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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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Original poster

Dropping a GCSE subject?

42 replies

RedskyToNight · 20/10/2019 18:05

Just wondered if anyone had any experience of speaking to their school about dropping a GCSE subject and what the school's response was?

For various reasons, I think it would be beneficial for DS (now in Year 11) to drop one of his GCSE subjects. I can think of lots of reasons why this would be good for him; but want to be able to counter any arguments the school might come up with. The only one I can think of so far, is that if he drops a subject this leaves him with 2 hours of un-timetabled time each week.

Has anyone done this, and what did the school say/do?

OP posts:

Original poster

RedskyToNight · 23/10/2019 21:35

That would be the ideal Teen - the trouble is we have so many subjects already that need an extra push. He is borderline foundation/higher in 2 of his sciences so needs extra work there as teachers have said they will base his tier on mocks so needs to do well if he wants to be entered for higher. He has music coursework that he needs to commit some serious time to as they have deadlines coming up. He is thinking about maths A Level but needs to do way more practice questions (currently doing very little) to be sure of getting the 7+ his maths teacher has suggested is desirable. He knows virtually no English Lit quotes for any of his texts so needs to get some learnt/analysed pronto. You get the idea! This is what comes of coasting for 2 years, it now feels like we're drowning. I'm not sure he has the time to up his game in every subject so he has to make some hard choices. This felt like an easy subject to let drop when he was doing so much worse in it than others, but now I don't know at all ...

OP posts:

Comefromaway · 24/10/2019 12:51

Ds is begging us to ask school to let him drop Food. He's autistic and really struggling. He is underachieving in some of his other subjects but is progressing and took the constructive critisism. IN Food he is constantly having meltdowns and panic attacks. At Parent's Evening I could see his stress levels rising as we talked to the teacher and its affecting his other subjects that follow that lesson as he's in such a state.

I'm hoping that school will agree for the sake of his mental health.

He wants to suggest to his Head of Year that instead of Food he goes to the SEN support area to do extra maths and English work.

TeenPlusTwenties · 24/10/2019 14:01

That doesn't sound unreasonable Come.

AuntieUrsula · 24/10/2019 14:33

At DDs' school it depends. One of their friends has been allowed to drop chemistry, but two others were refused permission to drop a subject (one art, the other Spanish). I think the difference was the first friend has quite fragile mental health and misses quite a lot of school due to stress, so they were willing to do what they could to ease that. The other two were told they had clear potential in the subject in question, and throwing the towel in now would cut off their options later (not sure how convincing that is)!

In any case, there are a number of kids who have dropped a subject for one reason or another and they are expected to spend their free periods studying over in learning support. I guess that works ok because there's never very many at one time.

maddy68 · 24/10/2019 14:38

The problem is what to do with then during the timetabled lessons? Where do they go? Most schools will refuse as it's a nightmare to organise

Drabarni · 24/10/2019 14:43

We have, but private school.
looking at dropping another, currently doing 8 and that includes both English and double science award

dimsum123 · 24/10/2019 15:49

DD was allowed to drop German. She was struggling, it was taking up a disproportionate amount of time. She's mildly dyslexic and has slow processing. School were fine about it and she just used the extra lesson time to do private supervised study with other kids.

It's interesting that the subject that quite a few children are looking to drop, based purely on this thread is a mfl.

At DSs school they do French in year 10 not 11 and I've been wondering why and not sure if it was a good idea. He's in year 9 and they do French 4x per week and I'm kind of thinking now it is possibly a good idea to get it out of the way a year earlier so they can focus on the rest of the GCSEs in year 11. Mfl seems to be the least popular subject for so many students.

Comefromaway · 24/10/2019 15:54

But what about those who want to carry on French to A level. A year not studying it is quite detrimental to language learning.

TeenPlusTwenties · 24/10/2019 16:09

Is the issue with MFL that so many schools make it compulsory (perhaps for Ebacc reasons?) but then the dyslexic children / other SpLD / lazy(?) can't cope?

tadjennyp · 24/10/2019 16:23

As an MFL teacher, this thread is really depressing! Many kids come to school with an attitude that they don't need it, they are never going to go to X, everybody else speaks English, why doesn't everyone else just speak English? Letting kids drop something because they are lazy would send a crazy message, totally different if they are really struggling. I don't think I would want them in the back of my class though.

TeenPlusTwenties · 24/10/2019 16:50

tad I agree dropping something through laziness would not be a good message. But for good or ill, (partly due to woeful MFL teaching at primary?), MFL is seen as hard.

I'm actually very supportive of MFL (DD1 did 2 at GCSE and has since picked up a 3rd too.

I don't think many people on this thread are talking something about dropping due to laziness. It mainly seems to be to do with SpLD/SEN/mental health.

tadjennyp · 24/10/2019 17:13

The new GCSE is hard, great if you want to go on to further study as you do have a decent grounding. I have found that lots of children really like and do well initially in an MFL, particularly a phonetic one like German, even if they have struggled with literacy at primary school. It's a fresh start and they haven't 'failed' at it, as they might consider they have in English. Languages are not compulsory at my school at KS4 though.

dimsum123 · 24/10/2019 18:39

@54Comefromaway, that's a good point which I hadn't actually considered.

DSs school is a top indie so I would have thought there must be some provision for continuation for those that wish to do French A level. Otherwise as far as I know, the freed up timetable slots are filled with further maths quals or similar. I really should find out though.

SansaSnark · 24/10/2019 19:23

It kind of sounds like you will have to prioritise regardless of whether he is allowed to drop this subject or not.

Priorities for him are presumably maths, getting a 5 in English lang (would he need higher for any reason) and then any prospective A-level subjects. Does he definitely need to do higher tier in science? Is he thinking of Science A-levels? Or might he be better off accepting 5s in science and focusing on other subjects?

I can see the sense in wanting to drop a subject from your POV, but it's hard for the school to let him work unsupervised for 2 lessons a week- and it's unlikely there will be anyone available to supervise him. Is there even a space where he could work?

Comefromaway · 24/10/2019 20:23

French was dd’s Lowest grade (6). She actually struggled massively in the listening paper partly because she has auditory processing difficulties so was struggling to hear the recording.

StanleySteamer · 02/11/2019 15:17

I think you now need some explanation from DS about what is going on. Does he know how his teacher feels about all this?

"Mixed messages" doesn't cover it! What are his other predictions and what other A levels have staff predicted he might be able to do?

Some really bright kids just coast through GCSEs and still get good grades, but then get a shock at A level when they see their previous work ethic doen't work any more, but this is less likely with the new GCSEs. Is DS just trying to coast through or is he really working as hard as he can on the other GCSEs? It is too common to get DSs not working at subjects they are going to drop and aiming for a "pass" rather than a good grade.

LolaSmiles · 02/11/2019 20:44

My school would give you a flat no. It would start an avalanche of requests from kids who no longer fancied studying French (it’s usually French)
Are we in the same school?

OP
A lot will depend on what would happen in the free periods and also the fact that schools get loads of requests like this with some students/parents even going as far as to try and deliberately flunk a subject to try and force hands (really silly idea).

I think the fact he's coasted for 2 years matters here as there's loads of students in that camp and it can't work to send the message that you can do little work and then get an easier ride.
If you'd like some tips for English Lit then PM and I'll send you some suggestions but I don't want to hijack your thread.

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