Taking GCSEs before 16 and support from school

[daewoo52]

I have a nephew in Year 10 who is taking ICT and is very advanced and is finding his lessons boring and he is becoming disruptive because of this. There was a meeting at the school today to discuss these issues which did not achieve anything. The school were also asked if he could sit his GCSE next year, it would mean a lot of work but work he is capable of doing and they have said they would need to look into it but it wasn't positive.

It feels like the school are not supporting someone that could give them A-C grades and who is willing to learn and wants to but finds the lessons to easy and are more concerned with putting him into exclusion when he gives an opinion or now on report for his disruption during lessons.

Where and what can we do to give my nephew the schooling he wants. Any advice would be appreciated.

I think you need to look into why your nephew feels its ok to disrupt the class tbh. He won't be the only one who is capable of doing the exam early - are others playing up? Is it just this one subject?

In order to accelerate the work for just him there would a huge amount of work for the teacher. One option would be for him to have extension work for each lesson, to move onto when he has finished the set work.

School is probably more concerned with supporting the 29 others in the class capable of achieving A to C....

Generally the way to get the schooling you want is not to piss about in lessons and annoy the teachers that you expect to go out of their way to help you.

Perhaps keen enthusiasm, diligence and asking for extension work once the work set has been completed would be a better way to go about things.

Unfortunately I don't think being bored is a good excuse for disrupting the class and it sounds like there is more to it than you have revealed if the school are looking at exclusion.

My child's school do let a whole group do the GCSE a year early and do an AS level in year 11, but obviously if this is not the case in the current school, it is not advisable to change schools at this point.

BeckAndCall is right in that the teacher cannot be expected to cater for him to take the GCSE a year early, but I am sure the teacher will be happy to give him extension work.

Sorry to be cynical - I sit on an exclusion panel occasionally and unfortunately "gifted and bored" is a fairly common excuse for absolutely appalling behaviour, which makes the other students and staff's life a misery.

The only other thing I can think of is to contact the SENCO, explain that the child is very advanced in a particular area and ask his or her advice about support they can give.

I think a lot of youngsters find the ICT very easy - it comes very naturally to them as they've grown up with it. It's not an excuse to be disruptive though. Someone should be pointing out to him that he should be grateful he's got an "easy" GCSE (or equivalent) that he doesn't need to put any effort into, and that gives him more time to focus on other subjects he finds harder, or even to relax in his own time. A good skill to learn in life is how to occupy yourself when you might be a bit bored.

The ICT curriculum is about to get a huge overhaul but it will come too late for your nephew unfortunately. He is going to have to grin and bear it and go for that A* but if he has this talent for the subject, foster it at home with programming skills. If he can get some experience of programming he could do Computer Science rather than ICT at A level - a much more demanding subject. Algorithms and programming are an essential part of Maths and Physics courses at hE too if he's interested in that. From 2014, ICT as we know it will almost disappear and will be replaced by a curriculum based on developing skills which allow children to build and programme computers rather than simply use them. Even Year 1 pupils will be expected to be able to run simple algorithms.

ICT GCSE is not a particularly challenging GCSE and your nephew won't be the only child who is bored. Is he bored in other lessons too?

ICT is notoriously dull.
Lots of kids are bright enough to pass GCSEs a year early but in most cases they get better grades when they take them in year 11.
Why on earth would the school bend over backwards to accommodate a child who is disruptive?
He needs to learn to manage his boredom, perhaps by working extra hard to get top grades.

I did 3 of my GCSE's in year 10. I didn't use it as an excuse to disrupt the class though. He may be advanced in ICT, but he sounds a bit immature and ignorant for his age.

I'd address that first

Can't see why you're pandering to his misbehaviour. . Work on him not being disruptive first

Schools are supportive of allowing students to sit gcse's early, but the student has to show that they are committed to learning and pissing around in class is not showing commitment. Maybe if he could show that he is hard working then they will seriously consider the request. At the end of the day these exams cost money, and they aren't really going to waste money on someone who is pissing around.
Being gifted is not a reason to disrupt other peoples education. Unless the teacher isn't that great they usually have additional work for those that have completed/too easy to get on with. But sometimes it takes the student to go and say something rather than just sitting being disruptive.
Are you sure that he is being disruptive because the work it too easy, and its not because the work is too hard?