Dropping GCSE language advice

[Abracadabra399]

My 15 yo DC is in year 10. She’s doing ok academically - she has never loved school and is being assessed for ADHD and anxiety but she does her homework and is predicted grades 5-6 with maybe more for maths and science. She’s a good kid and pretty sensitive.

But she is and has always been hopeless at French and it is getting her down to the point where she’s getting stomach pains in the morning and not wanting to go in. The school insisted on including a language GCSE choice and I’ve tried to help her but after almost four years of lessons she can barely get past Je m’appelle. She has always struggled with learning and recognising the words and if she has to repeat back a word she hears it’s unrecognisable. Despite trying she got 15% in last test.

So it’s making her anxious and she is going to get a poor grade and my notions of having a bilingual kid and us all decamping to Cannes have gone :) Her school is obsessed with kids achieving a language GCSE as I think they have some sort of baccalaureate quota they parade.

I pointed out to the French teacher that this is pointless as she isn’t going to get a good grade and isn’t learning any French so why not spend the time on one of her other nine GCSEs. The teacher is adamant that she will be streamed with the standard paper and “drilled to get a pass” and that achieving baccalaureate standard is important. French teacher tried to present this as a great life lesson about sticking at something even if you’re no good at it, which I think we have more than given a go. I also fundamentally think it’s a bit pointless to be drilled to try and scrape a pass in a language if you are not going to be able to order a loaf of bread at the bakery or ask where the post office is at the end of it which may be colouring my judgement!!

I’d love some advice please on whether (and how) I ask again for her to drop it - she is begging me every day to do this. Or whether the French teacher is right and she should suck it up and try and work hard enough to get a pass?

DD (Y11) has dropped a number of subjects due to SEN including languages.

School have been fine with it.

Instead of a language, she just does a double block of one of her other options, and extra PE in the 3rd session. There was also the option of using the SEN room to do self-study on core subjects.

Nobody will care (apart from the school) if she doesn't have a MFL GCSE unless she wants to study it for A level - which she won't.

In terms of the exams, if you do not turn up, or you turn up but do not answer a single question then it will not feature on your exam certificates, but will be an x on the report.

If you do any part of the exam then you will get a grade that you then have to declare. Less easy to do nothing with languages as there are oral exams.

For one of the subjects DD has dropped, she attended all the lessons, but was not expected to complete homework and did not sit the exams. The aim was that she might acquire the knowledge having completed the course, but we were massively reducing her exam burden.

School were very understanding, but it was nearly 6 months of discussion and multiple opportunities to change her mind.

You need 5 GCSEs including English and Maths. Obvs you may have specifics that you need for onward study, but you really don't need 9 or 10. Kids even get into Oxbridge with 6.

I think the main thing is they don't want to open the floodgates, and have to let scores of kids drop subjects.
There's a year to go she could easily improve a lot in that time. Lots of people get from zero to gcse in languages in a year. Don't you know any French speakers who would do conversation with her over the summer and boost her confidence

I don’t think it should be allowed. I’m sure many of us have kids that don’t enjoy a particular subject but have to try regardless.

You can’t teach them to pull the plug when they don’t want to even try something.

I don't think she isn't trying though... this is the argument I have with DH who says DS isn't trying, whereas I've seen a lot of evidence languages can be really hard for kids with ADHD. To, for example, say a single French sentence you have to remember all the words, all the genders of the nouns, how the case changes the verb and whether any words elide. That's an awful lot when you have poor working memory.

Much better to focus on higher grades in other subjects and reduce the exam burden.

What on earth is the point in studying something you dislike or are going to do badly at to the detriment of the rest.

And you are actually fully at liberty to withdraw them from any subject they dislike or are doing badly at - except English and Maths.

I have never understood this idea that it is somehow good to keep struggling on at something you don't like or enjoy. Feels a bit Puritan.

I agree with those who say she would be better off focusing on her other subjects – and if that means she attends French lessons but makes no extra effort, well in a way that}s on the school if they have insisted that she takes it (I presume that is the case @Abracadabra399 ?)

If she wanted to do better there are various strategies (inc rote-learning of answers to likely questions or usable phrases) but if, as you say, she can barely even say the simplest sentence and be understood, there doesn't seem much point.

I'd like to think they would trust her to sit quietly in the library for a few periods a week this is not going to be OK tho @edwinbear – school cannot randomly have unsupervised students during lesson time. Or no school I know of would allow this anyway, for safeguarding reasons.

I would have a chat to your DD OP, look at a foundation paper together, see what she thinks. If you both agree that she is unlikely to get any kind of grade, then talk to the school again. Sometimes you need to really push to get what is right for your DC.

Honestly, if DS has to take French my inclination is to get him a tutor and he'll pass or he won't, but really the effort needs to be in English which he needs to progress to A levels and has difficulty with.

My daughter was really struggling in school, she has SEN and just couldn't keep up with the timetable and pressure.
Her school let her drop a GCSE and during those lessons she went to their pathway centre to concentrate on core subjects.
The relief I saw in her was pretty much instant. I don't understand why some people are so against dropping a subject, it can make the difference between managing the remaining classes and burning out and not being able to complete any.

We usually don’t let students drop until around feb or y11, as it does tend to open the floodgates a bit and timetabling them to do something else is pretty challenging.
if there’s significant sen or similar, including semh then it might be a reasonable adjustment situation?

Thanks. I encouraged her to join me on Duolingo last year and it was painful to overhear (obvs I did not say that!!). But after suspecting she must be hamming it up, it then made me realise she couldn’t process it and it wasn’t an attitude thing. Think:
Duo “J’ai une soeur”
DC “Jar jar uno sierra”
Duo “J’ai une soeur”
DC “Jenga setta”
Gets steadily worse…
DC “I hate this owl!!”

Literally this. I’d rather she upped a grade here which might be achievable and beneficial.