French GCSE

[LyndaLaHughes]

Can anyone advise whether it is necessary to have a language at GCSE level? My daughter, who has an EHCP, is academically able but hates French and will likely be unable to complete the French oral. Would it disadvantage her to not have a language at GCSE at all? Also- can I insist she doesn’t do it if needs be? There is an alternative subject for others who wish to do a different language. She would likely pass the other parts of the exam as she is clever. I am aware the school will be thinking about EBacc figures. Thanks.

Nationally there isn't a requirement.

However schools put restrictions on subject choice for timetabling reasons (and their own stats)

No it wouldn't disadvantage her. However, you can't insist the school lets her drop it if it's school policy to do a language at GCSE. You can put your case to them and they might agree to though. I'm an MFL teacher at a grammar school where it's compulsory to do a language at GCSE. Sometimes they let a few students drop their language in Y11 if it's going badly, but they don't let any choose not to do it in the first place.

Would you be so kind as to share what access arrangements are available for the Oral aspect- this is the concern. She will freeze and be unable to do it. She’s autistic and has terrible social anxiety.

I feel your pain. At DS's school they have to do a language unless they have significant learning difficulties and are doing functional skills instead, but he has ADHD and a few people, including psychiatrist, have said languages can be especially hard for for ND kids, and he finds it very hard and has either frozen or done very badly in French tests so far (in Y9).

The worst thing is DH is determined to 'teach' him and it's causing lots of stress (I did languages other than French at shcool, so I can't help); if there had been an option to drop it I absolutely would have pushed for that, although DH might have insisted, so it's out of my hands anyway

Absolutely no issue to not have a gcse language.
Might not be possible to not do it at your school tho.

Also, watch out for the speaking part of GCSE English - there is a separate spoken endorsement.

I’m all for MFL (did it at uni myself) but some kids really struggle and I don’t think they should all be forced to do it

it’s needed for ebacc but isn’t an issue for the kids at all

at ds’s school an mfl is compulsory however there are a dozen or so kids every year who don’t do the exam. I think they stop at Christmas and do some extra English/maths lessons instead

so speak to the school definitely

As far as I'm aware, the only access arrangement available for the speaking exam is 25% or 50% extra preparation time (students have a small amount of supervised time to prepare the speaking catds before they go into the exam), but this won't really help with social anxiety in the exam itself. There's not really any getting around the fact that the exam inherently involves talking to the teacher one-to-one for 10-12 minutes, I'm afraid.

Many autistic students do struggle with the speaking exam for similar reasons to your dd. Another thing that often causes them problems is that the exam involves pretending/role-playing and often requires them to choose to say what they're able to say, rather than what is actually true. Some get through it fine with a lot of training and practice. Others really struggle.

If the school isn’t supportive of dropping MFL, you could try to get it included in the EHCP.

Yeh agree with @AllProperTeaIsTheft there are not really any accommodations for the speaking assessment beyond possible extra time in prep.

I have worked over the years with a number of students who have anxiety or who are ND (or both) and they often do better than they think. It’s helpful I think for an ND student to learn phrases which can be used to answer various questions and which are true about themselves as that can be an issue for sure.

MFL teachers always say to students “it’s ok to make it up” but I am always very aware that that can be difficult for many students.

Remember it will be with her teacher whom she knows and they will do their best to put her at ease. It's 25% of the exam so it is possible to do poorly in the speaking and still pass.

As others say, there is no national requirement to take MFL but some schools insist on it. Even those that do may let a student drop it. Always worth asking.