I would be so grateful for any help in this area. My daughter is in year 9 and her current Key Stage 3 grades are mainly in the 5's (mix of a,b and c). What Level GCSE would you expect her to study? The school (recently converted to Academy status) is insisting she study all subjects at Level 1 and they will only let her do 5 GCSEs and Btech Science, meaning that she won't be able to achieve higher than a Grade D at GCSE. This is despite her predicted levels (for end of year 9) being 6's in most subjects (bar maths and science where they are 5a). She is so distressed (as am I and her father)that they won't let her even try for a C grade in anything. Everything she wants to do in further education relies on her getting minimum Grade C and B's. Her teachers have told her how well she is doing and even her maths teacher told us 2 weeks ago at the parents evening that she could achieve a Grade C if she worked hard. She is in the second from top English class but second from bottom in Maths. She is a good student, never absent and never disruptive. She has never been in any trouble or even had a detention. I don't understand why they won't give her the chance to try for Grade C's. I am guessing this stems back to her CAT scores at primary which were quite low even though her SATS were mostly in the 6's. She would have been in band 2 were it not for the CATS which reduced her to a band 4 and in fact the dep head at the time told me he was initially thinking of putting her in band 5, the bottom band. She has since gone up to band 2 in English. Are there any teachers out there with any advice? My past experience in trying to reason with the school over various issues has rarely met with an success although I do intend to go into the school next week with all guns blazing. We only found this out at the end of school last Friday so have to stew on it all week. My poor daughter is distraught at the thought of never being allowed to try for a Grade C.