GCSE year - what options for ds - hates school, failed mocks, totally demotivated

[GladysLondon]

I'm at my wits end. 16 year old DS is a lovely guy but hates his school, and failed all his mocks. He's already on a limited pathway (6 GCSE's including foundation maths). Its nearly Feb. Any suggestions for our options now?
e.g
a) Do we struggle and keep him there, try to help him more outside school; accept he may well fail all and just get into his beloved music technology BTEC studies
b) take him out now if we can and see if we can get him into a private tutorial college to focus on just 4 core (English Lit and Lang, foundation maths and combined science)
c) just take him out and let him enjoy a stress free few months, then when he realises he needs to have GCSEs to get jobs, maybe he'll get more self-motivation?

School is compulsory to 16 so I’m not sure why you think you can just remove him now?

Focus on getting his English and maths. If he doesn’t, he will have to resit them in college which could limit his options. What does he need to get onto his BTEC course?

Why is he struggling? Is it lack of ability or is he just not working at all?

What are the school suggesting? There must be meetings and follow-ups organised, surely, after failing the mocks.

You could remove him from school if you decided to home ed and privately enter for exams.

You could ask the school for a reduced timetable but he would still have to do the core subjects.

he should start looking at either college courses, (this should already be happening) or if he isn't going to do FE then look in to apprenticeships.

The final option would be for him to look at getting a job when school ends.

What is at the root of this? Why did he fail all his mocks?

Concentrate on the music btech and English and maths. Maybe ask if he can drop down to just 5 as well, so he can really focus. Help him make revision a habit if that’s what he struggles with - maybe try and sit together, you doing some work and him with all technology shut off and a past paper. It would help if you could tell us why he failed - more specific advice could be given then.

OK, firstly thanks to all replies.
i) Access to Music college in Shoreditch, which offers the BTEC Music production/Technology course, can tutor him thru maths and English resits, but I doubt he'll be allowed/able to do extended level 3 BTEC.
ii) He struggles thru a mix of ability (dyscalculia in particular) and not working due to lack of motivation. He hated his private school, so we transferred to him to a local state at start of Year 10 and it just hasn't worked.
iii) The school is struggling organisationally, and unfortunately it is a case that many lessons are mainly about crowd control. There's a parents evening in 2 weeks, but we had to contact them about the mocks results, not vice versa.
iv) Apprenticeships, music production courses, work, all very much on the table.
v) What's at the root? Low self esteem, some learning/processing challenges, and our (parental) dysfunctions.
vi) Yes I think we should drop media studies; possibly design and technology, though if he applied himself he could pass that. He had a great English teacher but the school have switched the teacher because of resource difficulties.
We knew these two years would be tough for him, but I feel we've let him down phenomenally badly with some awful decisions on his schooling. I'm not sure there's anything we can do to help him now with GCSE's this year, but if there's a way we could find somehow to motivate him, I still believe he could scrape a pass or two.

My friends son failed his GCSEs due to similar problems and dyslexia. He really was supposed to get passes at maths and English to do the course he wanted at college, but it's a very practical subject which is what he is good at, and the college let him in with a reference from his tutor. My friend says they are used to kids like him with some learning difficulties but good practically there, and have very good teachers for the maths and English gcse who help them a lot more than at school.

This was similar to us a year ago and my advice is to get him through his english lang and maths. That keeps doors open.

If I was going through it again i would take him out of school and find a decent tutor to just focus on these two subjects.