Year 8 taking GCSE Maths and English

[bigmouthstrikesagain]

Ds is 12 and in y8. He is in top set English and Maths and they were informed last week that they would be taking GCSE English and Maths at the end of year 8. We have not had any information home yet (if nothing is sent out this week I will chase it up as I want to know the reasoning behind this and which exam in English they will be sitting).

I have found nothing from a brief internet search about how common this is. I am a little concerned as ds is HF ASD (diagnosis this summer) and a highly anxious child. Particularly over school work (and his presentation is awful). I believe he is capable of the work intellectually but as he needed scribe and a separate room to get through SATs I will need reassurance form the school that he will not be too pressured and that the support to sit the exams will be in place, ds will place plenty of of pressure on himself and will want to complete the courses - I am not so sure whether this is good for him but I doubt I would convince him of that so I will be supportive.

I would just like to hear from anyone who has experience of this. Has a ds or dd that has taken early GCSEs. Ds is in a middle school,so during this year we will be applying for Upper School and visiting / preparing for transition to the new school for yrs 9-13. There is enough to deal with this year so I am not sure why there is a need to do GCSEs as well.

Any reassurance or experience? Cheers!

My sister sat 4 GCSEs in year 9, and the rest alongside a level maths and English in year 11. But I understand the curriculum has changed?

what did she do after that fruitcider and what sort of grades did she get?

She did 2 more a levels at college then proceeded to be a bum for the next 12 years she's never had a job! I live in hope...

For her GCSE maths, statistics, English and RE she got a mixture of As and Bs. For first a levels she got Bs. She failed the second 2!

Just been looking over his maths homework, ds is certainly doing what looks like GCSE level maths at the moment - butfrom what ds has now told me - the teacher has told them that this year the maths work they will be doing is GCSE level not that they are actually taking GCSE maths. But I still need to check this with the school - I can understand the confusion from ds point of view!

So its a false alarm then?

I hope she find her path fruitcider :)

bigmouth, my DS did what he told me was a GCSE maths paper last summer (end of year 7) as his end of year exam. He's not bad at maths/ top set etc, but no genius so I was baffled. He brought it home to show me and it really did look like a proper paper. He told me the rationale was that they'd been working at GCSE level in the areas they'd covered/ that paper covered those areas/ therefore they could take it. Obviously there's loads of the GCSE that they haven't even begun to learn yet, so it kind of made sense. I wonder if your son could be similar?!

Yes Traalaa - ds clarified a few things last night. He told me they will be taking some old maths GCSE papers during year 8 and working on the concepts related to them - not the same as doing a maths GCSE this year! But that is the problem with getting all the information from the child.

His school still hasn't sent out a newsletter or updated the calendar on the website - so currently the school has no plans for the academic year at all - apart from the term dates there is nothing...

There's plenty of GCSE level work that a capable Y8 learner can do (and indeed a capable Y6 learner; our sons were tackling GCSE papers (foundation only, I think) in their last year of primary.

Given that schools are only allowed to use results for the first time students take a GCSE for the hideously toxic and damaging league tables, with the result that many are stopping kids having a go in Y10, let alone earlier... I'm not surprised by your update!

ahhhhh..... once a year, DC school gives past GCSE papers to all the kids in yr7 & yr8. (all sets except maybe the kids in the special SN-stream). I think the logic behind this is:

It's good for them to have a paper where they don't have a clue how to o some problems, they learn not to be afraid of the unfamiliar, but instead to try to use what they do know in those situations; else they learn to start working on developing the skills that will help them deal with very unfamiliar problems;

It flushes out some kids who are in wrong sets;

It makes the paper format more familiar by the time they are doing mocks, etc.;

There's no shame in not doing well, they all know the papers contain some material they haven't been taught about, yet, and the papers are meant to be wildly beyond their current levels. For the kids who can figure the unfamiliar questions out: great confidence boost. For the rest, it highlights stuff they are still missing.

I think the boys' new secondary school does that, too, yeOlde