GCSE options - the school wants DS to take 8 instead of 10 -very upset

[HisMum4now]

I am a bit upset after the meeting at school, so sorry if maybe I am not thinking straight.

DS is in Y9 at a grammar school and working mostly at levels7-8, except for level 6 in English and history, his weakest subjects. The school GCSE options include compulsory double English, maths, triple science, MFL, history or geography. DS thrives on science and maths. He is very good with languages, so he rightly wants to take both German and French. So basically this takes care of the 9 GCSE subjects out of 10. As optional choice DS wanted to take ICT or graphic design -for fun as these are his preferred subjects.

Now DS has SEN and the school told us that to accommodate the SEN provisions and the special exam arrangements they need to free two subjects in the time table. They say that controlled assessments in one subject would be overrunning into another and it will be a mess which will impact on DS. So they say, it is better to do 8 GCSEs instead of 10 and not to take history (which is compulsory for other pupils).

We have a bit of a history of disagreement about SEN with the school and I don't believe the reason they are giving. They simply don't want to bother with SEN provisions.

I am very upset about this. It doesn't feel right that the school is taken away opportunities and experiences away from him for the reason of their own convenience.
How will it look to the universities? Will he be considered at all by the likes of Oxbridge?

Is having 8 GCSEs with A grades better than having 10 GCSEs A grades and couple of B grades?

DS is not going to study English or history at A levels, but this is why it would be nice to balance his profile with some humanities and a creative subject, even if not all of them will come out with A*.
What about English Baccalaureate?
What if English doesn't come out with an A - how will it look then?

He is so looking forward to his ICT that I don't know what to tell him.

I know there are a few people here knowledgeable about admissions, so could give me an idea of his chances of getting into good universities if we accept 8?

You really don't need to worry. 8 or 10 GCSE grades makes no difference whatsoever to universities. They will only look at his A Level results.
The school is being reasonable in recognising that the extra time needed to support your child through the exams. This is not their fault but rather the fact exam boards now compress exams so tightly together, it is like a conveyor belt. This impacts upon candidates with varied learning needs but exam boards will not let this bother them, they delegate it to the school to deal with the implications. So don't blame the school.
But don't turn this into a big deal with your DS that this is a bad deal. It isn't. Many schools across the country are (rightly) saying 'less is more', and 'quality rather than quantity'. In the end at 18, 10 GCSE grades are just letters on a piece of paper.

Universities only look at GCSEs if you apply to med school.

I had this query with my son, so when my daughter was applying to Uni, I took the opportunity to ask the admissions officer at Bristol Univeristy if he would be penalised for doing fewer GCSEs. His sister did 12, I was told that its not about how many but which ones. They look at GCSEs for English,maths if they don't take them at ALevel.

He will need 5 good passes, a B in English is not the end of the world my daughter got that and is studying for a Chemistry degree.

You might also like to know that just today Michael Gove has announced a whole-scale review of the ICT curriculum because it is "harmful, boring and irrelevant". This is going to affect GCSE courses which will have to reflect whatever comes out of that review. IT organisations nationally are highly critical of the current accreditation. Your DS might find (as so many have done in my school) that a GCSE computer science qualification is not going to deliver what they think it should. Many business organisations in Britain agree.

But what about the English Baccalaureate - Mr. Gove's idea that you must have a humanity to be a "whole" individual and to be eligible to a good uni?

I agree ICT is not adding real value, maybe just pleasure - they were going to design a computer game :)
But history would broaden and balance his skill set -develop some debating skills?

I am just feeling that they ask me to choose whether to chop the head or the arm off.

Ignore the EBacc, it has nothing to do with children, it is an artificial means to measure school performance. It has nothing to do with the 'whole' individual, quite the reverse in fact, it is an archaic means of defining academic learning - one which employers are criticising heavily (and the Education Select Committeee). The EBacc has no impact on Higher Education.

Your final comment worries me. "I am just feeling that they ask me to choose whether to..." etc. Ask me? This is your child's decision, not yours. It is his future and you must respect that. To do otherwise is to potentially seed resentment if 'your' choices turn out to be the wrong ones. Options represents the start of making adult decisions. Believe me, after years of experience on this topic, do not allow yourself to try to control this. Let him make up his mind - he knows his learning better than you. It is his future.

Thanks for the comments. It is reassuring

I disagree with Labrador's assessment of the EBacc.

"the school told us that to accommodate the SEN provisions and the special exam arrangements they need to free two subjects in the time table. They say that controlled assessments in one subject would be overrunning into another and it will be a mess which will impact on DS."

Have they actually specified what the problem is, or are they waffling? If you try to pin them down on detail would their argument fall apart?
As a matter of interest, what is more important to you: the rounded education or the certificate to prove it? Would it be possible to attend lessons (and learn all the skills and knowledge of History) but not actually enter for the GCSE.

You can always explain special circumstances on the Personal Statement.

Labrador, I appreciate your comments.

Clearly it?s not me who is taking his choices away from him right now. He doesn't even know yet - the school didn't "consult" him. He still thinks that he's going to do 10 GCSEs like everybody else. I am the one who will have to explain why not.

The idea that parents are redundant once children turn 13 seems a bit over rated. I really feel something is wrong when the school is playing the children against the parents to justify their failure to meet their Special Needs. But that's another story.

Why don't you telephone the school tomorrow and ask for a meeting with you, ds and the head of year. I think it is reasonable for one of the teachers who have been party to this decision to help you to explain the reasons for it to you son. It's called consultation and negotiation and it is a very important part of adult life outside of schools.

Senua - you touched exactly the problem for me.

I genuinely think that history would be good for DS just for learning, to expand his skills. It is a difficult subject for him preciisely because of his SEN, but he has improved from level 4 to level 6 last year and this means he can learn it. Challenging him(self), pushing his limits would be a very good experience. For some people achievement means winning Olympic medals. For DS doing history at half decent level might ba a medal-worthy experience.

You are right if I challenge the detail their argument will fall apart. They certainly can do and I can ask to do more in terms of accomodating more GCSEs. But the question really is what is best? I am not clear. I came home I felt I gave away part of DS future.

It would be fine if he didn't sit the exam, but then if he does all the work and don't get the grade - how would he feel?
I just don't know what is right. Please give me more food for thought.

"Please give me more food for thought."

Um, well, you did ask.

Is this the right school for him? Are your non-Grammar alternatives acceptable in terms of academics? Will they be more attuned to his SEN?

So he has to drop two subjects because otherwise fitting in the controlled assessments is tricky? Is this because of extra time?
What will he be expected to do in those free timetable slots when he is not doing controlled assesements?

Could you come to a compromise on 9? Two subjects worth of free lessons seems a lot to me, but you obviously know more about what extra provisions he needs and how much time they might take.

You need a meeting with the school with your son there. It is not your job to explain the schools reasoning to him.
(It is your job to fight his corner with the school if necessary.)
He has to be happy with the subjects he ends up doing, not you and not the school.
I had a massive fight with my Dad over doing Biology O level and a massive fight with the HT over doing biology A level.
I was going to do a physics degree, biology was just for fun.
Of course in the end I swapped courses at collage and did a biology degree.

We are in grammar school area. I doubt any school will be more attuned because he is high achieving. One of SEN professionals on mumsnet commented that it is much easier to see what is to be done for low achieving SEN pupils. All the research and experience goes there.

In the meeting I negotiated hard. "In exchange" of accepting 8 GCSEs the school promised to use the time to give extra support with study skills and English to push him to higher level- that would take 1 hour. The other hour will be taken, by his social skills 1:1 sessions etc. Currently he is withdrawn from RE for this reason. But the school should do all of those extra skills anyway because it is written in his statement. It doesn't have to be at the expense of the curriculum. The real reason they don't want 10 GCSE is they don't believe he will cope well with history- but this is only because they are not making the right provisions up until now. Dissuplying him from history means they don't have to do anything. They failed him and shift the responsibility on us to accept the losses.

They can do better on this. They promised extra help, but there is no document. Even legally the SEN system is not designed to push pupils to their personal best. He is above national average in English now (level 6), so they don't have to push him further. Their promises - I had 5 meetings with the school last year and each time promises were made, notably that they will not dissuply him from history... So I am not sure what all the deal about extra support with English and study skills is worth, probably nothing.

hismum4now it sounds to me as though the school has done a lot to support your son. It does sound extraordinary that he has coped so far at a grammar school with only level 6 in English in Year 9. As he gets a year or two older English will be essential in all of his exams I would have thought and a very important skill to have both in terms of academic achievement overall and in getting to university and attaining independence afterwards - the number of application forms I reject (workplace) because of poor literacy is jaw dropping, and often from those with two masters degrees. I accept that he is likely to focus on sciences/maths but I think it sounds as though the school is trying to support him.

I wouldn't have thought having 8 or 10 GCSEs will make that much difference to him but really sound foundation skills will. If that's something the EBac might put right then it can only be a good think in my opinion.

As a final thought, if history is so important to you can you not turn it into an interest for your son, perhaps focussing on parts that are of interest to your son. If he focuses on maths how about getting him to look at how some of the funding for key wars was raised and the cost of the 100 years war compared to the first world war for example. Or you could look at how the means of fighting have changed since the middle ages. It doesn't have to be done at school - you could even, if you can stretch to it, get a tutor but he might with 8 gcses be doing enough.

In any event I do think it is for the school to explain to him with you present the reasons for his decision and to support you to get him on board.

Could anyone comment how universities react to applications, which obviously highlight SEN?
I mean having 8 GCSE when everybody else has 10 or 14 does highlight some problem. No?

Better eight good ones than ten mediocre ... free lessons are wonderful for SEN children because it gives them time to sort themselves out. My not-SEN DS dropped a GCSE for music practice, brilliant, my SEN son struggled through 11 with average results.

I honestly wouldn't worry about how universities will view GCSE results; they're only really interested in A levels, unless he's applying to med school, in which case he'll need up to 8 A* at GCSE.

As someone up thread said, having a good (ie A or B) grade for English is far more important than having a C in English and a C in history.

I am married to a University admissions tutor and I can say hand on heart he is not remotely interested in GCSE's.

My Dad was a university lecturer who did the admissions for his course. He retired a few years ago, but I can't imagine that it has changed much in that time. He was looking for quality, rather than quantity. He looked for the Maths and English grades first (even though his course wasn't either of those subjects) and then for good grades across the other subjects.

However, as other people have said, the most important thing for him were the predicted A-level grades. Eight really good GCSEs will be fine.

hismum I agree there is nothing wrong with 8A*s although will that be a rather too high expectation for his two english lang and lit? I too have a DC with SEN. He did 8 GCSEs and has had 4 university offers although not from RG or Oxbridge. We had the same discussion about geography or history. In the end we decided that he could read about history in his spare time as the essays would be hard for him. He did geography and coped well with the short answer format. Is there not chance they could compromise and let him do 9 with the ICT.

You mention that the school has said that controlled assessments would run into each other. Other school certainly only had one on a day. it might be worth checking the timetables for this year's controlled assessments.

My concern would be what the school are actually going to do in those extra lessons once the controlled assessments are completed. Hopefully there will be some structured lessons and chances to do past papers in exam situations so he learns how to use the extra time. A skill I feel is often overlooked. It would be useful for the school to write down exactly what they are going to do.

I think that pupils keep doing ICT in years 10 and 11 even if not actually taking a GCSE in it. If he just enjoys doing it, would not taking it as an exam option free up some of his timetable?

Of course there is no guarantee that the extra 3 hours will be used effectively. He?ll l sit with the LSA. She is great , but I am not sure she will get the required support from the teachers and with the strategies.

How can I get the school to commit? They promised things before.

Any idea?