Do I die on the French hill or walk away?

[Lonecatwithkitten]

GCSE mock results coming in and apart from French DD has done well from working hard. She has also won a place at a professional musical theatre college, is studying for grade 7 acting and MT and grade 5 ballet (she only started in May). Has starring roles in two musicals. She works hard, but has a visual processing disorder that she gets extra time and use of a lap top for.
She tells me that over Christmas she did an hour of French every day, but she is really struggling with volume of vocab. In the summer mock she got a four, but they only had to prepare two topics. This full mock she has got a 3.
I have been called into school to discuss this and DD tells me the teacher thinks she has done know work and will be asking me to crack down on her.
She works really hard ( the other mocks are 6-8) both at school and in the activities that support her future career.
She has a boyfriend who I know she is having sex with because we talk, she tells me if she has a drink at the occasional party she goes to. So I feel we have a good open relationship.
Just to add context I work full time running my own 24/7 business and my partner is currently receiving chemo and will shortly undergo two major high risk surgeries.
So if you have got this far I feel that given the good relationship, the general hard work and our family situation French is a hill I am not prepared to die on. Would I be wrong to say to school I think we just need to walk away from French.

I would just sit back and let her continue with French (putting in about the same effort as she does with other subjects). She can get a poor grade. That's OK. It's not a big deal. She has enough other talents.

The school are probably wanting to keep their average GCSE grades up, and also wanting to cover their arses by having a meeting with you to raise the issue (in case you're one of the parents who will storm in and blame them for bad grades later).

Having a low-grade French GCSE is better than not having a French GCSE at all, especially since doing a language is pretty much compulsory and she may otherwise need to explain the gap (which could make it sound as though her difficulties were greater than they are).

You don't need to do anything here imo.

If she's struggling that much she won't really 'have a language' - knowing the basics of grammar may be useful, extra vocab while travelling can be acquired with a few clicks of a screen nowadays. I'm massively in favour of learning for its own sake, but in this case it sounds as though putting a lot of effort into French may be to the detriment of other things and not beneficial.

Does she use an app at all for French? On the Duolingo app you learn through reading, listening, writing and speaking French.

An hour doing French was her doing what exactly?

I'd go and see what the teacher has to say and explain your stance and circumstances. I got C at GCSE mainly thanks to my teacher having a plan that focused on areas weaker studnets like me could gain marks in.

Tassomai do french and I've seen vocabexpress they might all help with the vocab side as might quizlet.

We use Tassomai for science - I tend to check she done that and the Senca courses - it's not been a huge nagging excerise for us - something worth considering if they won't let her drop it.

@Lonecatwithkitten do what you think is best for your child. When they’re little we’re told ‘pick your battles’ and it’s no different when they’re older. If she’s struggling that badly she’s unlikely to put in the work that would be required and if she does she will have to reduce what she does for her stronger subjects.

She knows what she wants to do, 8 GCSEs with good grades will get her there so let her do that.

This is not so much about the grades, it is more about the message that it sends to her about what is important.
If I were you, I would be telling her that it isn’t the grade which counts, it is the sticking with it and making the effort. I wouldn’t expect her to do more work than she does on other subjects but I would expect her to do the work and not give up on it.

And I think characterising it as ‘dying on a hill’ is unhelpful.

There seems to be widely different opinions.

Yes she does have duolingo and Seneca and has been using both. She has been focusing on learning vocab in topics. Due to several French holidays, French au pairs and friends she understands a lot of French and can get by speaking.
This has stimulated me to do a bit more research on the degrees courses she is targeting entry is tariff based loosely and massively on audition. Tariff is 102-120, currently she has 54 points if she does well in exams in March/April her points will rise to 62.
I am erring towards she can get by in France, so a piece of paper is not going to change that and actually her other exams are more important.
I know I am going into a meeting with two members of staff who have widely different opinions of her sixth form choice and this colours their opinion of how important a full range of GCSEs are.
A small part of it is this an independent school so I will be paying an entry fee - do I want to pay a fee of £38.70 for an exam she is unlikely to get a good grade in.

And I actually disagree with the carry on as you are. DS failed one of his that he never really had a hope in hell of passing though that was due to the school not him and it really bothers him. He would have been happier with 8 passes than 8 passes and a fail.

If they let you drop it, then drop it.

www.senecalearning.com/blog/gcse-french-revision/ seneca also do french and for certain boards.

My children aren't natural llinguists so have been doing Dulingo for quite a while which has helped massively but DS only year 8 - was still struggling with learning vocabulary - Quizlet made a huge difference to him he used it himself now. I think it was difference of actually staring at vocab lists and writing them out and thinking he'd learnt them and actulally having something test him till he knows it.

Might well be a case of spending less time overall but using more effective form of revison - but that depends on your child.

It sounds to me that school are putting their reputation for results before your daughter's mental health, is the world going to stop spinning if she doesn't get a level 4 in French? No it isn't, but your daughter's world may fall apart if continued pressure causes her to have a breakdown. I would go over the head of whoever is telling you to put pressure on your daughter to work harder & make a complaint, your daughter will have 8 good GCSE passes without French, she already has a clear path in her mind of what she wants to do in the future towards a career & is working her hardest to make all this possible. Either school let her drop French or they accept that working to her full capability she is most likely to get a grade 3, don't let them pressure either of you.

currently she has 54 points

Can you actually use those points? I thought they didn't count.

x-posts - sound like dropping it could well be best option and as your paying that you do get more choice in that matter than in a state school.

I really doesn't sound like not having GCSE French would impede her - so yea I think I'd be pushing for it to be dropped in your shoes.

Honestly, I would just let her drop it. Not having done GCSE French (which is in absolutely no way the same as having a second language), won't matter one bit in the long run if her career aspirations don't require it. I studied French to A Level 19 years ago and it hasn't helped me at all in my career.

@HasaDigaEebowai they count for tariff based and if they are applicable for the degree you are applying for Grade 8 Musical Theatre production distinction is very applicable if you are applying for a musical theatre degree. All her points are for qualifications directly applicable to musical theatre acting, singing and MT production.
Regarding dying on a hill I suppose that's my current state as I said earlier my partner has a potentially life limiting condition and his surgeries in March and April carry significant risk. I work long, long hours in an industry which is notorious for compassion fatigue.

Visual processing issues can be mentally exhausting and this does need to be considered when weighing up the balance. I would ask if she can drop it, unless Ebac, just to give her a chance to recover.

it really does sound like a source of stress for little value which your family could do without.

It sounds like your daughter has more than enough on her plate and can well give up French. If you have A levels or equivalent and a degree, no one cares about GCSEs anyway.

I have a German GCSE that had no impact on my A Level or University course. I also can't remember a word of it and this was only 7 years ago.

If she's struggling with it but actually trying I don't see any harm in her dropping it to have more time to focus on the rest. Putting pressure on her when she's already trying herself is not likely to have any effect. I would leave it up to her wether she wanted to continue with it or not

I am another who disagrees with the idea of sticking with it, as a life lesson.
The point that’s been made is that there will always be things we have to do that we don’t enjoy, and I agree with that. However, OP’s daughter DOESN’T have to do French, so that argument is irrelevant. More importantly, there’s a valuable lesson in self-preservation/finding a balance; why slave away at something that isn’t doing you any good?

DD has SEN and her school has a flexible approach to allowing students with SEN not to take a MFL.
DD is taking Latin, but like OP’s DD, she really struggles with learning vocabulary, even though she can learn a drama script with absolutely no problem.
It’s just the way she’s wired, and definitely not reflective of effort put in.

People who struggle with phonemic awareness are unlikely to find a foreign language comes easily. Language acquisition is directly impacted by the disability. I would pull her out of french immediately, she has tried and it is clear that she is limited by her disability. To continue would take up a disproportionate amount of her time available for studying and will start to compromise what effort she could bring to bear on her other subjects. Plus she is going to feel like(if she doesnt already) that she is just banging her head against a brick wall trying to acquire the vocab. And she will be, her brain just wont allow her to acquire language like most others, she is probably learning the vocab she knows already by sight recognition.

The reality is that languages demonstrate an ability to learn a language. No more than that really. And for the vast majority of people they won't be particularly useful in life.

I have German A Level. It comes in handy when I'm watching a German subtitled movie or TV series and I get distracted so I'm not looking at the subtitles. I still get the gist of what is being said a lot of the time. I can also help DS2 with his german homework. That's it.

What does she want to do about French - drop it or do it but risk a poor grade? I'd let my DS do what he wanted provided he had thought it through, surely it's her decision?

Our eldest daughter really struggled with language, and we too had this same dilemma. Her dyslexia and difficulties with phonic segmentation, made it quite difficult for her, and while she had developed coping strategies for English, it was difficult with a new language being learned in this way. In the end, it really didn’t matter. She struggled to make a C..but all her other grades were very good. A*s in English Lang and Lit at GCSE...All As at A level, and now at a very good RG uni. Looking back..it was a needless worry.