for some more arguments/insights/experiences.

Thanks EvilTwins

Verycold- that is my experience- DD2 is alot less stressed out by three years of the courses than DD1 was over 2.

Of course some schools do take loads of GCSEs early (My neice did this and had to retake many of them in year 11. She also started some AS courses in year 11 and didn't do well so had to restart them in lower VIth.) Total waste of time.

It really depends on how schools organise the three years.

If a school has a 3 year ks3 what happens to children who for whatever reason have to enter the school in year 10.

My dd for example could have to move schools after year 9 if things don't work out.

DS also has a 3 year KS3 beckoning I am undecided but like the concept in principle

As they are year 8 they will have linear exams and the new curriculum and numerical grading in English and maths so I'd like to see how that's managed

I suppose if they are ready to do exams in year 10 they can get them out the way and move on to the next set in deeper depth in year 11 - of course the fact tht only the first grade would count to the school would mean that they won't be pressured to bank C grades and will only put them in for early exams if they can truly excel

My ds is at a superselective, and officially, KS4 doesn't start until year 10. But they were doing work that is in the GCSE syllabus in year 8 for maths and the three separate sciences, and now in year 9 they are doing GCSE work in classics, history and geography as well.

There could be more that I don't know though.

It must work as the school gets excellent results, and I'm thankful that my ds had an extra year to decide which subjects he wants to do for GCSE, especially as he is the youngest in the year group. He would have been choosing his GCSE options at 12 years old otherwise, and I just can't see any benefit to that.

Depends how it's done - one place I worked did a 3 year KS4 with half the options done in Y9/10 and the others in Y11. It was awful - many students were far too young to decide what they wanted to do and picking up subjects in Y11 that they hadn't done since Y8 was a nightmare. It can work if students are doing all their GCSE subjects over the 3 years but it has to be carefully managed.

My DS1 is I year 8 ATM. I can't get beyond the fact that he is way too young to be choosing his options and has far too little experience of the subjects to make proper decisions. Whether he enjoys a subject or not is based entirely on how funny the teacher is!

I'm not sure how much that will change by yr 9 but I hope he will have matured a bit and he will at least have experienced two/three teachers in most subjects.