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’m dyslexic and failed french. Did well in everything else but just couldn’t grasp the language and spent a lot of time studying for it. Would probably have worked better for me to drop it and focus on other subjects.

I’ve recently started trying to learn again online, so if she wants to learn it later on in life, that’s always an option.

If she is doing quite well at french verbally and can get by there on holiday then that suggests it’s a definite something she is struggling with that’s beyond her control given that she is putting the effort in both in that and other subjects.

Has she ever tried the Michel Thomas teach yourself french series? Dh is likes learning languages and he has found them to be the best way of learning a language for speaking and absorbing vocabulary. It probably isn’t exactly the right stuff for the syllabus (I’ve often said they are missing a trick by not doing tailored gcse and a level ones!) but it’s geared to functional going on holiday/everyday stuff so definitely an overlap.

When ds was 10 he decided to listen to the Greek ones before going to sleep - I have no idea why - but 4 years on he can still spit out a lot of it without having listened again for years. He’s currently doing German at school and not particularly good at it so not like he is a natural at learning languages.

The way the lessons go seem to be a bit like little dialogues or mini scenes - maybe thinking of them as such might help your dd?

Also learning a few key things via songs - think of songs with snips of french in that might help?

But ultimately the decision needs to be joint - you and your dd - don’t let school push especially if you think the school is more concerned with averages or being able to say that everyonedoes 9 exams etc.

I'd say keep it, and push through for the benefit of the experience. You can't be good at everything and that's a good lesson to learn. Agree with @tenredthings not once has anyone asked me what my GCSE were ... they seriously won't impact her life beyond defining A level choices (if she intends to do A level).

It's a matter of times and perseverance to build up vocab for the most part (except verbs, that you almost have to do rote). Practice on the conversational side helps if there is anyone who can (perhaps her teacher could?)

She may also want to try movies she knows and likes with them in French with the English subtitles on (pretty sure you can do this on Netflix). Amazing how much you can pick up this way and far less bland that rote learning vocab.

I would withdraw her from it. She doesn't want to do it, she doesn't need it and it'll be taking away time from other important other subjects, scrap it!

Apologies if this ahs been covered but this could be a timetable issue : what do you think your DD will do when she would have been doing French lessons? Lots of schools can't cater easily for this scenario. I appreciate this may be slightly more laissez faire in a private school.

She sounds like she’s working hard.
If she’s got 54 points already and has a set plan in place to get the other points she needs (hasa- ucas have a tarrif calculator here- www.ucas.com/ucas/tariff-calculator), then I would personally let her take it and do as well as she can and not stress too much.

Hopefully this link might work
www.ucas.com/ucas/tariff-calculator

hi
Thought I'd reply because I sympathise.
I'm a consultant surgeon, educated pre-med and med St Johns Coll/Cambridge.
I was top of my school in 5 subjects but I disliked learning languages when young. I was told Camb wouldn't accept me without GCSE French, which, although it got me detention, I didn't ever attend, preferring to read physics books.

I got grade E. ( + predicted 4 Grade A - there were no A* grades, which I subsequently achieved )

From what you've I see nothing of benefit to your d in learning French. Learn it later if she feels like it. I did.

Sorry, adumbrate reply / i-phone.

Personally I would drop it

Dd has processing disorder, dyslexia and ADD. I wasn’t bothered what she got at GCSE as what ever she got was a bonus.

It is no good saying if someone can learn lines then they can learn French Vocabulary

Ds was bottom of his class on every exam for his mocks (highest mark 14%)
He has dyslexia, dysgraphia and ADHD.

He can read and learn Shakespeare within minutes
Give him history homework to study and he can’t remember the first thing

It sounds like she has a place at professional theatre college - is that for 6th form or beyond?

I would double check with the theatre college that they don’t mind her giving it up, and check with any post 6th form colleges/unis/courses etc that she might have a hint of interest in attending (guessing she is on track for drama related things and not likely to change to be a chemist/speech therapist/psychologist/historian/geographer/etcin the next year or two!). I bet she already has an idea of her top 5-10 as well as the best regarded courses nationally and locally.

A few phone calls and she will soon know how likely it is to matter to her further down the line. If 9/10 courses say it doesn’t matter - great, happy to risk dropping it. But if that 1/10 is the one place she wants to go to - then she knows it is worth struggling with.

Given that she is obviously talented, and knows what she wants to do plus works hard she is luckier than many of her contemporaries who may be similarly good at most subjects but really struggling with one - and who don’t really know what they want to do (many in y11 I’d bet!) - for them it will be too risky to drop so they will need to struggle on.

@wibdib there are no GCSE requirements for her sixth form college course and tertiary education is audition and tariff based entry so we have already checked that out thanks.
I

OP , what do you think she will do during the timetabled French lessons?

@Piggywaspushed she would do private study in the private study room with the others who have dropped French. 3 have dropped French since the start of year 10, 1 has dropped Italian and 2 have dropped Spanish so there are already 6 in private study. So there is no timetabling issue.
Private study is in a set area of the library and the school employs a librarian who supervised private study.

Ah, I see. Private schools are indeed a different world!

Yes we also have supervised private study available in the library or else if the children have SEN they can go to the learning support suite to have assistance in things like essay writing skills from the learning support staff or sometimes have maths buddy support from six formers if they are free.

My daughter dropped French at the beginning of Y10. She just isn't a linguist, and despite trying very hard, was getting more and more upset about her failure to 'get it', and her poor scores. She also has a processing disorder and is given extra time, I'm not sure if this has anything to do with it, I just mention it because the OP has.

We spoke to the school about how if was affecting her, and said that she would rather use her time wisely by swapping to a subject she had the prospect of passing, than continuing to flog a dead horse for the next 18 months with the prospect of a fail at GCSE.

Her school were initially reluctant, but I strongly suspect this was more to do with their EBacc/Progress 8 scores than how it was affecting her. After some discussion and timetabling reviews, she was allowed to swap for Media Studies, which she is thoroughly enjoying and predicted to get a 7 at the moment.

The most important thing was that she honestly became a different child once the weight of worry about French was lifted - she's no longer filled with anxiety about certain lessons and doesn't feel that her time is being wasted.

I certainly wouldn't want to spend 18 months studying for something I have no interest or ability in just because 'it's good to study and we all need to learn that failure is part of life'. Isn't it better to put your efforts into something that will have a more positive and useful outcome?

Reassure the teacher that she is doing the work. Reassure your dd that you will help her.

If the teacher is setting them 10 words a lesson to learn, then help your dd to break it down. Get her to learn 6 words. 5/6 is better than 2/10 and will help to boost her confidence. If the teacher points out that it is only 5/10, it is still better than 2/10.

If she is having to learn bigger amounts - 50 words a week say - then help her to put the words into sentences, and memorise whole sentences. So instead of learning blue, red, dog, house, sit, you learn the blue dog sits on the red house.

DS was in the same situation last year. In terms of his mock exams, I helped him to remember half a dozen sentences on each topic. There are certain questions, certain topics which always come up, so look through a past paper, and help her to learn sentences to answer those. Eg there is nearly always a letter/email to write to a penpal who is going to visit you as part of an exchange programme.

eg Tell your penpal what they are going to see in your home town. "In my town there are two parks, an old church and a museum. There is a leisure centre near to my house, and football stadium. I played football when I was quite small - about 10 years old. It made me happy. " (Always aim to include a past tense; a qualifier (very, quite; and an opinion.)

There is nearly always a question about holidays - what did you do on your favourite holiday? Where will you go next year?

Even better, she doesn't need to make the answers up. Look at her text book. There will be whole sentences there that she can simply copy and learn. It isn't cheating to say "I love Paris. I visited this historic city last year, and saw the Eiffel Tower. It is very large!"

I think you need to take a chill pill and get off her case. You sound way too overwhelming. !

If she has already got a place in A MT college then whether she gets French GCSE or doesn’t isn’t going to make any difference so why worry.
Why put her under the stress.

My DD gave up French at GCSE. Different reasons - she missed a lot of school due to illness. The other subjects she could catch up on, but French was a step too far. We decided (in conjunction with her teachers) that the best thing was for her to drop French and focus on her other subjects. She did very well in both the rest of herGCSEs and A levels (A*AB). She’s doing Arts subject at uni so EBacc not really relevant. I’d discuss it with both the school and your DD and take it from there, but if it’s going to take time away from their other subjects, I’d let it go.

Definitely let her drop French. Can you imagine the stress the poor girl is feeling if she is doing an hour of French a day and still struggling so much. She will be so relieved to have that time back to concentrate on other subjects

Hi Lonecat. I'm a French teacher. I say let her drop it!

Sounds like your DD is doing brilliantly in loads of areas. It is a shame to be brought down by a potentially low French result. I would be tempted to drop it and let her show her the best of herself in her exams. My DCs have dyslexia and visual processing disorder and French is SO HARD for them. Beautiful accents, but can't spell at all.
School may kick up a fuss but really it's up to the two of you. I remember being entered for an exam at school by mistake (my mistake) and I was told I had to pay a small admin fee if I wanted to withdraw.

My 15 year old has just been allowed to drop French (overseas so different exam set-up).

Similarly, he is bright, and a performer with many lines learned. However he is also very dyslexic, with a processing disorder.

No matter how hard he tried French just didn't click with him, particularly written French. This is not uncommon with people with SEN conditions, and I'm surprised that her school hasn't picked this up.

Just wanted to update everyone. School were very concerned as she had become very teary in lessons and the difficulties seem to start the moment the vocab upped a level in September.
I had had her forecast card through before the meeting and her other grades are exceptional so this really was sticking out like a sore thumb.
We have decided that she will give up French as she is over 16 school feel that she has shown herself to be trustworthy and responsible and she will be allowed to study in one of the sixth form common rooms in the 2 hours per week.
@Fivetillmidnight I am not really certain how taking an interest and being concerned about her struggling makes me a nightmare.