Has anyone successfully got their child to not do languages in school

[mummyof2boys30]

So DS will be going to high school next year. We had been told previously by educational psychology when the time comes he could not do french. At the high school open night and the Senco said it has never been done before.

He will have his review this year so wondering what arguements i can use to get him removed. He has DLD, dyslexia, social communication difficulties and anxiety. Awaiting ASD assessment.

Do you have that in writing from the EP? Just because it isn’t normally done in that school doesn’t mean it can’t or shouldn’t happen. If it is relevant to you, some schools remove DC with low English levels from MFL for further English support. Does DS have an EHCP? The easiest way would be to have it written in there.

DS3 doesn’t attend MFL lessons (and some others, he has a personalised timetable). Not necessarily because he couldn’t learn the language, he could, but he has SM so would find the spoken aspect difficult so the time is used to fit in his other interventions and therapies.

My DS (Yr8) doesn't do MFL. He has ASD and is in a designated special provision so it's probably easier for the school to organise from a timetabling point of view. ie he has somewhere he can physically go when he's withdrawn from lessons.

As @JustKeepBuilding says - if you have that in writing from the EP, it should be possible to get it written into your DS's EHCP. You mention 'review' so I'm assuming he has one?

What level of support does he have? From a practical perspective, it will be easier for him to be withdrawn from MFL if he has a support worker who will be able to work on various interventions with him during that lesson time. Or if he has SALT written into his EHCP, it could be delivered then?

We are in Northern Ireland so he has a statement with 20 hours 1 to 1. The educational psychologist hasnt writtien it down though im hoping i can get it added at review. I was hoping to have him get extra literacy support. He is well below average in English spellings never mind another language

Ds didn't have his autism diagnosis through most of secondary and MFL were really difficult for him. In year 8 he was expected to study French, Spanish and Latin. It was awful, constant meltdowns. He ended up picking Latin for GCSE but by year 10 it was too much. He was at a state selective school but we told them that he needed to drop it as it was too much for him. He had no professional input or diagnosis at the time and the school needed some persuasion. But they allowed it in the end. He instead went to learning support in those lessons and completed self study for other subjects. Well he was meant to, not sure how much study got done...

Unfortunately if the EP hasn’t written it down you may struggle to get it included in the Statement as the provision in there will be taken from the reports/evidence you have. You need the EP to confirm it in writing. The only way to definitely guarantee no language is via the Statement.

Autistic DS dropped a MFL at end of year 9, before gcse options decided. He does not have an ECHP, but struggles with languages and SENCO agreed this wasn’t unusual and to support the request. State school, said it’s very uncommon to drop etc. I argued it was a waste of a GCSE for him.