Anyone have any experience of an intensive, one year, GCSE retake course?

[Cern01]

DS is mildly dyspraxic, and has always hated school. After doing very little work for the last few years he is now having very small group teaching. He is eloquent and can speak at length on many of his subjects but isn’t able to write it all down. He is also pretty lazy.It is looking likely that he will achieve very little in this years GCSEs.

Next year he has no plan, and frankly I am not keen on him going to the local FE College, he has had some minor interaction with drugs and doesn’t make good choices when given the freedom.

I mentioned that he might like to try a year boarding and do some retakes - which he seems really positive about. Does anyone have any experience of this? Can anyone suggest good schools?

There are lots of "crammer" colleges around
Collingham and Mander Portman have both been getting results for a long time ...

Thanks - I am aware of MPW but not Collingham, I will investigate. Just wondered if anyone had experience of the their DC participating and if it had been successful?

Surely it would be much better to work this year? Rather than just coast all year and then for you to pay a fortune for a crammer for next year?

You are looking at a lot of money for a one year retake course. I’d be spending a smaller amount now if you have to instead. And working out how he can achieve what he verbally is capable of.

It’s utterly unacceptable for him to waste a year of education because he’s lazy. Don’t enable him to do that.

Thanks Vodka, it’s a fair point and yes it would be much better to work this year so as to not need to retake, however, the reality is that even with this he isn’t going to do so well, and so I am considering all the options.

I have, shall we say, a good understanding of how MPW used to operate some years ago.
Some kids went there instead of finishing the year at school.
Its ALL about the results. Nothing else matters.

Thanks - I too have some understanding of MPW and from what I have observed it isn’t the correct place for DS. I am looking more at non selective secondaries with very small group teaching and individual approaches.

@Cern01 how about him going elsewhere right now, but drop back into year 10? Then he’ll be able to actually cover year 10 better and then year 11.

Better perhaps than having the fails on his page?

A small non selective secondary would consider this better I think (if you do want one of those rather than a specific crammer!)

You could look at Rochester independent College
Or look at going somewhere like More House in Frensham for a three year sixth form

Not in the UK. My 17yr old was very lazy throughout school. Realized he needed to find gainful employment and did a 12 month intensive redo of the previous 3 yrs of schooling. As a more mature young soul he buckled down and did excellent.