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?

MaisyPops I really don't need affirmation thanks. I'm perfectly happy with my DCs school I don't mind at all how others view it. That would be decidedly odd.

I do think however that you've tied yourself in knots and can't answer the very limited question, you've just been somewhat prolix, presumably by way of diversion.

Is the 'very limited question':

'Should an able child who cannot manage her time, and therefore may get a slightly lower pass grade in a practical subject in an exam taken this summer unless some intervention / support is put in place from now, be allowed to drop it regardless of the school's normal policy on such cases, just because this is what happens in single example of a different type of school elsewhere in the country?'

To which the answer is, surely 'Not just for that reason, no, because the school may well decide that there are alternative ways of proceeding - such as lunchtime and after school support - for this particular child, in this particular circumstance. What other schools might do are interesting options to add into the mix, but ultimately it is for the specific school to decide in line with the particular needs and behaviour of that child, and the particular position and policy of that school, based on prior experience, detailed knowledge of the child and the best interests of both the child and the wider cohort.'

We do also only have the OP's view that reduced time on Art would lead to improved grades in other subjects. The child's school will have the huge advantage of having her teachers in each subject to discuss the validity of this with.

IME a child - or adult - who doesn't manage their time well doesn't necessarily manage it better when they have more of it. In fact, having less time - again IME - tends to force a level of organisation and focus that can in fact be helpful

cantkeepawayforever
Exactly. But yet again you've done the reasonable thing and acknowledged that school context and cohorts matter and doing that gets you accused of being 'tied in knots' and not answering the question.

Explain why dropping subjects on demand is probably not done is rigid and unimaginative.
Explaining nuances and things that have to be considered when making decisions for their context is making obvious points.
When people point out the same things repeatedly, that's being tied in knots.

goodbye I'm not getting tied in knots. I'm pointing out (repeatedly):
There are many things to consider before having a policy of 'don't manage your workload and drop subjects on demand in y11 if you don't like the grade you might get'.
Most schools won't adopt that approach. Many of us have outlined reasons. Many schools will allow flexibility in extenuating circumstances.
Schools will make decisions based on their cohorts and their contexts.
Please explain how saying this can be both incredibly obvious and also a sign of being tied in knots.

No can'tkeepawayforever the question is: why does MaisyPops consider that comps and selectives have entirely different matters to consider for the same situation. Very simple question which she hasn't answered. She doesn't have to of course.

MaisyPops all I did was to say that our school happens to take exactly that nuanced approach so it must be possible to achieve and was told off crossly by the posse of assembled school teachers. As soon as I mentioned the dreaded word selective I was told it was easy in a selective (albeit for all sorts of imaginary reasons). And I'm still not clear why the fact of being selective makes a difference. You say it does, I say not really. I think it's about the different approaches of the SLT not the fact of selection. And you still haven't answered directly or even indirectly.

I'm completely with you on the point that it's boring :)

MaisyPops consider that comps and selectives have entirely different matters to consider for the same situation. Very simple question which she hasn't answered. She doesn't have to of course.

I've said their cohorts are different.
I've said their contexts are likely to be different.
I've said they will probably have different curricular choices

Oh look... here is yet another post where I've explained
goodbye - my specific query was why you believe the two types of school need to differ on this situation.
me - So we've established that schools have to make decisions based on their context and their cohort (which you've said yourself is hardly a revolutionary view).
We accept a selective school and a typical comprehensive school have different cohorts and probably some variation in their KS4 curriculum (e.g. I doubt a super selective school would have flexible pathways for vocational options and extra english/maths, but that would be common in a comprehensive).

Flip it on its head to be even more obvious if there's no difference between a state comprehensive and a selective school and both can/should make the same choices then why would anyone choose a selective school?

As soon as I mentioned the dreaded word selective I was told it was easy in a selective (albeit for all sorts of imaginary reasons).
It's not a dreaded word so stop with the poor me everyone hates selective schools
And I'm still not clear why the fact of being selective makes a difference. You say it does, I say not really.
I've explained why.
I think it's about the different approaches of the SLT not the fact of selection.
School context impacts the decisions they can make.
And you still haven't answered directly or even indirectly.
Except I have... repeatedly.

In most schools allowing students who are underachieving in a subject or struggling with time management (without extenuating circumstances) to drop a subject seems very impractical to me.

How does your children's school cope if, say, half a class want to drop the same subject, let's say art? Does the subject teacher teach 15 kids while the other 15 do work in another subject? I don't know many teachers who could successfully manage that!!

In my school computer science is the 'subject to drop' at the moment - ie lots of the year 11s are finding it difficult (despite good teaching and excellent results) so are begging to drop it. If my school let 5 drop it, what about the other 20?

Would love an explanation of how a school could practically manage this??

And IMO it smacks of the school trying to protect its results, however it is dressed up!

Maisypops the logical conclusion of what you say is that the more complex the curricular needs, the less flexible a school can be for individual DCs. As it is too late by year 11 for any choice, parents should be asking questions for this sort of scenario at open evenings when considering secondary schools.

BTW cantkeepawayforever, due to the 11/12 GCSEs policy of the school in question, I disagree with your view that this is simply the DC’s poor time management that can be solved by taking away more relaxation time.

Also by what criteria should a parent judge that they can ‘trust’ the school to make the right decisions for their DC rather than the SLT being ‘jobsworth’?

One reason why the cohorts in a selective and a comp may react differently:

• in a selective school, the pupils are by definition bright and to some extent will be hard working (at least they were at age 10 to pass the selection tests). It can also be reasonably assumed that the parents (who bothered to put their child in for selective tests age 10) are reasonably interested in education. Therefore most pupils will be wanting to work hard and do well. So the 'thin end of the wedge' argument that someone dropping a subject will lead to loads of others asking to do likewise is less valid.

• Contrast with a comp. There will be pupils from all backgrounds and with a wider range of parental interest/support, and a wider range of pupil engagement. A subject like art is likely to be done in 'mixed ability' groups at least with respect to other subjects. A pupil drops out of Art. Others notice and ask why. 'Oh I wasn't keeping up with the work and Mum asked for me to drop it'. Queue other kids in Art or other subjects coming forward saying 'Miss, it's too much work, can I drop 1 or 2 subjects please' (because they would rather doss around that 5hrs per fortnight, and spend more time gaming or on social media than working).

The school needs to do what's best for the pupil, but also with an eye on the knock on effect to the rest of the year group. Different SLTs will put different weightings to different factors and issues.

It is really difficult for schools I think to balance the needs of an individual child with other considerations including: being judged on exam results; budget constraints including staffing and class sizes; curriculum restraints; the proportion of children with SEN, to name a few.

We have a small number of children who have dropped a GCSE for health, emotional or other very significant issues and it has been a massive challenge housing them. We have a support unit but this is designed for (and full to capacity with) children with significant special needs.

As I said in a previous post, the pragmatic solution is to continue participation in timetabled lessons but drop taking the GCSE exam and therefore extra home work.
Unless of course the DC is already doing what is thought to be a minimum number of GCSEs for their ability and circumstances.

Cue not Queue

sendsummer
Not automatically. It all depends on how schools structure their ks4.

Certainly at all comprehensives I've worked at the ks4 pathways are explained prior to options. Students have options evenings to talk to different teachers about options. They also get advice and guidance from form tutors. At the stronger schools I've worked in they've had in house careers advisors to compensate for cuts to other services. Those at risk of NEET status get additional guidance. Staff outline course information, typical workload and expectations etc. Usually there are different route through ks4 based on who does a language, who does ebac, who takes vocational options etc.

Taking time getting that right takes time and effort but pays off.

There are usually solutions for extenuating circumstances. There's not normally the flexibility to have on demand dropping of subjects in y11.

teen and bobby make really good points.

But none of what you state MaisyPops changes the inflexibility that you and other teachers have highlighted for a situation such as the OP’s DD in year 11.

Which is a disadvantage as the DC choosing options in year 8 or 9 may be different to the DC in year 11, particularly if prone to stress and time management issues that were previously unrecognised.

send There is a difference between dropping as a last resort (which is how most schools go), and dropping as a first resort rather than trying to sort the stress or time management.

I would suggest that it isn't automatically at the point of drop a subject in the OP's situation.
They sought advice about this a while ago and were given practical advice on how to move forward. What would be reasonable or unreasonable for that situation will depends on what the student and home have done since then and what is available in school.
As many of us have said, there is some flexibility in schools for specific circumstances. Just not dropping subjects on demand.

I agree with you on the issues of taking options in y8 though. Y9 less so as most places allow swaps up to October half term of y10.

To put another spin on it, as a teacher i explicitly teach study skills and revision strategies at GCSE and A Level because I know many students have ineffective study habits (one reservation I have about giving ks4 independent study instead of lessons) and some able students can end up spending a huge amount of time needlessly stressing or lots of time doing ineefctive revision.
Every year I give the same advice about starting early, being organised, keeping notes filed etc. Every year some listen diligently. Every year most aim for the principles of it. Every year there'll be one or two who don't listen and don't manage their workload, don't prep etc.
Equally, schools often have intervention and revision sessions. Most creative arts faculties tend to make music rooms, drama studios, art rooms etc available out of hours for students. Some students make the most of that. Others don't.

I agree that there is some inflexibility in every state secondary school including my own! I am not so blinkered as being unable to see this! Most of us are trying our best.

This is an unfortunate feature of limited funding and other practical factors. I suppose for more flexibility you would need to look at a private school where greater focus on the individual is inevitable.

My own DC are both disabled and unlikely to ever access a mainstream school which has given me an interesting perspective on my own teaching.

If one student is allowed to drop out because of poor time management then all students must be given the option to drop out for the same reason.

Now you have 200 students with approx 5 free hours a fortnight. Options:
1 - no supervision (not an option)
2 - how motivated are they going to be sitting in the classroom “doing the work” but knowing they aren’t entered and it’s a waste of their time (answer: not motivating and the student rapidly gets fed up, truants, complains, distracts others)
3 - how helpful is it if they bring random revision into the lesson and sit and do that while others are getting on with the lesson (answer: unhelpful, distracting, irritating for others

How disruptive and pointless is it to have dozens and dozens of conversations all day long with year 11s wanting to drop a subject for the head of year, for the subject teacher (“doesn’t matter miss, Joe and me and Sam and Jay are all going to give up anyway) etc.

How good a precedent is it to set for those lower down the school (“don’t worry mate, everyone’s allowed to drop a subject what’s yours going to be?”) (“miss I thought I would drop Geography so I did no work all last year but now I’d quite like to take it and drop German instead”)

I do absolutely get from an outsider’s point of view why it seems so simple just to drop a subject. But from the school’s point of view it’s a NIGHTMARE.

Iwanted -
Interesting point about some subjects being harder to get higher grades than others. Languages gets an average of half a grade below all others, as does Physics. Doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon!

MaisyPops you're completely failing to get the point, boring though the constant repetition is.

It's not about what the differences are between selective and non selective schools. The differences are very well known. It's about why dropping a subject for a high achiever in a comp should be judged by different criteria to the identical situation in a grammar. All you do is keep saying that you've answered this when you haven't. I assume there are good reasons for this. I'll give up at this point with the question unanswered.

As to selection - the merits or otherwise of selective education causes huge divisions on MN. There's never any sense of poor me from me. I'm very strongly in favour of state selective education, all eight DC passed the 11+, so no reason at all for poor me. I'd have thought an accusation of smugness would be more in order actually, if accusations are required. But it's a fact that the minute one says 'selective' on MN there's a huge wave of outrage from lots of the teachers and a general chorus well it's ok for you etc etc ( although in fact it's clear that a lot of these teachers know remarkably little about what goes on in the selective sector).

why dropping a subject for a high achiever in a comp should be judged by different criteria to the identical situation in a grammar.

Simply put: because they are in different cohorts, and therefore the 'knock on effects' of a decision for an individual are different in type and in scale.

Any SLT worth their salt will set policy that balances the needs of the individual and the needs of the cohort. This means that SLTs in different schools - whether selective or comprehensive; I don't think anyone is saying 'all selective schools do X; all non-selectives do Y,', just that 'a single selective school does X, some examples of non-selective schools do Y, Z, P or Q' - make different decisions.

In terms of dropping subjects due to severe long-term illness, I know local selective and non-selective schools who have done so.

In terms of starting different numbers of GCSEs due to having a wide range of different abilities: i know of only non-selective schools doing so.

In terms of artificially restricting the curriculum low down in the school by choosing options at the end of Y8 rather than Y9: locally, I know only of selective schools doing so.

As always in these discussions, it is a comparison of individual schools not selective vs non-selective ones, as I am sure that elsewhere there will be non-selective schools choosing a 3 year run-up to GCSEs and selective schools maintaining breadth of curriculum by only choosing GCSEs at the end of Y9.