Dropping Art GCSE?

[emMo13]

DD wants to drop art GCSE because she feels the workload is too high and she doesn’t have enough time to revise for other subjects. DD is a procrastinator but has recently started to get down to it and has now realised she’s started too late. I have been telling her she needs to get her finger out for since half way through year 10, but to no avail. Maybe it’s my shoddy parenting. Regardless, I’m willing to accommodate her wishes because I don’t think that not letting her drop it out of spite is going to achieve anything at this point. I’m 100% sure that if DD replaced the time she was spending doing art, she’d do incredibly well at the rest of her subjects (she has 10 others, and did RE last year), since she spends days on it and nothing else. Yes - it’s a time management thing when it comes to art (I’ve been blasted about that before) but she insists that if she had to do it to a passable quality she’d still spend a significant amount of time on it and there’s no point spending that time just to get a 4 or a 5. Thoughts? Has anyone ever dropped art so late?

howabout
We offer 9-10 as typical and if people want to do a couple of extras they run as extra curricular and have to be dropped if needed.
We don't do dropping timetabled classes other than extenuating circumstances (discussed with subject teacher, head of year and senior leadership, with senco if relevant). Our focus is getting students 9 or 10 solid grades without compromising curriculum breadth at ks3 or 4. We also spend a huge amount of time giving options advice, including being willing to be unpopular if we think a student won't hack a course. There is a culture with staff if wanting to get the right students on the right courses at GCSE and A level (e.g. you may have a 9 in English at GCSE but that doesn't mean English Literature is the right option for A level) . It works well and we get great results.

Many things can be sorted with a good curriculum design.

Howabout There's barely the staff/facilities /time to cover 9-10 GCSES where I teach. We do add a couple of extra curricular ones which can be dropped at a later date. However these are only for high achievers or those wanting to do music.

I agree Maisy re the culture being with staff to guide the students. Particularly those that we think won't hack it. It's more difficult to drop/change a subject than never take it in the first place.

This is a refreshing change of heart since yesterday Dermymc:

"WTAF
It is not a schools job to make options decisions for students. We can guide, guide, give opinions and in some cases heavily persuade, but it is NOT a schools job. Options choices are the students and parents decisions. Why should schools shoulder even more responsibility for rubbish parenting?!"

I'm just wondering why there isn't time to cover nine or ten GCSEs in your school Dermymc?

Agree again sendsummer about early evidence of stress risking being undetected with this rather shallow floodgates argument put forward by Dermymc. Presumably saving the teacher or institution's face in not deviating from the rule is more important than a child self harming silently through stress.

It is not a schools job to make options decisions for students. We can guide, guide, give opinions and in some cases heavily persuade, but it is NOT a schools job. Options choices are the students and parents decisions. Why should schools shoulder even more responsibility for rubbish parenting?!"

I consider options decisions to be my DCs' choice guided by their preferences and their teachers. I don't think it's anything to do with me as a parent. I've never had any input with any of their choices other than signing off a form. In what way does that make me a rubbish parent?

I have been thinking about this, and I wonder whether the 'stress' vs 'considerations of knock on effect on the rest of the cohort' is just another example of good senior management making different decisions in different contexts?

I mean, for example: high pressure all girls' schools have, traditionally, been [against the general population] high risk for eating disorders, so such schools in the modern era, have good leadership who take this into account in everything that they do. Schools in very challenging circumstances in particular areas may [again against the general population] have a high proportion of those who are vulnerably housed, and good leadership in those schools will take this into account in everything that they do. At a less 'obvious' level, some selective schools may have historically had a higher level of stress-related mental illness and its different manifestations than the general population, and therefore good senior leadership builds this into all the decisions that they make. Non-selective schools may have a lower rate of stress-related mental illness, but they may have a higher level of pupils who show challenging behaviours, so a good senior leadership team builds this into everything that they do.

Each specific school, of whatever type, builds these 'specific historical experiences', and what it knows about its current students into all its decisions, taking into account the limitations of resources every school faces.

The fact that different decisions are reached by different institutions, even of exactly the same type, surely represents GOOD, reactive, thinking management, not poor management? The fact that we can all sit here and type about our different local experiences and each see these as 'right for the circumstances our local schools find themselves in' just demonstrates that there ARE different good answers, surely? It doesn't mean that a school is saving face / protecting its results / wishing harm on its pupils / is poorly managed, just that all educational decisions in fact all critical decisions involving groups of real people, tend to have a finely balanced 'on the one hand / on the other hand' debate, which can easily be tipped one way or another by relatively small differences.

Goodbye, but you have already said that options decisions for able students - ie all those of your children who attended the selective school - are relatively easy, while those for lower ability students are much more difficult.

Is it just for the school, and for the students (however intellectually and emotionally capable / incapable of making informed decisions they may be) to make those very difficult decisions too? Or do you think that a parent should be more involved in the discussion when decisions are very tricky, and if perhaps the students themselves are less capable?

I understand exactly what you're saying can'tkeepawayforever but I don't have any confidence at all that all schools are well run. In other words it would be good to believe what you say is true, but I suspect it's far more likely that the knee jerk 'no' reaction is actually indicative of systemic poor leadership.

I've seen cases where parents push DC into subjects they shouldn't really be doing - the EBacc thing has made matters worse, as well as Informed Choices. There may be an argument for limiting parental input rather than the other way around. I haven't ever had any input but don't think I'm a total loser as a parent on that basis alone.

Goodbye you really are banging a very rude drum here about poor school leadership. You have a narrow experience of your children's selective school.

Curriculum design is different in different schools to cater for different intakes, different students and different groups.

We struggle with 9-10 GCSES because we have students who can't read, we have students who live on sofas, we have students who are stuck in the vocabulary gap from which they struggle to escape. We spend deliberate time trying to overcome these issues (alongside trying to teach the curriculum content). However I'd be lying if I said all of our students are successful. We try our damnest, we make decisions to try and get the best from all students. Most of the time an (almost) blanket policy is the best way. Our biggest issues when we deviate from a blanket yes or no, is funnily enough other parents, and not the students themselves.

I can't get my head round how you cannot see that different schools make different t decisions for different, yet equally valid, reasons.

No I don't have a very narrow experience Dermymc as it happens and it's not rude if it's correct - in law there's a defence in defamation law called justification, or 'truth'. And that's when you name a specific person. I'm just making a sweeping statement with no names attached but I certainly believe it to be true and I'm sure I could gather evidence of its truth if push came to shove. I don't intend to wade into that area on MN however :)

I would suggest that the problem is poverty from what you say Dermymc, rather than the parents themselves.

all schools are well run

I would agree with you that not all schools are well run.

However, I would also say that the two sets 'badly run school' and 'school perceived by public opinion to be poor' do not overlap as much as one might expect. I would say, rather, that in any group of schools - howsoever you subdivide them (private, selective, comprehensive, secondary modern, rural, urban, inner city, leafy) there are some in that group who are poorly run.

Lovely little village primaries, for example, often beloved by parents, are IME often poorly run. Not-quite-top-tier private schools, ditto, also selective schools relying on intake for good results - but also schools in very challenging situations where the problems are so numerous and so exhausting (and yes, much more about poverty, both physical and of expectation, than the school) that it takes leadership of superhuman strength and endurance to prevail.

I'm not sure that having some clear policies (another way of saying 'blanket rules' - and we have anyway agreed that all schools will make exceptions in exceptional circumstances) is always an indication of symptomatic poor leadership. Sometimes, especially in very challenging circumstances, having a few, very clear policies to adhere to can start to create order out of chaos - which after all, is what good leadership in such circumstances can look like.

One area where it would be quite interesting to explore 'blanket rules / clear policies' vs actual quality of leadership within a school, though, would be uniform.

Public perception: smart uniform, well adhered to as a blanket policy = good, well run school with effective leadership.

Reality? Not sure. Smart EXPENSIVE (or expensive-looking) uniform is of course a proxy for social selection, which does then have an effect on school performance, but that's a different question. What do you think?

It's also worth thinking about where this idea of a blanket 'no' comes from.

Is the single policy of saying 'no' to dropping a GCSE in mid Year 11, in the absence of significant extenuating circumstances, an indication of systemic poor leadership? I would say it is insufficient evidence.

Would always saying 'no' to EVERYTHING 'slightly outside the ordinary' be an indication of systemic poor leadership? Probably, yes.

I would say that it is a very large leap to say that a leadership team who have decided on a policy not to allow dropping GCSEs in mid-Year 11 in the absence of significant extenuating circumstances MUST always say no to EVERYTHING out of the ordinary and therefore be systemically poor?

My DD2 is about to choose her options. No way will we leave it just up to the school and her! We will ensure her interests, aptitude and ambitions are considered. We will ensure she understands what a course will be (eg drama - mix of performing and theory) etc.

(And if she were thinking of Art we would discuss how the workload would be managed to ensure it isn't focussed on to the detriment of other subjects!)

TeenTimesTwo that's your parenting which is fine; mine is different in relation to GCSE choices - also fine. I also don't choose my DCs' A level choices for them or their degree subjects or indeed their careers.

can'tkeepawayforever again, your view is different to mine. Mine is that good leadership involves being finely tuned to each individual pupil and being very aware of embryonic problems which nevertheless signal a problem, precisely to avoid them developing into 'extenuating circumstances'. In other words not barking about life lessons and time management etc but actually doing whatever is required to manage the situation in the best interests of the individual child. Anything less and the responsible person shouldn't be in a leadership position in a school.

can'tkeepawayforever of course schools in all sectors and across all types of school can be badly run! There isn't a sufficient talent pool to manage all schools well. That doesn't mean one shouldn't criticise poor leadership though.

I don't know what area you live in but in our area, with a plethora of 'lovely little village primaries', the latter are a hotbed of politics and internecine warfare with HTs being booted out or marched out by the LA or suing for wrongful dismissal. I can assure you that we've seen it all round here!

I was talking about financial poverty can't keepawayforever.

(Apologies for the random replies, I'm reading the thread scatter gun).

And yes of course there are selectives with poor leadership too. Complacement because of intake and still only producing middling results.

The thing is that 'being finely tuned' to an individual and 'managing the situation in the best interests of the individual child' can - indeed should - result in a wide range of possible solutions, not a single, universal one.

So there might be, say, 7 or 8 ways - or more - of trying to solve a particular 'type' of problem. Each school might rule out one or two - for example a school where 90% of the school travel in by school bus might veto after-school provision - and then work out which fits an individual child and their circumstances best.

Having a firm policy on certain things - e.g. 'in this school we do not do after school provision because of the difficulties of transport it creates' doesn't make that school poorly run, any more than the fact that another school with a small local catchment offers after school sessions daily makes it better run.

can'tkeepawayforever bottom line is several classroom teachers on this thread responded immediately with no way/ life lesson/ time management/ gasp of horror: what would the student do in the timetabled lesson? Then followed an attempt to blind with science with a lot of stuff about nuance/ context/ pedagogy (!) etc. Very roughly translated that means teacher says no/ teacher knows best. And when there's fall out in the shape of self harm or school refusal no doubt the teachers or leadership feel entitled to absolve themselves of any blame. It's just a computer says no mentality.

Would you always let any child who asked drop out of any GCSE course? Or do you think that there are some circumstances in which it is entirely reasonable to say 'actually, no, you need to carry on'?

If you think there are some circumstances where the answer SHOULD be 'no' exactly where would you draw the line?

I don't think that anyone said that the answer was ALWAYS no in all circuymstances, just that in their place of work, the 'no' line was set in such a place that the OP'#s daughter might fall below the threshold?

In the schools I know best - selective and non-selective - the answer would not ALWAYS be no, but it would GENERALLY be no: the bar is quite high.