DS wants to repeat Year 13

[user20]

Hi,

My 18 y/o DS who is in Year 13 and is due to finish school forever at the end of this year is wanting to go back next year to repeat the year. He is currently out on study leave.

Basically, he is only doing one a level as his attendance was below 80%, not just this year but last year in year 12 too.

He has had no valid reason for this behaviour, he has just been lazy and made excuses and turned up to school whenever and when it suited him.

He is an intelligent guy, he got 4As and 1B and 2Cs in his GCSEs, It has annoyed me and my DH a lot over the last two years that he has wasted his potential like this, he could have done so much better.

I just want him to have a better life and employment opportunities.

He just seemed so distracted over sixth year, he just seems to be always on his phone and listening to music and on social media. he was missing deadlines, not revising for exams, well last year he did but left it to very close to the exams and came out with 2Ds and a C in his AS exams which is impressive for somebody who didn't bother going to school or revising.

The school were meant to Kick him out so many times as they tried working with him but he didn't co operate, the workload got too much and he had to drop down to one a level a few months ago as it was too much work to do in such a short period of time.

He has a btec ict exam in a few days and hes done nothing for it - he can't even be bothered to work for one exam.

He has said often that he regrets his behaviour as he knows he was capable of doing more and maybe going to uni in September, I wouldn't be bothered if he chose not to go to uni but I think he needs his a levels.

Anyway, after a long wasted two years, reality has kicked in as he now wants to have a good career and has found out that if he were to start a two year a level course at an FE College, his education wouldn't be funded from September 2020 onwards.

He now wants the option to go back to school next year and repeat Year 13 - is it likely after all this carry on that they'll have him back?

@titchy @Bunnylove83 it's all a bit crap isn't it but he made his choice when he decided to stay home and watch tv when he was meant to be in school.

I wouldn't have even minded him having poor attendance so much had he been off school working and doing revision instead of lying about all day doing nothing

OP it seems odd that you're now desperately trying to find out if he can re-sit Year 13 and claiming to be interested and supportive. Where was that interest and support when he "decided to stay home and watch tv when he was meant to be in school."?

I think you need to sit down with him and his gcse certificates.
Did he fail English Literature and one of his sciences? Only having one science is very unusual for even an average student. Didn't you help pick his GCSE Options? I'm surprised that your school didn't explain to you why he wasn't doing at least 2 sciences considering that he was under 16?

@EvilTwins I can't believe you're even suggesting that I'm not supportive of him, I love him to bits and it breaks my heart to see him throw all this away for laziness and a bit of social media indulgence!

What exactly did you expect us to do? He was 16 when he started Year 12, was I seriously meant to drag him out of bed every morning into school and dump him down in front of a desk everyday? No, I have to be realistic. How could I have physically forced him to go into school?

There were many days I felt like screaming at him and believe me I did, but what else could I have done? If a 16 - 18 Year old decides to play truant from school then there's not much I can do physically.

And as for resitting year 13, if it means he gets his head down and gets his three a levels then I am for it but ONLY if he wises up and works next year and then moves on. Other than that, I wouldn't be suggesting Year 13 next year

User20

Please don’t get more wound up due to this thread.

Life is short. Your DS has screwed up, he ‘appears’ to have realised this now (if it’s all an act you can deal with that later). Right now he needs your support. He needs you to believe in him. You know he’s a bright enough kid if he applies himself. Act like you believe he’s now going to make sensible decisions and start afresh.

Like most teenagers the ‘I might as well kill myself’ is probably a touch of the amateur dramatics, but what if it’s not? What if he really does understand how much he’s fucked up and really is in a state about what to do now...it could be a genuine cry for help.

Honestly, it’s time to stop being angry (and getting more wound up by some posters) and take a few deep breaths and think about the little boy he was and can still be underneath the huge teenager he is.

Write the letters, then talk to the school. No one on here knows what your school can do for your son.

Just hug him and think about the much bigger picture.

@pikapikachu he always maintains to me that he did gcse biology. Maybe he did do combined science or whatever it's called these days but I've no idea what the exam boards call their courses these days. I don't know if he's been saying that he did biology just to make it easier for me as I don't know what combined science is?

Anyway, his GCSEs are not even on my mind right now, as far as I'm concerned they are in the past. He's done them and he passed them. I'm more concerned about his A levels right now

You'd be amazed at how many times I've heard "How could I have physically forced him to go into school?" in my 20+ years as a teacher.

It's too late. Not sure how many times I can say it but And as for resitting year 13, if it means he gets his head down and gets his three a levels then I am for it but ONLY if he wises up and works next year and then moves on. Other than that, I wouldn't be suggesting Year 13 next year It's not going to happen. He cannot do that. He has blown his chances. The government will not fund it. He cannot return to school. Year 13 is not something that can simply be re-done because a teenager decides they want to. It's not like resitting GCSE Maths.

No one on here knows what your school can do for your son

Other than those of us who understand how funding works. Giving the OP false hope will not help. I'm not trying to wind her up. I run a 6th form course. I understand how the funding works. Even if the school wants to give her DS another chance (and given his attitude over the last two years, I'm not sure why they would) unless they are in a very robust financial position, they can't do that. Exam entries alone cost hundreds of pounds. 6th form students attract about £4400 per year. No school has that amount of money spare.

OK: so your son claims to be remorseful and you would like to see him pull his socks up, knuckle down and succeed.

If he is allowed back to repeat yr 13 you will need to think very hard how you will support him.

The gym is not the problem. The phone is. Because he pisses time away glued to his phone.

For the love of god do something about his phone use. Make a contract with him: the phone stays with you when he goes to bed. The WiFi is turned off when he is doing his homework. The phone stays with you when he is doing his homework after school and at weekends.

He will have to catch up on this Yr 12 work as well as repeating the Y13 curriculum, because the A level
covers both.

I would restore gym membership but impose tight phone restrictions ,

If the school won’t allow him back, I would move towards seeing what he would like to do instead. Explore other options and qualifications or training he could look into etc.

@EvilTwins do you work in a school or an FE college? I don't understand how this government funding stuff works. What if a pupil messed up their a levels due to other circumstances in their personal lives outside of school? How would they be funded?

I am not stressed out because of this page, the stress of what my son has did is what's making me feel awful. If only he could stop being so selfish and realise that his actions don't just affect himself but the others around him too

Oh, sorry, EvilTwins says school won’t happen

Ok, eyes forwards, what would he like to do? Getting a job, in a place that trains managers and promotes staff, such as a supermarket might be a good bet.

@IncrediblySadToo yes he keeps saying that he's worried he will be stuck working in Tesco the rest of his life (not looking down my nose at shop workers but he can do better than that)

He says he just wants one more chance to make things right and that he will never never do it again as he hasn't thought of the bigger picture in all this.

I think he is down about it all, he does make remarks from time to time like "oh I may as well just go and hang myself" and "I don't deserve to be here anymore"

Honestly it's very hard not to get emotionally attached. I am mentally exhausted with it all

@user20 I've worked in schools for 20 yrs and now run my own 6th form course as part of a virtual school. I have had to learn about how KS5 funding works.

If a student messes up A Levels for the reasons your DS has, there is no backtracking. He basically took two years of funding, did nothing and now has realised that he has messed up. If a student had genuine reasons for Year 13 going hideously wrong, the school would have had to act at a much earlier point. For example, if a child was very ill, or experienced some kind of trauma then it's likely that the school would have worked with them to find a solution - best example I can think of is a girl I used to teach who fell pregnant during Year 12. She agreed with school that she would stay in school until early Year 13, then take the rest of the year off, then start Year 13 again the following year. At least that could be planned. Another boy I taught lost his mum very suddenly at Christmas in Year 13. He was given the option of taking some time out but actually decided not to. He completed A Levels (with excellent grades) and is now at a top drama school. Of course there are genuine mitigating circumstances, but they are unlikely to suddenly appear at the end of year 13 and mean that a student has to retake the year. If something sudden happened at this stage, there would be special consideration for exams, and negotiations with universities. In your DS's case, it's been a long build up to this point and I'm afraid I highly doubt the school has just sat by and done nothing. It's just that your DS may not have kept you informed about it.

@EvilTwins okay well I suppose if the government won't fund then they won't fund which is a shame as I'd have loved to have got him back on track but he knew all this deep down.

Well really he should have been dealt with by permanent exclusion at the end of year 12 and not allowed into year 13 - he could have left and funding for another 2 years wouldn't have been an issue.

They have dealt with him - they put in place strategies to help him - e.g allowing him to go home during his frees which he did and we still bunked off when he had timetabled classes too so he threw it back in their faces.

I have been called in for several meetings during the last 2 years and they said earlier this year that they were unable to do anymore for DS and gave him 2 weeks to improve things but he didn't obviously but they never told him to leave.

He was never once given an after school detention for truancy - but his level of truancy would take more than a detention to deal with it.

Other than that, and being spoken to by his head of year/head of sixth, form teacher and VP, he hasn't had any consequences

Um. sounds like a hell of a lot more consequences than an A Level student ought to need.

I know this isn't what you want to hear, but honestly why on earth should the government fund him any further? School budgets are ludicrous as it is. Teachers having classes of 35+ for GCSE subjects, no one being able to order essentials, subjects being cut because schools can't afford the teachers. Your DS has had more than his fair share.

It sounds very much like the school has bent over backwards to try and help him and he has taken the piss. Schools don't permanently exclude post-16 students - yes, they could have told him to leave but instead they spent two years trying to support him. You're (quite rightly) more interested in your DS than in his teachers, but there will be teachers in his school having to explain why his result has caused a dip in their data and they may well fail performance management as a consequence. Sorry OP but your DS does not deserve any more time or attention from that particular school and he needs to grow up and take responsibility. And you need to stop making excuses for him and enabling his poor behaviour.

OP: the working in Tesco thing. Honestly, Retail is not a bad route. They do invest in young people keen for promotion etc. He can start young but progress with training and promotion .

@EvilTwins you're right in all honesty - he shouldn't be government funded but I can see Both sides, I'm not condoning what he did, but he's not a bad guy really.

He's not like some people his age, out drinking and doing drugs on the streets or bringing drugs into school, he's also polite and pleasant to his teachers and everybody in general - Although he can be different at home!

I know that his manners have nothing to do with funding but I do genuinely believe he should be given another chance if he will CHANGE his ways and his attitude

OP - relax a little. Do you really think uni is the best thing for him? Do you think he really wants to study criminology/law or that he wants to go partying with his peers? Young people nowadays have stark choices with potential large amounts of debt if they drop out of uni. I would prefer my dcs To work min wage jobs while they decide what they want.

I’m in the wrong career after several years of study and work. I’m looking to switch and have done a recognised exam costing £275. There are other such qualifications that may help - eg health and safety for building sites, book-keeping qualifications (but you have to find out what industry you’d like to work in and pick the useful ones). No point looking back, chin up, there are lots of possibilities for self improvement if he’s willing to work his socks off.

Ps - the phone is not an either/or issue. You could make it a condition of him living at home that you remove his smart phone and give him a non-smart one so you can contact him.

At least if he doesn’t go to uni now, he can save his further/higher education funding until he knows what he wants to use it for (I might be wrong but isn’t it harder to get funding for undergraduate if you already have a degree?)

I did roughly the same as your son, only I didn't have good O'level results. I got a place at college on an A level secretarial course, I got kicked out after the first year because I was never there, applied to go back in sixth form at school to improve O level results & did exactly the same. I ended up signing on the dole for nearly a year before i got a job in the civil service, while I worked there I got NVQ level 2 in IT & level 3 in Business Administration. I worked for the civil service for 27 years before I had to retire due to ill health. If your son's GCSE results are as good as you say they are, why doesn't he look at an apprenticeship where he can get qualifications & work at the same time? He would be able to be earning while he learns, gaining work experience & if he chooses the right apprenticeship be on the way to a good career & a permanent job.

EvilTwins maybe you can answer this:
i have read this thread with interest as i have a dc similar gcse grades, 18yo.
a levels were hard for dc and i understand now that dc is not academical type and we dont expect good grades from a levels atm.(also, after as, dc dropped 1 subject and taken another)
there were 2 options for dc 2 months ago;
-to work somewhere
-but dc insisted doing 2 years btec on the same a level subjects (business)
dc applied for the btec in 2 colleges (1 different, 1 at the same, current college)
dc was accepted at both colleges with unconditional offer.
does this mean funding will be available for 2 years in btec?
Thank you in advance.
sorry for hijacking your thread user20, but there are some similarities with your situation and i thought you could see what path we are taking.

@bluebell34567 no honestly no need to apologise. It's great we are able to share our situations and see what way each other is dealing with it. All this worry is very stressful, it's not even for me but it's for DS. I want his future to be promising

I did an extra year of sixth form; still didn’t do great but it was worth a shot!

It worries me that you say he keeps crying and saying he wants to die. I would say that means he is feeling very lost and scared.
He really needs to think seriously about what he would like in his future - "going to uni to study criminology or law" - but then what?
What is the course he wants to do at college? Does it lead to a specific qualification or is it just more a levels? What is the point of it - is it really (in his mind) just a way of getting what you need for uni or something he is actually really interested in.
Why didn't he go to school? You need to find out why. I did 6th form but I really couldn't cope with the level of study involved. I would be sat in the study areas surrounded by my friends. They would be busy getting on with writing essays etc but I would be fidgety and couldn't focus and my mind would wander. To teachers I was 'lazy' but I was struggling because I simply didn't know how to sit there and study and write essays. I now know that academic subjects aren't really my thing and I prefer to be doing hands on creative and practical things. It's taken me well into adulthood to realise that. God I wish I had realised at 14.
If you are happy to pay for any future college courses then perhaps he does need a year 'out'. But does it have to be paid work? If he did voluntary work would you support him financially?
Your poor boy sounds lost. Forget the obsession with a levels. It's time for Plan B.

I think you should ask. At least he has woken up now. It’s a bit harsh of others to say tough. This is the age they are programmed to get distracted but unfortunately it’s also the age mistakes can have big consequences.