Any secondary English teachers on here who could give me some advice?

[miffmufferedmoof]

DD(11) has missed a lot of school due to autism/anxiety/EBSA. She missed all of Y6 and has spent about an hour a week at school through Y7 - no schoolwork done.

She’s starting to show some readiness to engage with schoolwork again, but I’m not expecting her school attendance to ever be very high. I’d like her to work towards a few GCSEs, probably just English, maths and science.

My question is: with English, could a brightish child (always greater depth at primary for reading and writing) just start studying for GSCE in Y11 and do ok? Maths and science I feel she needs to work at steadily to be able to tackle GCSEs come Y11, because there’s so much knowledge to absorb (plus she’s not brilliant at maths).

Do you think we could pretty much ignore English for the next year or two? When I say ‘ignore’, I would still encourage reading and creative writing for enjoyment.

Thanks if you’ve read this far!

It’s usually a two year course, although one exam board offers a Language-only 1 year option - Edexcel, I think.

I think she could do Language in a year, but she’d struggle to get through all the set texts for Literature.

There’s also the option of studying for Level 2 Functional Skills, which is more vocational and is the equivalent of a Grade 4 GCSE.

Is she attending school, or EOTAS?

Thank you, that’s encouraging. I feel a bit like I have no idea what English GCSE actually consists of these days!
I’d be fine with her just doing language and not literature.
I’m aware of functional skills but I think it would be better to do GCSE if she’s capable of it.
She has a place in a special unit within a mainstream secondary. They are pretty flexible.

English teacher here. Yes she could absolutely do the Language course in a year. The school we are partnered with complete the whole Language course in one term. The Lit course is much more full on with quite a bit of reading and needs a strong knowledge of a selection of texts.

What level is she at now in English? I work in further education with adults who have not taken or failed English (usually many years ago) and now want to come back to it. We do the one year, Edexcel Language course in one year with all our GCSE learners. However, it is worth noting that the one year course expects a level of learning which is maybe higher than at the start of a two year course.

The course we do is mostly around learning writing techniques and being able to analyse texts and write text using these. Understand why texts have been written in the way they have.

What English would she do up to the start of year 11. You would need to be sure she learnt write fluent pros with good technical accuracy. She would need to be ready to explain her understanding of the texts and why the writer uses the language they do. If she could then yes, a one year GCSE might be a good option. If not, then she probably needs a more skills based work first, so the next 3 years of English would be very important.

Also HOW are you going to facilitate her doing this? The one year language course is not just half a 2 year course, it's a very different course. Schools teaching a 2 year GCSE program will teach the skills mixed together, even more so if they teach lit and lang. If she is just doing the GCSE through a normal combined course, she is VERY unlikely to learn everything she needs for passing language CCSE in one year, because she will likely get half the language teaching and half the lit teaching, based on what they did in year 10, so she is likely to well and truly fail language (and lit if she took it.) You need to look at where will take her in year 11, that will actually do the right course. You may find that she would have to wait till the September after her 16th birthday (so when she should go into year 12) to be old enough to be accepted by a provider that does the one year course.

@stichguru it sounds from what you say that having a decent command of English is nowhere near enough - you also need a year or two of studying how to pass English exams.
She’ll either still be at the school and have to sit whichever exam board they use, or she’ll be home ed or EOTAS, in which case we’d choose a board and exam centre. Either way I’d be fully prepared to use tutors. Just trying to work out if we need 4 years of tutoring or if 1 would suffice

This might be best fit: https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/qualifications/edexcel-gcses/english-language-2021.html

Agree with the above, a decent writer can get through on language. Literature is closed book (certainly AQA is anyway) meaning they need to know the poems and texts very thoroughly in order to answer questions on them. However there are some great online resources that can help if she is feeling up to it. I like gcsepod as it breaks all the texts down with videos and quizzes

My DD did this and she has dyslexia and ADHD and so definitely wasn't greater depth at primary.. she almost passed SATs.

COVID hit second term of Y7 by the time they were properly back at end of Y8 she developed severe anxiety related to her ND and never really went to lessons again.

She did go to school but just hung out in the learning support area - did some bits and bobs with a TA less than an hour a week on English.

At end of Y10 she got psychiatrist and Anti-ds through CAMHs so decided she did want to do GCSEs. She started going to science lessons and got more structured TA support on English.

She has had a 1 HR a week with private dyslexia tutor since Y3 - they worked on GCSE technique from Y10..

SENCO told us she'd seen people pass GCSE who'd only begun to engage at Christmas - DD didn't start revision until Easter. She only did science and English but she got good results, not just passes. She avoided maths but is having to take it now alongside college course.

That’s great to hear @PrincessofHyrule
Well done your DD

I've not taught GCSE for ages but have noticed from my own DC that in literature there seems to be more of a focus on 'knowing' the texts and focusing on key passages then having read everything in depth though I'm happy to be corrected on that. So, if she was interested you could maybe spend some time reading the books, watching adaptations etc in readiness if that was something she was interested in, without the pressure of actually studying them as such

If DD is unable to attend school full time, is alternative provision in place?

Have you requested an early review of the EHCP?

If GCSE/IGCSE is possible in a year or not depends on DD’s ability, SEN and how much time would be devoted to English in Y11. For some, it would be manageable. For others it wouldn’t.

You ask "Just trying to work out if we need 4 years of tutoring or if 1 would suffice?"

Is her English at a decent level now for a year 7?
Will her attendance in school or that combined will what she does with you, in the next 4 years, be good enough to get her to a average or better end of year 10 level when she is at the end of year 10?

In the GCSEs there are some, if you like, specific "GCSE skills", which you learn for your GCSEs in your GCSEs courses. So for example, in English, many our learners come in not knowing what simile or a metaphor are. Within that one year, a lot of them learn these enough to identify them in texts, explain what they are, why the writer has used them, and use them correctly in their own writing. Your daughter could easily learn these with a tutor in year 10 or even 11.

However, there is a level of learning to write in a GCSE sounding way, and also technical knowledge like knowledge of punctuation, sentence structuring and spelling that is definately developed over 5 years. If not have 4 years of tutoring means she starts year 10 with her technical skills in these areas being about year 7 level, then there is very slim to no chance of her passing GCSEs at the end of year 11.

We’ve recently had an EHCP review. She has AP one afternoon a week. Although she’s doing nowhere near full time education, she can’t manage any more so it doesn’t feel there’s much point asking for more in her EHCP

I don’t know what her English level is now, only that her reading age is about 14. She hasn’t written more than a few sentences since Y5.
I would think a bright child could learn how to identify and use similies and metaphors in about 10 minutes.
I do get that it takes time to develop writing ability, but is it really that hard to get a 4 in English? If she’d not had any attendance issues or health issues I’d guess she’d have been targeting a 7 or more.

Based on her current state, she won’t be doing any GCSEs, and isn’t ready for tutoring now, but I’m going to hope and plan for some improvement in the next couple of years

If DD can’t manage full-time education in any form, fair enough, but in case you aren't aware, educational provision isn’t limited to academic provision, traditional learning or formal AP providers. It includes things like therapies, provision based around DD’s interests (what does she enjoy doing? Or if she has dropped interests as her anxiety has worsened, what did she enjoy?), child led provision, mentoring... If DD needs things like equipment/resources/memberships/subscriptions/subscription boxes, they can be covered too. As can a budget for e.g. accessing the community. And if DD can manage full-time education, or part-time but more than she is currently receiving, then more should be provided.

Also, have you considered if DD would manage more if she didn’t attend school at all? For some, managing even a small amount of school uses an extraordinary amount of the person’s resources when other provision wouldn’t.

English is very skills based so years 7, 8 and 9 are all about learning and building on these skills so you are in a good place to start the GCSE course in year 10.

I think she would be best just doing Language. Literature is essentially treated as an option subject and Langauge is the one she needs.

It could definitely be possible.

English analytical and writing skills are acquired over time, and have knock on benefits to other subject areas. Literature can’t be crammed in one year.

With significant tutoring over the next few years decent GCSEs are possible in core. If you enjoy books and can support her the literature is achievable too. There’s a wealth on online support available to complete GCSEs but paper readiness and mark scheme knowledge is essential.

A reading age of 14 sounds good. I would say, by the start of year 10 she needs to be able to:

• write a few fluent paragraphs on a subject which are structured with a clear set of points for each paragraph
• have basically correct grammar
• have basically correct spelling
• be able to read and identify the reason a text has been written and it's main points or arguments
• have a wide range of vocabulary and be able to show this in her work.

If she can do this, she has the basics of what we would call "functional skills" English which is what we make adult students do prior to coming on GCSE courses. These are the skills she needs to pass GCSE which won't mainly get taught on a GCSE course. In terms of your original question, how much you need to worry about English now you need to worry about it and focus on it enough to get her these skills.

You’ve had a lot of responses from the pov of being in formal education, so I’d just like to offer a home ed perspective. Yes, of course you can study for English language IGCSE / GCSE from home in a year, people do it all the time. My friends have taught it themselves to their children with great results. It’s not my forte so my eldest have had a tutor, but only for a year and have passed no problem. I think as long as other subjects are being studied, they pick up a lot of the skills listed above without much extra thought being given to it, and the year of learning can then be focused on learning to analyse texts etc.