Anyone else child failed their GCSE's??

[bigknickersbigknockers]

My DS has just been to get the results of 2 early entry GCSE's and has failed them both. He has mild-moderate autism and has worked extremely hard to do his best by attending extra tuition at school, revising and reading. I am now extremely worried about next year when he will do the rest of the GCSE exams. Will he be able to go to college or get an apprentiship if its the same next year? He deserves to pass for the effort and work put into it alone IMHO

If it helps at all, my brother has SEN, failed all of his GCSE's, went to college to do a vocational course, later decided to do an access course, went to uni, got a first and has just finished his masters. Took him a bit longer to get there but the point is failing GCSEs really is not the end of the world.

Thank you @LynetteScavo, that's really helpful. I recall him saying his L3 course was only 2.5 days/week.

OP - Sorry to hear about your son. He probably never should have been entered. One thought I had was whether his autism has affected his grade. By this I mean that some people with autism (and I have taught quite a few now) have difficulty in doing what the exam questions ask in the right way. So even though they have the knowledge and intelligence to pass, they don't score well on the marking scheme. If this could be a problem, it would be good to get your DS specific help before next year.

Total fail here. Dd has learning difficulties and has had a shit time recently in school. School were predicting her 5s and 6s which were massively unrealistic in my opinion. I even queried it.

School have handled it really Shitly imo. A teacher encouraged her to stay for sixth form. School advertise that no matter what your GCSEs there's something for you.
New head basically told her this morning actually no it wasn't fair on the others for her to stay there academically despite her passing her BTEC and having merit and distinction and only wanting to do the next level. Told her she couldn't retake her Maths and English. Told her to go and see careers officer. Senco no where in sight. No support for a child upset they haven't got what they wanted.

Luckily she had applied elsewhere and they have been bloody brilliant.
Enrolled at college and all sorted.
Schools response felt like the last fuck you of any remaining confidence she had. I'm glad she didn't get in there tbh.

RE and English lit failures are not the end of the world.
Next year he will have way more support, more revision, more after school sessions, more mocks.
A great deal can happen in a year 😊

If he doesn't get his results, then yes, he can still go to college, and he can take an apprenticeship. He may have to go in at a lower level, but he can still progress on.

In my opinion, your son's school has let him down by entering him for two subjects a year early; especially subjects like RS and English Literature where a year's extra maturity would have helped boost his grade.
The only failure here is theirs.

My son did worse than expected. Math teacher said he was borderline so hoping it will be marked up. He got both English. He really only needed English and math for his apprenticeship course at college and there’s a facility to resit. So it hasn’t changed what’s going to happen but he’s done far worse than any of his mates - totally his own fault he just didn’t do enough work and was overconfident! Private school though you’d think they’d be able to almost guarantee 4s no matter how much individual revision!
As far as I recall he does two class days and one or two work experience days a week so there’s room for time tabling classes or get a second job!

Dayofdoom that's appalling behaviour by her school. I bet you were seething. Sounds like the college is great and will support your DD going onwards and upwards.

Why would he sit them early?
Makes no sense.
Better to
Drop some subjects and focus on fewer gcses in year 11.

To be honest OP, and please don't jump on me everyone, those two subjects (RE & Eng.Lit.) barely matter in the scheme of things. They are also subjects that require a lot of writing and in the case of Eng.Lit, memorising (thank you Mr.Gove). Maybe those are areas your DS needs to work on? He has a whole year to improve his skills. I don't really understand why a school would enter students a year early for those particular subjects. Maybe to clear the deck for the subjects that 'really matter'? Whatever the reason, please re-assure your DS that a lower grade those subjects will make no difference to his chance of going to college unless they were the ones he wanted to study at A level. There is a reason these exams are meant to be taken in year 11 and given another year of study his results may have been quite different.

It’s like they’ e treated them as ‘throwaway’ subjects tbh. It’s not standard practice to enter a year early even if you’re excellent at a subject.

My friends DD failed all of hers, was expecting to go to 6th form to do BTec courses, went straight to college was told by teacher at college no chance, her mum spoke to head teacher they let her on the course she passed her btecs. All is not lost.

Mine. He is 18 and been doing resits last couple of years. He is also autistic.
He actually did worse this year in english than last year and needs to resit maths and english again. He got 2s but he has come from a SEN school and hes already done so much more than i could have hoped for when he was little. I am super proud. Unfortunately he feels like a failure.

What was the school’s thinking in entering him early?

My thoughts exactly. My niece's school did the same with her - for some strange reason they wanted her to take her Maths a year early despite only being predicted a C (a few years ago) and she ended up getting a D. I can understand it for high achievers who are at a level to get a top grade, but not for the middlings.

Was he predicted to do much better than the grades he got, OP? Wondering because I have worked with exam classes for many years (not in the UK but still national written exams) and I have known of several autists kids who have failed exams unexpectedly because they were so focused on answering right that they ended up spending the whole exam answering only the first one or two of the questions. Which meant that they failed despite knowing a huge amount and answering what they did answer well. If you think that might be the case, I would try to get hold of his exam paper and see where it went wrong.

Yes, my son failed the lot today. Autism, selective mutism and learning difficulties, EHCP and I asked if he could just do 4 or 5. He had to take 7 plus 2 BTECs.

He did, however, get some level 3s so he can go to college and do a level 2 course whilst retaking maths and English.

To peeve me a bit more, his disabled bus pass came through the post today and it gives him free travel throughout England. Lovely, except we’re nearly in Wales and it only works after 9.30am so is no good for getting to college!

I took 9 GCSEs originally and only passed 4 first time round (including one where the school had told us we only had to answer 4 of the essay questions and it was actually 5 - strangely not many of us passed that particular exam that year...). This early failure hasn't stopped me, in the longer term, getting very good 'A' levels, a decent enough BA Hons, an MA, and a PGCE from 3 well-regarded universities, 2 of which were Russell Group, for what it's worth; nor has it stopped me from acquiring various other assorted pieces of vocational and professional wallpaper; it hasn't stopped me working abroad; it hasn't stopped me working with interesting people in interesting places.

I sincerely wish we had a more sensible exams system, and one where students were made aware there are more routes to success than GCSEs and the rest. They measure "ability" in the sense that they measure the ability to jump through the type of academic hoops so beloved by Gove and his chums. They measure one type of intelligence. They don't measure kindness, the ability to get on with people, or practical skills, with a few exceptions. They certainly don't measure creativity.

OP, good luck to your son - it sounds like you are handling it very well. I'm just trying to offer encouragement that it's not the end of the world, although to my 16 year old self at the time, it felt like it.

If you're struggling with what I would call academic subjects (English Literature for sure), then why in hell was he studying them? Could he not have take core subjects, (I believe they are maths and English?) and then taken some practical subjects like woodwork, technical drawing, home economics even (covers things like cooking/sewing/understanding how washing machines work etc.). More practical subjects?
My ex failed maths, but he was an encyclopedia on history.

Literature is a very academic subject and not a lot of people are that way inclined. Though I was good at languages, I was crap at expressing what I thought/felt/perceived reading literature (in ye olde fucking bastard English which was difficult to even read, let alone understand). *Looking at you Shakespeare..............

To all those people asking why was he entered early - it may be that the school does the same as my DS's school.
They start their GCSEs in year 9 (do options in yr 8), giving 3 years for Maths, Science and English. They do two subjects that they sit in yr 10 (my Ds got two 4s - old C grade) and they take two more subjects intensively in yr 11.
My Ds also did a Btec PE (Merit)

A full time level 3 course without retaking GCSEs will be just as full as a level 2 with gcse retakes. A full time course is 540 hours a year. Colleges will timetable that whatever level or retakes as that’s how they get full funding.

supersop60 they need 3 years to do the new GCSE courses for English, Maths and Science. All schools should be starting the curriculum in year 9 for these subjects regardless of when they pick there options. The new curriculum is just to intense to get through in 2 years. I work in science (technician not teacher) and I wouldn't want to work in a school who tried to squeeze it into 2.

So sorry, they should not have put him in for early entry, it's not fair on students unless they are super bright and confident.

They do two subjects that they sit in yr 10 (my Ds got two 4s - old C grade) and they take two more subjects intensively in yr 11.

DD’s school used to do this. (This was before the exam reforms). The students did 2 short, fat subjects in year 10, and 2 in year 11. These were always the optional subjects. All the core subjects were taken over 2 years. The top set for maths always sat iGCSE maths in the January of year 11. As DD is a summer born she took her first 2 GCSEs at just 14 years old.

My commiserations to those who had hoped to do better.

Yes and I feel like shit. The grade boundaries are higher because kids worked harder. 33% will always fail - how can that be right? He has mild learning difficulties but the governement will make him resit again and again. who does that benefit except Pearsons ???

And all the media "joy" doesn't help. It's as if my kid is somehow nothing and didn't "work hard" and has no future to choose.

Sorry but these are re-sits. it is a shit system

Branleuse My son is also 18. And this is horrible. He feels he has failed and will never succeed - he did slightly better than previously but still "failed". Why are we making them do this??