No Exams

[Marjoriew]

What if the child doesn't want to do exams? What then?
Grandson is in no way academic and although he'll be 11 this month, I'm looking to a couple of years time and wondering what alternatives there might be to doing exams.
He's nearly of secondary age now and I am being constantly asked the question 'What about GCSEs?

Hi,
Is it possible for you to just look at the now?If your grandson is only just turning 11, he has plenty of years ahead of him to get qualifications. I was in your shoes when we first started home educating 3 years ago, my son suffers high anxiety, so i permently worried how he would ever achieve anything in life, and then i chatted with dayna martin, and she said to me, to leave him alone to find his own path, he he wanted anything he would let me know, now this took a lot of guts from me, as I was always trying to suggest things I thought he may be interested in, computer courses, distance learning courses etc. None of which he wanted at that particulary time, or needed.
Even if you dont think he is academic at the moment, doesnt mean that he wont be when he is motivated because he wants to achieve something. He has lots and lots of time.
I know this doesnt give you any helpful answers or waves a magic wand over your sons future, I wish I had the power to be able to do that, as then I wouldnt worry either! but I hope that you may be able to concentrate on today rather then tomorrow.
You sound like a wonderful gran!

He doesn't have to do exams if it doesn't suit the way you're going with HE. But you might find if you use workbooks etc that as he progresses through them, he'll have to move up to ones which are labelled as being for GCSEs, just because thats the norm.

Does he have any idea what he wants to do later? Or do you have any idea of the kind of job you see him enjoying? Some jobs they do want qualifications, but others don't. If he did want to do something which needed a qualification, he can always go to college when he's 16 or whatever and do it that way.

The OU could be your answer Marjorie.
You know just how severely dyslexic my dd2 is and I never thought she would be able to do any exams and she definately couldn't see herself doing any! But by the age of 15 she was really quite quickly ready to do something academic and so did an OU starter course which she then used to get into college where she is doing a National Btec.
Unbelievably we are now looking at Universities!!

Or your grandson may be more like my ds. Completetly put off anything academic by the experience in school, he happily lived his life autonomously educating himself with anything he was interested in. At 16 even he most definately wasn't ready for GCSEs-but suddenly at 17 he rang me up, on his way home from London and told me he had decided to go and do some qualifications. He went to college the very next day and signed up for 2 GCSEs in subjects he was interested in. He passed those very well and used those passes to do three A levels at a different college. He took another couple of GCSEs at the same time. Did well in all of them. Then he went and got himself a job in a garage forecourt locally. Everytime someone asked hm what he was going to do, he said he would let them know when he decided.
Then just as suddenly he asked to use my phone, one day last summer. When he returned it, he told me had rung a local University and would be enrolling on an access course in Sept. This he duly did. I have been so impressed this last year! He has put his head down and worked really hard. Been achieveing distinctions too.
He is going to University this Sept to do Psychlogy. He'll be 23 when he goes, but the time is so right for him now, and not before. And when you know that schools said he might achieve GCSE grade D if he worked really really hard (because of his dyslexia) you will understand what he has achieved-but in his own time. He has followed his own time table, not somebody else's that says you have to do GCSEs at 16.

So my answer would be for you, is to continue educating your grandson, in a way that interests him. Tell anyone who asks you will be looking at the OU when he is ready to consider qualifications.
Tell folks confidently that lots of home educators skip GCSEs and A levels and use the OU instead (it's true) and wait until your grandson is ready.
You have quite a long way to go yet. By 16 he may be ready to do the OU or even GCSEs but he might not. But home educators know that this is not a race, that learning is lifelong and when the time is right your grandson will let you know.