Should I let DD withdraw from French GCSE as she's finding it tough?

[Sobek]

Year 11 DD took German GCSE last May and immediately started working on French GCSE to be taken this May. They did their first controlled assessment after 3 weeks and needless to say, most did very badly. The writing assessments were taken much later, but again marks have been poor. Almost all of the group have failed (and these are the top languages students!). Dd said the teacher has been teaching beyond the scope of the course and has over complicated matters. Some of the group don't want to take the GCSE as they've already got a German GCSE and don't want a bad grade amongst what should hopefully be good grades for most of them. Dd hasn't ever failed at anything or found any subjects particularly tough, but she is really struggling. She said the amount of time she'd need to put into French in order to do well (predicted A* but now would be absolutely delighted with a B) would mean that her other subjects would be neglected. She doesn't want to do the exam but the head says that she has no choice as it's too late to withdraw. Following something I posted about Dd2's German yesterday, I've found out that is not the case at all, and the school could pull her out.

My dilemma is this....would it be better for her to try and fail/not do greatly or, by letting her drop the subject, would that be giving her the message that when the going gets tough, you just give up? At the moment she is completely demotivated.

Do they get their grades on one certificate? Head says if she does badly she doesn't ever need to tell anyone about it, but surely if all the results are on one certificate, she can't lie?

I would pull her out. If she has a German GCSE, then she has the MFL ticked. That is, unless she wants to continue for A level.

No, she definitely doesn't want to do any MFL for A level! The whole French thing is causing major stress at home at the moment...she's really down about it and I'm torn about what to do.

I've just been reading the thread about whether comprehensives stretch able pupils and Scottishprofessor's post aptly describes Dd. She's very able, probably never really been stretched, and now she's facing something challenging, she's just fallen apart and decided that it's not worth trying with anything now, because it would be better to do badly having not revised, than to do badly having put in the necessary work, in which case everyone would view her as a failure.

Has she done all the CAs yet? What is she averaging?

If she is averaging a pass I'd probably say continue as it would be good to challenge her, but averaging a D or below maybe call it a day.

The attitude in your last post needs addressing though, as she could come to real trouble with A levels if she gives up at the first sign of difficulty.

(I mean your DD's attitude not your's obviously)

She thinks she is averaging a C on her controlled assessments, but she has no idea whether it is a high C or low C. Her CAs are worth 60%. I suppose realistically she is looking at a C at best.

I'm really worried about her attitude too which is why I'm in two minds about her giving up on this. I'm also concerned about how she'll cope with the demands of A levels Teen.

I would speak to the Head of languages and ask why able children have been let down so badly . It seems ludicrous that someone should now be looking at not even a C grade . Of course, the school could have been less than honest about the ability of the group. What grade did she get in German? Sorry if I have missed that but having had a DD who did two languages , both of them were sat in year 11. My DD was pretty good at MFL and could have been accelerated but she took them at the normal time and achieved top grades. This is a more secure way of teaching MFL. I would see if the school think they can redeem the situation but if you have not learnt the vocabulary and structure needed, then it will be difficult now to catch up. It may be that French is more difficult than she thought and she has not put the work in?

Afair, when DD did her controlled assessments last year, they pretty much knew what had to be done in advance; wrote their pieces and had them corrected by the teacher several times, and just had to remember what they'd written for the actual exam. Is that no longer the case?

Have to say, I was shocked; in my day, we had no idea what might be expected of us..

She did German in one year and got a grade A. The results for her the German group were 4 As, 11Bs, 6Cs, 3Ds. At the moment, the highest grade that anyone in the French group is looking at is a C. The majority are working at a D. Dd's teacher is the new head of MFL. Dd said that her teacher didn't start with the basics, she just launched into complicated tenses but without teaching any basic vocab or sentence structures. I got a tutor for Dd 4 weeks ago (too late I know), and she said that the building blocks are just not there. Nearly every parent has complained to the school and the Head Teacher has apologised, but that isn't much help now.

However, I don't want to put all of the blame onto the school because Dd realised some months ago that she was going to find this tough and her response has been to blame the teacher rather than to put in extra work and now she's just giving up.

So has she not been learning French since year 7? Has she literally just started this year?

Dd's teacher won't correct their controlled assessments, she just gives very general and vague advice on their draft. Dd said that they should be given 60 minutes to do the CAs, but they have to complete them in one 50 min lesson and by the time the papers are handed out and everyone is settled down, she said they only have 40 mins to do it. Also, I looked on spec and it said dictionaries could be used in the writing CA, but the teacher never told them that and they didn't use them and lost loads of marks for spelling. I emailed the teacher about this and she said that if she allows them to use dictionaries they won't prepare. However, in the last writing CA (they do 2 writing and 2 speaking), there were dictionaries available.

They did French in Years 7, German in Year 8 and then in Year 9 the double languages group take both. Then they only take German in Year 10 and French in Year 11. The problem is that by concentrating only on German for the whole of Year 10, they forget all of the French they have learned!

'the Head Teacher has apologised'

Well that's too little too late. They screwed up so they need to withdraw her so it doesn't mess up her results. If it costs the school in league tables or reputation, tough shit.

That sounds like a weird set-up. And I'm pretty sure DD's practice CAs were corrected. Will ask her later. I remember thinking, how could anyone possibly fail? But it sounds as if this teacher is some sort of jobsworth who ignores the fact everyone else is basically getting spoonfed. Not sure how you could go about changing that, though.

I'd take her out. It's not the school's choice - it's yours and hers.
I think it wouldn't be right to allow the French issue to have a detrimental effect on her other subjects.

Dd said her German teacher corrected their writing CAs and he was happy for them to submit more than one draft for correction. It sounds as though he gave them a huge amount of help (not sure whether he was allowed to give them as much as he did!). She thinks her French teacher is lazy. I don't think that's the case, but I do think she is sticking rigidly to the rules and it sounds as though she's been a bit ambitious and has tried to teach them beyond the specification.

It is a weird set-up though Shotgun and I raised my concerns about this in Year 9 and the MFL teachers all agreed that they didn't like it either. For some reason, the Head is insisting they do it this way. However, now that it seems the whole EBac thing has died a death, the Head is talking about only allowing the most able to take a language in the future, and even then it will only be one language which will be studied from Year 7.

At first when she asked to withdraw, I was totally against the idea. I've always told my children that if they commit to something they should see it through and I don't want her to view herself as a quitter. But I'm beginning to think that perhaps I should take her out Tittingabout because she's so worried about the low grade/fail reflecting badly on her in the future (mainly she's concerned that colleges have offered her sixth form places based on predicted grades and the A* in French is definitely not going to happen!).

She sounds like she doesn't know her arse from her elbow. It's a shame to drop a subject she clearly has the ability to do well in - and in answer to your first question, I believe the results come in one certificate (assuming they're all taken with the same board).
But I wouldn't think one relatively duff result among a clutch of As and A*s would reflect badly on her; GCSEs are looked at, but are not as relevant as A levels (apart from Oxbridge applications, I'm told).
However, if the whole thing is stressing her out to the detriment of other subjects, maybe you should consider letting her drop it?
GCSEs don't require a huge amount of work for an able pupil though; maybe she'll surprise herself?

Sorry cross-post - I meant the head not your DD re. arse/elbow comment!

Some people are saying that now that AS levels are going, universities may take much more of an interest in GCSEs, but I also think that one low grade won't look too bad (although maybe a D wouldn't look great). I've been telling her that if she puts in just an extra 15 mins a day, she could pull her mark up. But for her, only an A will do, and she said that realistically the highest she can expect to get is a C which she thinks is going to ruin her life!

As I've said before though, I don't want to pin all the blame on the teacher. I think Dd wants to be spoonfed. She's going to really struggle with A levels with this attitude.

Let her withdraw. It won't make a blind bit of difference in the future once she's past Gcse level. If she's stressing it really isn't worth it. She's young, believe me dropping one subject won't make a blind bit of difference to her future.
Life is very short, far too short to be inflicting stress on teenagers over exams which count for nothing really (unless they are chosen A level subjects obviously).

I would be very concerned that the tutor said that the building blocks aren't there!! There really is very little time to sort it out...

It sounds as though this policy of dropping a language completely for a year is, predictably, not helping them at all.

I would let her drop it on the basis that the school's system is bonkers. If she actually wants to learn french there are many other ways to do so.

if you allow her to pull out because its tough going and may only get a 'c' grade then how will she get on if things get tougher, will she want to drop out altogether. if she is that able she should be able to and want to, put the effort in to try for the grade she thinks she deserves rather than give up when the going gets tough