Early GCSEs

[Rachyrachrach]

Has anybody had any experience of "flexible learning"?My son is 13 and in year 8 and has been told that he will sit his maths and English GCSEs at the end of year 9. The idea is that they move through educational stages at the right pace for them rather than a pre defined national curriculum assumption. In principle I'm in complete agreement and my son is very enthusiastic about having a new challenge (biased as I am, he is very bright). My only reservation is that I can remember my own GCSEs and the huge amount of stress they caused me. I don't want my 13 year old exposed to the same pressure.

However he is, as I said, very able (the streams at his school had to be realigned to create a new top group for him and a few others) and has far more confidence in himself than I had at his age. He's not worrying about this at all and is welcoming the opportunity to shine. I am concerned that he is expected to do too much too young, or that he won't achieve as highly as he could if he waited until he was 16.

On the other hand am I just projecting my own feelings of inadequacy on my son? I really don't want to inhibit him, but also want to protect him and am not really sure what to do for the best.

I wouldn't personally, what's he going to be able to do in these subjects when he has done the GCSE? Are they going to allow him to do his A'Level early? He won't be able to o to Uni early.

My son's school suggested he does Maths GCSE next year (early!!), I've avoided the conversation since as I don't think it's a good idea, they should stretch him in other ways.

Thanks belle. I have suggested other ways of stretching him and the school have shown me his work- he's already doing a level work without really trying. His school is an academy and therefore has links with local businesses etc - he's currently working with their analysts!
After he's done his GCSEs the idea is that he'll do his As when he's ready. As you say though it concerns me where he'll go from there. I can't prevent him working at a level which he's obviously capable of but still want him to be a kid.

That's what we pretty much do, I just let him get on with it without any pressure. He grasps new concepts right away normally, then spends 5 minutes whizzing through work that should take all lesson if not longer. He starts secondary school in September, they seem to be able to cope with other boys like him so fingers crossed hey.

If he has the support there and can manage with it then there's nothing to loose really. Maths isn't normally something that can stretch a really bright child, it's all basically the same, there's only so far you can go if you see what I mean. Addition and subtraction is still done in the same way for larger numbers and smaller numbers.

I think you should have this conversation with the school.

In theory, GCSEs in core subjects at year 9 for bright students - yes, absolutely. They aren't all that demanding, & there's no reason he couldn't 'bank' grades now & re-take if he needs higher grades.

However, the curriculum's changing. I'd ask these questions to start with:

1. Controlled Assessment for GCSE (instead of traditional coursework). It's a big change, especially for English. How do school propose to have it all done to a standard high enough to 'weigh in' for assessment at the end of year 9?

What if his target's an A & he gets a B? Will he then have to re-submit all his CA work?

1. Assuming ds does well in these GCSEs at year 9, how will he progress in years 10 & 11, when most of his peers will still be studying for these qualifications?

1. What about post-16? Will he be at his current school for years 12 & 13 - if so, what provision will they be making if he's done his As early, too? Additional As? Pre-Uni courses?

If he'll be at a 6th form college, how are school proposing to handle transition of students who have already started or even completed their A Level courses? Are local colleges working with them on this?

One thing I would say is not to be put off by notions of extra stress on ds.

An increasingly modular/staged system is much easier on students - you reach a standard to take an exam, you do the test, you hit target - if not, you re-take.

Many GCSE courses are now broken down into modular exams - which your ds would be taking from early in year 10 anyway.

(Of course there's an argument to be made about whether the current system has sufficient rigour! But it shouldn't be as stressful as old-skool exams, put it that way).

My DS has already done some of his exams. He did some in year 9, is doing more in year 10 and the remainder in year 11.

Its def a swings and roundabouts sccenario. He won't have as much pressure in year 11 as alot will be under his belt already, plus the advantage is he can resit any that he doesn't get a grade in as high as he would like, where as before he would know nothing result wise til August of year 11 when he got all the results in one go.

Downside is he seems to have been studying, working and sitting exams for ever already and is only 2/3rds way through year 10 now. He is very bright though and dealing generally very well with it all. He knows what he wants to do after school and what career he wants and to be honest I guess with each exam taken he feels he is ticking off stepping stones towards his targets.

I think part of the worry is, that it is so different to what we did. You went to school, took exams (in my case 11+) then went to highschool, took exams in year 11 (5th form in my day!) same time as everyone else.

its definitely the norm I believe to take exams in year 9 and 10 aswell as 11 now as far as I am aware. I have heard lots of parents saying its frequently the done thing now.

DS is at a very high achieving Grammar school, and they don't even take any modules in Yr 10. They sit ALL the exams in one go in Yr11 - and it must work as they are right at the top of the league tables.

They hope to finish all syllabus stuff in Yr10 & then revise in Yr11 & also start on A level stuff (in Yr10 they are using A level Maths books).

A lot of the exams these days are modular so you end up taking them gradually over 2 or 3 years. It may be that in Y9 he will sit his first English and maths modules. The syllabus is broken down into small chunks so the revision is much less broad and I assume therefore is meant to be less stressful though I remember ds1 doing science in Y9 and being worried that he was being examined on Y11 stuff. It also means you have loads of chances to retake if you miss a grade by a point or two

Having seen the safeguarding information at a uni, it appears that under 18s can be accepted to uni nowadays (due to anti-age discrimination and because admissions should be based on academic achievement).

I am not advocating that all academically able 14 year olds should go to uni though - maturity needs to come into it somewhere.

Just a note on point one of RavenAK's post - if he takes GCSE English next year and in one year, he won't do the new specifications with Controlled Assessment - he'll do the legacy specification (with coursework) as the controlled assessments can't be 'cashed' for certification purposes until the year after.

snowmash Have their not always been the occasional freaks highly talented children who have gone to Oxbridge to do maths at very early ages?

Some universities don't want you to do GCSEs early - they'd like you to do them all at the same time to show that you're capable of juggling a large workload.

My son is bilingual and so is sitting his GCSE French now in Year 9. His school has an accelerated learning stream who take certain GCSEs in Year 9 and Year 10. I don't have a problem with it to be honest. He'll still be doing the same number of GCSEs but will have one out of the way already.