How to help Y10 son catch up?

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Ds2 was taken seriously ill in September. He's been in hospital for the past 2 weeks and was off school ill before that. We hope he will be discharged next week but he is still very weak and won't be able to return to school until after half term, although he soon should be well enough to start working at home for a few hours a day.

So a Y10 student at the start of gcses who had missed over a month of schooling. How can he catch up with what he's missed without expecting him to work ridiculously long hours (he really cant)? How can we help him? What support can we expect from the school?

It all feels overwhelming

You need to speak to his HoY about support and ask them to get details of all the work covered in the time he has been off school. does he have good friends who will let you photocopy all the work he has missed? (Scan the pages on a tablet if necessary). I missed half a term of schooling many years ago and was expected to copy up all the work! I would recommend buying revision guides for his subjects, especially the sciences, and you may need to get a tutor to help with some subjects such as maths. I caught up because my BiL was a mathematician. Stay calm - GCSEs are a two year course so in the scale of things he hasn’t missed that much. DS missed nearly a term of A level work and still got straight As.

Thank you, that sounds like a sensible approach, esp re copying notes. I think I am panicking a bit but you're right, we have another 18 months - a month off just seems such a lot and generally it's one or two days a year.

do you know what he wants to do after GCSEs? It sounds like he will still be recovering for a while so I would prioritise catching up on maths, English, and anything he needs for next steps. Don’t try and catch up on everything at once, it will be overwhelming

After gcses is a levels. No idea which ones but can confidently predict that it won't be English Lit, French or history so yes, less pressure with those. There is an option by which he could drop French for extra English and maths due to his autism. We'd previously discarded that because he's highly academic but that may be worth revisiting, esp if it turns out his illness is due to a chronic condition which may result in additional time off.

Don’t panic. If he has 5 X 1 hour lessons a week at least 3 of them will be none exam. Take 10 mins per lesson for moving around the building, packing up and unpacking. Take away 10 mins or more for dealing with behaviour, setting expectations and admin. Now you are down to 22 x 40 mins sessions per week. No doubt when he is back in school he will be able to use non exam time lessons to catch up too

If you don’t already have them buy the GCP revision guides. Check they for the right board and paper.

Definitely drop French if you can, unless he loves it. Missing most of a half term is a big chunk, and you seem to imply he won’t be back fully fit after that so the most important thing now is to work smarter to get him through his course. Is he doing any Btecs

I'd also drop the French if he can.

Free Science Lessons has good short videos .

If say he has missed a play/novel for English Literature you can read it to him or audio book and chat about it as you go along.

School should definitely be putting a plan in place though. Have you spoken to the Head of Year then ideally they can contact each Head of Department for resources. I'd ask for the scheme of work for each subject do you can see what he has missed in the first term. I'd expect some sort of action plan.

Maybe in the holidays in the summer he could catch up on the work he has missed but I wouldn't put the pressure on him now. He's still got plenty of time.

I was chatting to another poster on here about digital homeschooling - could that be an option? There's a company who provides it (my cousin used them for her son when he couldn't attend school for a while) and it worked really well and meant he hadn't fallen behind when he returned

If he's fallen behind and can be trusted to work unsupervised (but with teachers setting work) they may allow him to drop weakest subject and PE (assuming not a gcse) and use that time to work in school independently. Also do school do after school revision sessions if so use them.
Worst case he concentrates on maths, English and Alevel possibilities so long as 5. If he's a good track record sure in circumstances they will be lenient on Alevel entry.
But don't panic or stress him too much or will negatively affect his recovery which at moment is main concern.

Place marking

No, no BTECs. He's doing drama which is largely performance based but confident he can catch up in that.

Not sure online homeschooling is the answer short term because he's currently not well enough to work anyway. But when improved yes I'd trust him to work independently if he were to get "free" periods due dropping French and he won't be able to do PE until he's stronger anyway.

I've been in touch with the school on and off since this started but he went from struggling to critically ill so fast all our communications have been a step behind - at first I thought he'd be back at school within a week (hollow laugh). And yes absolutely his health comes first but we need a plan or he'll worry.

I have ordered the revision guides and will contact the school again next week when hopefully we'll know what made him so sick (currently a toss up bw a severe infection or Crohns disease which affects what happens next).

I have a student (now in y11) who missed the first half term of y10 through illness. I photocopied the book of a reliable student and she was given some extra time for half a term to fill the gaps. She's absolutely where she should be now.
The main thing I said to her parents was to try not to worry - there's time to catch up and we will sort it. And we did.

If/when DS is able to cope with some school work but isn’t well enough for school itself the LA should be providing education. However much DS is able to manage. And that should continue until DS is attending school full time. So if, for example, when DS is able he can attend school for 1 hour a day but could cope with another hour of provision at home the LA should be providing that provision.