Can MFL be dropped as a reasonable adjustment for child with disability?

[moosemama]

Ds has a disability which affects his education in lots of ways, including chronic exhaustion and pain, which can result in him missing a lot of school.

He has recently, on the advice on medical professionals that work with him, been placed on a reduced timetable and when that didn’t help enough, his timetable was reduced even further and is now looking at yet another period of absence. As a result of the way his timetable is structured, the reduced timetable meant that he has missed a lot of French lessons and is massively behind. This is compounded by prolonged absences due to injuries last year which meant he was already starting this year (Y9) at a disadvantage.

School has suggested he takes a reduced number of GCSE options, which makes sense, as it will reduce his workload, but I would rather he took the options for subjects he wants to do and will be helpful in his chosen career path and dropped MFL, which he finds exceptionally stressful and clearly isn’t going to pass anyway.

To me it makes absolutely no sense for him to take a subject that will compound his health issues by stressing him out, for which the end result will be a fail anyway and drop a subject that he enjoys, finds relatively easy, will most likely pass and will be useful to him.

School are saying Government pressure means that they cannot allow him to drop MFL and I do know this Government has tightened up the rules, but I know other children with the same condition that have been allowed to drop MFL under reasonable adjustments for disability.

I suppose what I’m asking is that is MFL a statutory requirement now or does school have the discretion to make the choice for a pupil to drop it based on their additional needs?

You need a language to get the EBacc, but it's not compulsory. It certainly isn't at DS's school.

Ivdont think any unis or employers are interested in the ebacc. The only uni that wants mfl is UCL and even then there are ways round it.

MFL is not a statutory requirement and plenty of schools allow kids to drop at GCSE. Keep pushing.

He isn’t going for the EBacc. His school are very keen on it generally, but aren’t putting pressure on ds to do it.

He wants to go into computer graphics (not gaming - design) long-term, so French isn’t exactly mandatory for that.

As for unis, we’re not sure when/if he will be well enough and when he does it will have to be one local to home, rather than the best in his chosen field, as he’s unlikely to be able to manage independently.

I suppose what I’m asking is that is MFL a statutory requirement now or does school have the discretion to make the choice for a pupil to drop it based on their additional needs?

No, it isn't a statutory requirement, and he doesn't need to have a disability or additional needs to be entitled to drop it. Our school strongly encourages all children to do MFL (which I support), but it doesn't force anyone.

I know a girl who was allowed not to take an MFL because she was dyspraxic in a school where two were compulsory. One of my DS's was allowed to drop compulsory IT because he was worried about not getting enough music practice done. Should be decided on the individual not on rules.

Thank you titchy. I thought I’d read somewhere that the current Government had made MFL mandatory. I know of older children that have been allowed to drop it (including my ds1, but he is in an independent school) but wondered if perhaps things have changed.

The SENCO agrees with me, but says she has a fight on her hands with the Senior Management Team about it.

Dd dropped german at easter in year 10. It took me weeks of meetings to get this agreed. School said no several times. She's dyslexic and a mfl was a mistake for her. I had to be very for.

My son (y10) was allowed to drop MFL, just because he did not want to do it (moderately dyslexic, not enough for extra time or help, so very mild). The HT explained they want all kids to do mfl, but also accepted that for some kids it would be better to drop it.

Your school sounds rigid.

Thank you Brokenbiscuit. Ordinarily I would agree with you that an MFL is useful, but he is completely lost at this point, after missing so much of the curriculum. Plus his primary didn’t start teaching French whereas all the other local primaries did, so most of his peers were ahead of him even in Y7.

Ds1 dropped it because he has ASD and his school timetabled his interventions in MFL slots, so it wasn’t exactly our choice.

A good school looks at the individual child

Thank you MrsJoshDun

10things They are a highly competitive academy with very high standards, but I have to say that, other than this, they have been absolutely fantastic at supporting ds and accommodating his needs. I have no complaints at all.

His disability didn’t start causing him serious problems until he was in year 8, so we’re having to re-think his plans on the hop really.

They may well agree to it. I just wanted to know what ds’ rights are and what is/isn’t statutory/mandatory.

Not quite the same scenario, in that my DD is at an independent school, but at options evening last week, the head good me that all girls would be strongly encouraged to take a MFL, unless they had a good reason not to. DD has ADHD...which the head immediately agreed was enough reason not to take a MFL.

Just a shot in the dark; can your senco ask her union how best to clarify this with slt?

I would have thought the local authorities would be fine about it though, perhaps go higher.

Local authorities and unions have nothing to do with this. MFL is not a legal requirement but the government wants 90% ebac participation. So MFLs will be a part of the menu for most children. Independent schools can do what they want.

Thank you Brokenbiscuit. Ordinarily I would agree with you that an MFL is useful, but he is completely lost at this point, after missing so much of the curriculum. Plus his primary didn’t start teaching French whereas all the other local primaries did, so most of his peers were ahead of him even in Y7.

No, absolutely, there should be some flexibility. MFL learning is great, but it isn't for everyone, and each child deserves the best shot at their GCSEs in the subjects that are likely to be useful for them - whether they have disabilities or not.

My son didn't study MFL. He was educated in mainstream secondary with learning difficulty and though they weren't very clued up about how things could be changed for him (until I told them), they were already informed that he didn't have to study a language.

Thank you Charmatt that’s useful to know. I think I have enough info to fight them if they try to force him to do it now.

Hi zzzzz. He could and actually already is, but it’s so bad for his self esteem and he finds the lessons really tough, as he’s in bottom set it’s a really noisy and chaotic environment. If he drops it, he can use the MFL lesson slots to either rest in the SEN room or catch up on work he’s missed.

It doesn’t help that he has a new French teacher this year and she gave him a bad grade for effort on his Autumn report because he hadn’t completed some homework when he was off sick. (He has only ever had top marks across the board for effort before and even won an award for it last year!). We have an agreement with school that if teachers don’t send him the work, he doesn’t have to do it, but she still argued, she just didn’t want to even try to understand how complex his condition is and how badly it affects him. Thankfully his form tutor fought his corner.

Generally though, I agree. I have taken that line with Geography. They wouldn’t let him drop it this year (citing the need for them to provide him with a broad, balanced curriculum) despite him definitely not taking it forward next year for GCSE studies. He misses one lesson a fortnight (two week timetable) because I wouldn’t budge re his reduced hours and it was the only non-core subject he has that day. I told him not to worry about it, attend the other lesson, participate in class, do the homework from the lesson he attends and forget about what grade he gets at the end of the year. It just doesn’t matter.

He is now off full-time for at least a couple of weeks because getting him in for adhoc lessons here and there when he felt a bit better was causing a constant cycle of boom and bust, with him getting more and more sick every time. I have arranged for him have some work sent home and the plan is that I will help him pace himself to manage study, physio and rest at a level that means he can still recuperate and get stronger over the next couple of weeks.

At least the SENCO at his school is fantastic and very much in his corner - it certainly makes a huge difference compared to some of the SENCOs we’ve had to deal with for ds1.

Ds2 has an EHCP and was allowed to drop first Spanish and then geography when it became clear he was struggling - his school was reluctant at first as his (ludicrous) targets were all A*s and they wanted all their high and middle achievers to do the EBacc but the SENCO persuaded them that at this point - towards the end of Y10 - it was more important to focus on the subjects he felt confident about