Better not to take language gcse than get a 1 or 2?

[User7288339]

Dd (yr 9) has been on an accelerated thing at school where they only focus on one language then take the gcse two years early. It’s not gone well for her and she just got a 1 in her mock.
her other subjects she’s projected 4-6s.
this language gcse would be number 10 if she takes separate sciences and 9 if she does dual award (most likely). So she’d still hopefully have 8 GCSE’s without it,

It’s demoralising for her and I don’t see how she’s going to get the grade up to a 4 before May.
she isn’t motivated and it’s hard to get her to put the hours in, but even when she does progress is so slow because she just can’t seem to remember the sounds or the characters (it’s Chinese). Listening and reading she can have a stab at and got 2s, writing she only can remember a couple of characters and speaking she got a U for that part.

we’ve thought about a tutor but I really don’t think it’s worth spending £££ to maybe get it up to a 2 or 3, I think we need to save our money for maths and English in future.

Does she have to list it on college and uni stuff? Or if she fails can we just act like it never happened?

If it’s the former I’m thinking would it be best all round to speak to the school about her just not taking it?

they do offer a pathway there to do 8 GCSE’s and not do a language.

part of me thinks we should show her you don’t “give up” and the other part of me thinks “what’s the point?” It’s just going to be a horrid experience for her.

im a bit annoyed school didn’t pick up how bad it was earlier, I’d tried to express concern to the teacher but they just kept saying it was just a confidence issue.

what would you do?

pull out?

This sounds odd and expensive - so presumably fee paying school. I’d ask for y11 exam. Plus why on earth no French, German or Spanish like every normal school ? Ofsted don’t like exams taken early for exactly the reason here. Dc don’t always get the best result they could. Who gains from that? No one as far as I can see.

Not private, state academy.
They do French and Spanish too, but have got a thing about Chinese

I was able to drop a language GCSE 15 or so years ago; it took such a weight off my shoulder and helped me concentrate on things I knew I could pass and hobbies, etc, rather than a language I knew was a surefire fail.

Mandarin is a challenging language and I really don’t understand the expectation to take the exam early. It would seem more sensible for pupils to start with a European language and then take mandarin if they are talented at languages.

I’m pretty sure all GCSEs need to be declared for Uni applications - my DS2 dropped Spanish and I did a fair bit of googling to check . I would have liked him to keep learning a language but pulled him out as it looked like you have to declare everything

Thanks @Brainfogblue
This is my worry
I've enquired whether it's an option, so we'll take it from there

@User7288339 What a bizarre thing! I cannot understand how they can afford this! Cannot see any advantage either. What a shame she just could not take a MFL GCSE at y11 like nearly every everyone else.

Are you doing the Mandarin Excellence programme with UCL? But taking the exam early? Sounds like it’s this.

She could have done that, it was her/our choice to apply for the immersion language thing 😞

I don’t think it’s UCL but they do get some government funding I think. And there’s a British council subsidised trip to China in the summer too

For UCAS, yes you do, whatever the grade obtained, and unless it's changed very recently, you finish off your application with a declaration that the information given is accurate and complete, or words to that effect. (https://www.ucas.com/about-us/policies/privacy-policies-and-declarations/ucas-undergraduate-declaration makes it look like it hasn't changed since our youngest DC applied four years ago).

The potential penalty for being found out is having your whole application cancelled, but of course, it may not happen.

Eta, I'm really surprised that the school woukd even contemplate making the poor girl sit the GCSE. Although iirc, the official stats re GCSEs only refer to those taken at the normal time?

My son has been learning Japanese for the last few years with a native speaker we found through Verbling website. It's very inexpensive and my son enjoys the lessons so much so he spends an hour every Sunday without prompting. I think a lot depends on a teacher

I'm a languages teacher and I think this sounds absolutely insane, frankly. They should allow her to pull out.

When I was at school it was an option to disclaim a result. So even if the school forced you to sit the exam, you could just ignore it.

@User7288339 The one I’ve looked at in Yorkshire is UCL. Not sure if other universities got involved elsewhere. Yes, there’s a trip. The programme doesn’t require exams taken in y9 though. If talks about hoping pupils continue to GCSE at KS4 and A level. Not taking gcse very early. The implication is they need KS4 to take the gcse. So not surprisingly your DD is not achieving highly in the mocks. There is a curriculum for y10 and y11 and trips and learning events for those years too, eg another short residential trip and prep for exams as the final element of the curriculum.

Wait, she's been having tutor, art and RE in Mandarin since Y7 and she is only getting 1s.and 2s in exams? How does that work, has she been accessing those subjects effectively?

Moving her to English medium throughout her school day sounds far kinder to me. But easy for me to say when it's not me being moved away from friends.

8 GCSEs are absolutely fine for most things. As are 5, if they include an Eng, Maths and any prerequisite subjects.

I also think for a dc predicted 4-6 for other subjects, I’m not sure this programme makes sense for her. It’s early to make accurate predictions but she probably needs fewer subjects in a standard teaching format. Grades 4-6 are not grades that will make any A levels easy and I’m not sure that this project was designed for her. More for high achieving dc? From what I can tell.

Adding to the voices of ‘this sounds totally nuts’.

Mandarin for a start is a hard language- and recognised by the foreign office as such. You can see the intensive training foreign office staff learning mandarin go through here. They don’t even do the training unless someone scores highly on a language aptitude test.

I could maybe see this working for kids predicted a run on 9s at the very top end of selective schools but not for a more normal kid. Taking any gcse early seems totally pointless as well let alone mandarin.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a821b74ed915d74e3401c34/0820-17_.pdf

Yes @TizerorFizz you're right, it's not billed as a selective stream but it does attract the higher achievers. And in retrospect it wasn't right for dd.
My eldest did it but for Spanish, got a 7 in year 9 then 2 8s and the rest 9s in year 11. She doesn't regret it as was nice to have it out the way but she feels she would have got a higher mark doing the traditional route.

Now they're in year 9 and have started gcse courses and options, the immersive part has gone really anyway, apart from tutor time.

I really appreciate all the "this is bonkers" posts as I'm finding it quite vindicating and reassuring.

@User7288339 The much maligned Ofsted did say they don’t like exams taken early. Lots of schools stopped it because dc were getting lower grades than they would have got in y11. Sometimes dc don’t see that the result matters (my DD who did IT early) and don’t really know how to revise to GCSE level in y9.

Of course the FO do recruit MFL grads or people who have worked abroad and have become immersed in a language. They are not necessarily recruiting people who have zero MFL ability.

Actually on preply and other places you can get a language lesson for like £15 or even cheaper for eg. Spanish. My son is learning French twice a week with qualified teacher, a Polish lady,who he connects over the internet with.

Maths is a bit more expensive and I found Computer Science the most ecpensive

That’s bonkers

our school also does the accelerated language thing, they are all supposed to do one in year 9 but it’s French/spanish/german. I totally support this.

however every year out of 300 kids there is a bunch of 20-30 kids who just end up not doing it. I think in year 9 they get an opt-out (most don’t get the choice) but get extra maths/English lessons instead

Our school used to do certain GCSEs early, they stopped as many parents and pupils felt the grades they got in Yr 9/10 often ended up being lower than the rest of their yr11 grades. This certainly affected one of our kids, who wasn't really mature enough in yr9 (resat in yr11 and went from a 6 to a 9).
Just let her drop it, it's not worth the stress.

My DS dropped French GCSE at the beginning of yr11, it was a huge weight off his mind and meant he could focus better on his other subjects. He got 8 good grades, it was never a hindrance and it didn't teach him that quitting is OK, but instead taught him that sometimes you have to be strategic about these things and look towards how the end result will benefit you. Sometimes going through the process just to build resilience can be detrimental, if the end result is a poor grade and if it has a knock on effect on other grades.

Would you hammer on for years in a job that is pointless and makes you unhappy just to make a point that you don’t give up? Surely it’s essential to teach her to reflect and make decisions and thought out changes, she needs to know her well-being matters. She needs some agency to shape her life for the better.