Doing a language GCSE early - pros and cons?

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Background - when DS was 6, we moved abroad for work for 2 years (Austria).
DS attended a local school and after initially struggling a lot, managed to get quite good at German.
We moved back to the Uk when DS was 9.

DS has been attending German classes outside school, at his request, since he was 9, he's now 13. He's worked extremely hard at this and is very motivated.

His secondary school unfortunately doesn't teach German, but his German teacher (who is attached to a different school) has suggested he could sit German GCSE there as an external candidate. She thinks DS could realistically aim for a grade 8 or 9 at GCSE, and sit it in year 10 (he'll be year 9 is September).

Are there downsides to sitting it in year 10?
I thought people might just assume DS is a native speaker and not realise all the hard work he's put in.

A friend also told me GCSEs done earlier or later "don't count", so he might not be able to do it for A level at 6th form?

DS will do 9 GCSEs at school in year 11, with at least one other modern language, possibly even two. I thought doing a 10th subject earlier would be good experience, a bit of a practice run, rather than 10 all at once.

Are any teachers able to advise on what the best course of action is? DS has worked massively hard to get to this point, and we don't want to make the wrong decision for him.

Is he considering German as part of his long term academic plans? If so Universities in general consider the best 8 GCSEs sat in the same examination period.
If he would just like to do German and it is not part of the long term future then it's not a big issue. Beyond the fact that GCSEs etc are so up in the air currently that I would be trying to wait as long as possible particularly if he is a potential 9 external candidate.

The exam timetable for summer of y11 is brutal.
I think there is a lot to be said for taking it early, both for the experience and to not have to have those extra exams in y11.
Our school takes short course RE in y10 for the experience.

He's only 13, so long term academic plans aren't massively on his radar.

He might well want to take it further though. Certainly we don't want to close any doors at this point.

He does say he wants to live and work in Austria as an adult.

How are GCSEs up in the air? Do you mean because of Covid?

One of mine did Italian a year early. Got an A but would have done better a year later with more under his belt. Wouldn't have thought it was too much of an issue either way if he's near native speaking.

GCSEs taken in Y10 don't count towards league tables. That may be what your friend meant.
I wouldn't think it would make much difference for sixth form if he is taking other MFL in Y11.
I suspect the previous poster means the COVID adjustments for GCSEs but these can't go on forever!

If it's unlikely to be an issue to do it early, I think we will probably go for that.

Would universities look unfavourably on DS if they thought he was a native speaker though? In my view he very definitely isn't.

I just looked at our local uni and it doesn't allow native speakers on language courses.
Would they just assume he was, or do you have to declare it?

No particular knowledge but German is mainstream enough to not raise a query I'd have thought.
Anyway if he applies to do MFL he can just cover it in his personal statement.

I did it early for similar reasons- was great to get one ‘in the bag’. Then did A-level early too. Go for it!

The state grammar that my DS1 is attending from September do a language GCSE in year 9. There is nothing stopping them taking that language at A Level (or University) as long as they get the right grade.

My last round of UCAS applications was 2 years ago, but I am 95% sure that it asks which languages you speak as part of the general form.

If he’s British and spent 2 years as a child in Austria, I’m not surprised his german is good but I don’t think any uni would consider him a “native speaker”.
In your shoes I’d encourage him to take it early and get a good grade. As long as he’s doing a good range of GCSEs in year 11 I can’t think of any disadvantages.

Ps I did mfl at uni and although there were no genuine “native speakers” there were def some who had spent a few years in the appropriate country.
Native speaker means lives and breathes the language as well as their 1st language. Not just good at it.

my Ds was born in Germany and attended local schools until we moved when he was 8. He took igcse German when he was 11 and AS level when he was 14. We were living in China then and his school had no objection to him taking the exams early. He completed an internship with an Austrian company (in Austria) after his first year at university (not studying languages). Did not seem to be any negative impact associated with him sitting the exams early.

Thank you, this is all so helpful, I'll definitely encourage him to go for it.

French and German teacher/tutor here.

I agree with others, two years abroad as a child does not make him a native speaker. Well done him for working so hard.

Early GCSEs don't help the school but that's not an issue here. I think the only caveat is that if someone who was HE too, for example, two GCSEs every year for four years, it would be easier to gain several high grades, so that might be viewed with suspicion by a uni looking for high GCSE grades (as in, would they have done so well at one sitting). I beliee universities want to see a number of GCSEs gained in one year, so to speak, but again, he will clearly do that at school.

His German GCSE will still certainly "count". If he wants to do A level at the usual age, the only concern would be that he would need to keep up his skills for the intervening year, but from what he has done it doesn't sound as tho that would be an issue.

sorry for typos, someone who was HE took that should say.

My eldest did a Latin GCSE as part of an initiative in our city for state schools. That was in year 10. She did it as an evening class and was able to cope fine.

I did both French and Spanish early, which freed up some time for me to pick up German from scratch in Y11! Got A + A* for the early, and a B for German, which I was proud of in the year.

I really enjoyed the challenge, and was still able to do both French and Spanish at GCSE.

A friend also told me GCSEs done earlier or later "don't count", so he might not be able to do it for A level at 6th form?

This is a myth, albeit a surprisingly common belief. DD did 6 GCSEs in Y10 and 6 in Y11, and then 2 of her A levels were in subjects she had finished in Y10. It made no difference to her university applications.

@thing47

A friend also told me GCSEs done earlier or later "don't count", so he might not be able to do it for A level at 6th form?

This is a myth, albeit a surprisingly common belief. DD did 6 GCSEs in Y10 and 6 in Y11, and then 2 of her A levels were in subjects she had finished in Y10. It made no difference to her university applications.

Its not a myth, its true.

I work enrol students for sixth form every year.

We only look at GCSEs taken together, and disregard any taken early, as it is easy to get a top grade in any subject if it is the only one you are doing.

Also, we would not consider a student suitable for an A level course if they had not been studying that subject the previous year.

This leads to all sorts of upsets and disappointments. Last year we had an applicant who had taken GCSE maths 3 years early, and was very distressed not to be eligible for the maths A level course, but she hadn't done any maths for 3 years!

And of course, we have a lot of HE studenta who literally take one GCSE every 6 months for 5 years, and come out with 10 top grades, and are upset when we count that as having 2 GCSEs, as they only took 2 in year 11, so are not eligible for any A levels.

These students normally then take a 1 year level 2 class, and if they do well in that, they can then progress to level 3 ( although many actually can't cope with the level 2)

In your case, I would not worry too much. If your lad takes the exam at the end of year 10, then it will still be (just!) countable as being studied and taken at the same time as his other GCSEs

I would certainly not recommend taking it in year 9 though, we automatically disregard anything taken that early. Some other schools and colleges might not, but many do

Not my experience as I've explained above as DD's school did half in Y10 and half in Y11, though I take your point about doing just 1 early.

Maybe we're talking at slightly cross purposes, though, as I was addressing the 'don't count' comment in terms of higher/further education – they certainly did count as far as DD's university applications were concerned, otherwise she would have been considered not to have GCSEs in 2 of her 3 A level subjects.

I agree it's not ideal to have a year not studying a subject you want to take for A level (let alone 3!), but it's perfectly manageable.

To be fair @54321nought your points are valid (and similar to the one I made about home educated DC) but would surely not apply in this case. The OP's DS will clearly have enough GCSEs taken at one sitting to validate his application for sixth form or university.

And as I suggested, if he can keep up with study of German between end of yr 10 and end of yr 11 he should be fine to do A level, if he wants to. I agree tho, he would certainly have to do that. Teaching A level German (or French, or maths, indeed) to someone who hadn't looked at it for a year or more would be hard work. The student you mention who had had a three-year break from maths was very badly advised, I agree.

Why would someone bright enough to do GCSE maths 3 years early, and capable enough to want to do it for A level, not have gone on to do Additional/Further maths and/or statistics? Crazy!

Yes, he knows you start to go backwards if you stop working at it - he didn't have any lessons in lockdown and was taken aback how much he forgot!

He might not want to do A level anyway, - but if he did he would have to apply to a different school as his doesn't offer it, so I suppose it's worth checking if the other local schools have any rules about early GCSES.

(I've just worked out that HE above means home educated - I was reading it as higher education and not really understanding .

If your school lets him take GCSE German a year early, but don't teach German, I don't see why they wouldn't let him sit A-level German too, if he wanted to continue at the same school. (We certainly welcome this!)