How hard is it to do Dutch GCSE outside of school?

[steppemum]

dd is in year 9 and has to chose her options.
She really wants to do 5 things and only has options for 4. The 5 are: German, Geography, 3 sciences (that takes up an option slot as the standard is 2 sciences) Drama (to do the lighting/sound engineering side) and computing. She wants to go into some sort of engineering.

Dh is Dutch. It is important to say that dd is NOT bi-lingual, but she has an everyday understanding of Dutch, so over the meal table, when people say - pass the bread etc, she understands.

I really want her to do a language. She is good at German, but it would be her least favourite option, and the one she would drop in favour of the other 4. She is at a superselective grammar school, and clever, but not super clever, likely to get 7 and 8s I would guess. She has a good attitude and works well, but is quite busy out of school already.

So, one option that has occured to me, is that she could work with a tutor and do Dutch as a GCSE out of school, instead of a language in school. I have a Dutch friend who did this with her neices and nephews living in UK via Skype, and she said the level required was ridiculously easy for a bi-lingual family, but the family she worked with spoke more Dutch at home.
We could easily speak Dutch with her at home and work on it etc. The added bonus is that she learns more Dutch, which will allow her better communication with her cousins.

Is this a nuts idea? At the moment it is just an idea, so don't shoot, me, but please tell me how realistic it is and if it is a stupid plan.

It sounds like a great idea. Could your DD doa Dutch course in the Netherlands, perhaps staying with relatives, during the summer holidays?

My only concern would be how much pressure there would be as well as her school.subjects. if it's not going to be an issue then fabulous!

I quite like that idea.

I resat my Chemistry A Level whilst working. All I did was get hold of the syllabus and work through it. Obviously, I'd done the course before but it has changed loads.

It would be more use for her. Maybe get hold of the syllabus and see how onerous it would be...

No, it’s fine. We have this issue all the time with children who have an additional language to English. All I would say is give the school notice because you have to locate the person who will do the oral exams. School will like it too because she will go on their language stats and should do well with minimum input for them!

Sounds !Ike a great idea to me! Especially if your DH can support her learning.

As you probably know, Dutch is relatively easy for English speakers, and I'm sure your dd will find certain similarities with German.

Having helped my cousin's DC with their language GCSEs in the UK, I can confirm the level is fairly easy!

I kind of don't really understand your logic.
You could have brought her up to be bilingual, but you have chosen not to, but now it is important enough to try to do the GCSE out of school, just so as she has a language GCSE? Why?

An alternative would be to just continue to work on bilingualism at home without the pressure of doing a GCSE.

I'd drop the GCSE drama if she isn't that interested in the performance side, and instead volunteer for the tech team for the school shows. And then do German.

As a languages teacher at an independent school, my experience is that this is, at best, fairly inconvenient for the school. We regularly have pupils whose parents want this. It requires a lot of extra organising. Here are some points to consider:
-speaking a language with family/across the dinner table is NOT the same as learning the topics for a GCSE. Skype/online tutoring is great but candidates often do not score as well as if they had learned a language at school.
-you will need to find a human tutor who can come to the school at a time specified by the exam board to participate in the oral exam. That tutor will have to be supervised at all times due to safeguarding regulations. This will be an extra responsibility for your DDs school.
-your DDs school may not be willing to take on the extra responsibility of managing these exams - the HoD is legally responsible for all language exams and if anything goes wrong, the exam board can refuse to work with the whole department or even the whole school.
-you will be asked to pay the exam board fees for this extra subject.
And if, after all this, your DD does not score well, although she hasn't been taught by the school, her mark counts towards their position on the dreaded league tables.

Having had various friends who have/their dc have sat language exams while being orally bilingual (ie fluent speaking, but very little writing skills), it isn't as easy as all that even from that background. Yes, the oral and listening were pretty easy for them, but they found that the writing side took a heck of a lot of work they weren't expecting-and yes they didn't all get top grades either.
The people I'm talking about had one parent who spoke the language fluently and they'd grown up speaking both languages and spent several weeks each year in that country.

The GCSE course in Dutch no longer exists. The last time it was possible to take a GCSE in the subject was 2018 as the subject has been scrapped by the only exam board offering it (OCR).

Yeah, what Teentimestwo said, drop the drama, which will be performance anyway and do German GCSE.

Slightly coddled, you talk of an easy level of language for GCSE, but was that summer 2018? Because MFL GCSEs are a lot harder now than they were before 2018.

Oh njs I didn't know that! There's your answer then op. I would still encourage more Dutch at home tho (tho do not be deceived by those who say it's just like German, it's not).

OCR have scrapped all of their languages including French, German and Spanish ! Some like Turkish are being taken over by Edexcel but Dutch has gone completely.

njs73 I think it is quite sensible and fair. GCSE languages aren't meant for bilinguals to pick up an easy GCSE. On a CV they should be able to state bi-lingual English and Dutch (or whatever). I'd be amazed if any school in the land was actually teaching Dutch.

Yes I knew OCR had scrapped MFL (DD did OCR French in 2017 and was the last cohort) but I didn't realise no one else did it!

Oh I didn't know the GCSE had been scrapped! My friends neice only took it last year, so I assumed it was still available

You could have brought her up to be bilingual, but you have chosen not to, but now it is important enough to try to do the GCSE out of school, just so as she has a language GCSE? Why?
You know, it is really easy to criticise on the internet, just throw out sarcastic comments. I will explain why, not because I think I need to justify myself to you, but because I hope it will make you think twice before you launch in.

We did bring her up to be bilingual. Aged 4 she was fluently tri -lingual in Dutch, English and Russian. We were living in Central Asia. Dh spoke only Dutch to all the kids, and it was working perfectly. Then life happened.
first, her older brother struggled much more with the languages, and in order to begin school he had to be able to speak Russian to the required level. His Russian was the worst of his 3, and he never spoke it to other kids in the street. So for a year we spent a lot of time focussing on Russian and the Dutch took a back seat.
Then her younger sister became ill. We had to return suddenly to the UK. Dh had to finish working his project in Central Asia. I was in Uk with sick toddler, needing regular hospital visits, and 2 other kids, staying with my mum, and dh flying in and out, for 6 months. In those 6 months they stopped speaking Dutch. Although I am a fluent Dutch speaker, my language with them had always been English, and our whole family's stress levels were running high. Didn't think it would matter, as we assumed we would pick up again when all back together. I was also trying to keep up ds Russian, so he could start school when we returned.
Then we didn't return to Central Asia.
Then dh found that the kids refused to speak Dutch to him, and wouldn't engage or speak to him when he spoke to them. I wish I had been stronger in saying he MUST persevere, but we didn't. Our youngest was still ill, we were settling the older two into new schools, Dh was beginning a new job, we were all adjusting to massively different sudden change of circumstances, and the opportunity was lost.

They get Dutch immersion once or twice a year for a week at a time, but it isn't enough.

well, that is the end of that idea.
I think she needs a GCSE level language for lots of reasons, so she will do German.
I agree that dropping the drama (or the computing) would be logical, but she is so keen to do both of those, they are her two favourite options.
She has to do 3 sciences as she is heading for STEM career, and she would also happily drop Geography, but then she has no humanities.

I don't know how much store to set by Eng BACC, but she would need Geog and the language to have it.

I wouldn't worry too much about ebac ad such if she really doesn't want to do it. It's a useful hand of qualifications to have and demonstrates a broad all round aptitude.

Personally, I would drop drama and take German. If she is interested in the back stage and technical side then she is likely to get quite frustrated at how little that's covered (although a drama specialist may correct me). She could get experience doing that by joining the tech team at a local youth theatre.

good point about the drama MaisyPops, we have an options evening coming up, I'll make sure I ask about that then.

steppe Sorry, I didn't mean to sound overly critical, and I think it wasn't a totally unreasonable question. If you want a language purely for the Ebacc then I really wouldn't bother, it doesn't gain her anything. Triple science will mark her out as 'academic' even without a language.

However if she has her sights on engineering then German would be potentially useful career wise I think due to strong German technical companies. (vorsprung durch Technik or whatever)

otoh, I also wouldn't drop Geography as it goes well with science stuff if her focus changes in the next few years. e.g. Suppose she went for chemical engineering.

I know there are technical options for drama GCSE, but has she looked into what % would be that versus areas she is less interested in?

Useful thread! Your DD could always do a summer course in Dutch in the Netherlands and it would be a lot more relevant than a GCSE designed as a MFL for English speakers.

I also think that the technical side of drama might be addressed in a more interesting way at a club or summer school. My DD (14) does filmmaking camps in the summer holidays and had a camera/tripod for her birthday/Christmas last year. This enables her to make fantastic films for eg school group work and gives her a lot more freedom than a school curriculum drama course.

If you live in London or within easy reach there is a Dutch Saturday school, friends of ours took their daughters. There’s also a Russian school based in Ealing & Danish in central London somewhere.

Blimey, that's not many options for a superselective...I realise the new GCSEs are harder but it does limit their choices early.

FWIW ...my DD is studying engineering and did that exact set of options plus electronic products and further maths as a twilight class. The latter two were actually the most relevant to her future aspirations (maybe fm isn't needed with harder GCSEs?). Putting those aside, she'd have dropped German like a shot if she'd been allowed. The drama was a nice change from the other stuff and the group work was a good experience (that can go either way!). Comp sci...engineering students need to talk to computers more than Germans! Geography - hm, wouldn't really want no humanity in the mix.

So, reluctantly, I'd say ditch the drama. Computing might be dispensable if she can learn to code outside of class - are there a coding and/or robotics clubs she can participate in?(tbh I'd encourage doing the latter anyway).

As a budding engineer, btw, do check out Smallpeice courses, and find out if her school participates in Arkwright scholarships - this is thinking well ahead but with no tech subject, the project part of that might be harder to manage.

Thanks all,
There are lots of other options available, eg Art, music, DT tech options, but these are the ones she wants.
I am a bit frustrated as her brother is at the boys school next door, and they all do 3 sciences as standard and then 4 options, so they effectively do an extra GCSE.

I agree that drama is the one that she should lose, but it is, at the moment, her favourite option! I think partly as light relief.

The GCSE language thing - dh and I both feel that all kids should study at least one MFL up to GCSE level. He actually did English, German and French, and he is NOT a linguist. It was standard in Dutch schools. We insisted that ds had French as one of his options, much to his fury, and he is also NOT a linguist. But he has persevered, and in the effort to actually pass his French GCSE has massively upped his work in French, and on the way to Holland at New Year was speaking load sof French to us in the car! So we do feel we were right to persevere. At the very least he now knows that he can learn a langauage if he needs to.

There is no way Dh would let dd go through with no language, and, the thing is, she is very good at languages, and would get a good mark.
She has attended a few STEM days organised by local engineering companies and school. I have a look for Arkwright and Smallpiece courses.

Why can't she do GCSE German and do Dutch outside school - I mean not a GCSE? For example you can do GCSE level courses at all the main cultural institutes like Alliance Francaise and the like. There must be a Dutch equivalent.

Dutch is like an easy version of German so I am sure she'd find both extremely straight forward.

Also look at the Language Centre at the university of Groningen, they do online courses.

Totally agree with making kids do a GCSE in MFL - it should be compulsory. British kids are just as intelligent as foreign kids, they can learn languages just as easily.