Taking GCSEs early

Mado

Hi,

I'm new to the UK education system with a DD in yr 7.
OUr baby-sitter who just strated Uni told her she should try and take French and Music GCSEs early.
(She just passed her grade 5 piano and speaks good french, although her written skills are not that great yet)
How does it work and how do we go about it????

Lokolo

You ask the school. She would just take the exams with year 11's when she is in year 10 or whatever year she would be in by the time she takes it.

pavlovs_dog

you would need to approach the school and take it from there.

it can cause as many problems as it solves however. With her French for example, you would need to investigate how the exam board weights the different skills; if her written French is not yet as good as it could be then she could shoot herself in the foot by doing her GCSE too early if the exam board give a lot of weighting to written skills. This is a real minefield for us in schools particularly if a teacher who has learnt the language is having to tell the native speaking parent that their child doesn't cut the mustard yet and simply isn't ready for the pressures and challenges of GCSE study :eek:

There is also then the question of what she would do in place of French - is the school able to offer her another language if it cannot sufficiently challenge her linguistically with her French? (ie after GCSE the next obvious step would be A S level french, but due to timetabling constraints it may be simply impossible for the school to support your daughter with that, no mater how supportive they may want to be). Will there be issues with her peers if she is attending different lessons?

depending on just how early she sat her GCSEs it could give her the chance to do 2 extra subjects by the time she reaches year 10, which could broaden her academic horizons and give her the opportunity to develop new skills. Then again she may feel that by not studying music and french in school for 2 years (even if she is given exposure to them at home) her skills may suffer.

in short, it's a real can of worms that will require a lot of support from the school.

Bonne chance!

Mado

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

you would need to approach the school and take it from there.

it can cause as many problems as it solves however. With her French for example, you would need to investigate how the exam board weights the different skills; if her written French is not yet as good as it could be then she could shoot herself in the foot by doing her GCSE too early if the exam board give a lot of weighting to written skills. This is a real minefield for us in schools particularly if a teacher who has learnt the language is having to tell the native speaking parent that their child doesn't cut the mustard yet and simply isn't ready for the pressures and challenges of GCSE study :eek:

There is also then the question of what she would do in place of French - is the school able to offer her another language if it cannot sufficiently challenge her linguistically with her French? (ie after GCSE the next obvious step would be A S level french, but due to timetabling constraints it may be simply impossible for the school to support your daughter with that, no mater how supportive they may want to be). Will there be issues with her peers if she is attending different lessons?

depending on just how early she sat her GCSEs it could give her the chance to do 2 extra subjects by the time she reaches year 10, which could broaden her academic horizons and give her the opportunity to develop new skills. Then again she may feel that by not studying music and french in school for 2 years (even if she is given exposure to them at home) her skills may suffer.

in short, it's a real can of worms that will require a lot of support from the school.

Bonne chance!

Thanks! I appreciate this is a can of worms but since she is the one who started the discussion, I feel I need to support her in any way I can.
As far as French is concerned, I'd really like her to be accelerated and she is prepared to put in the extra effort by working with me this summer. The school is a language specialist and they do have to take a second language.
On the music, she will most likely continue past the GCSE for her own enjoyment; she is desperate to join the first orchestra and the jazz band (she is taking cello and singing lessons for these).

She is very academic in general and the hope is for her to bag "easy" early GCSEs so she can concentrate on the others.

Oldernotwiser

Have you looked at any GCSE French papers? There is very little written work and the standard is very low.

Mado

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Have you looked at any GCSE French papers? There is very little written work and the standard is very low.

We have yesterday.
She can answer all the questions correctly on the reading test.
She will really need to work on the writing and grammar, but I am hoping that if we do a lot of reading together she will absorb a lot that way.

7891368

I took some of mine early and just did more options when the time came.

My brother's school wouldn't let him so he sat through hours of French despite being basically fluent (Our Mum's french)

Badger_Lady

I did a couple of GCSEs early... I went to Grammar school so a lot of us were advanced in different subjects.

A word of warning on music though - I was a grade 5 piano, voice, flute and music theory when I was in Year 7, but the GCSE was a very different subject with a lot of "history of music" rather than the ability to compose and play it. I was in all the school orchestras and choirs, performed at cathedrals around the country, composed a wind quintet that was played internationally, did my GCSE at the normal age and still got a B!

Oldernotwiser

Badger_Lady wrote: »

I did a couple of GCSEs early... I went to Grammar school so a lot of us were advanced in different subjects.

A word of warning on music though - I was a grade 5 piano, voice, flute and music theory when I was in Year 7, but the GCSE was a very different subject with a lot of "history of music" rather than the ability to compose and play it. I was in all the school orchestras and choirs, performed at cathedrals around the country, composed a wind quintet that was played internationally, did my GCSE at the normal age and still got a B!

You can actually be too knowledgeable to pass GCSEs well.

Oldernotwiser

Mado wrote: »

We have yesterday.
She can answer all the questions correctly on the reading test.
She will really need to work on the writing and grammar, but I am hoping that if we do a lot of reading together she will absorb a lot that way.

Have you actually looked at the marking schemes though? (Examples http://web.aqa.org.uk/qual/newgcses/languages/current/french_a_materials.php?id=11&tabid=2 ) You might be surprised (and shocked) at how little grammatical knowledge is required, even on the higher tier paper.

7891368

When I did mine there was an option to do coursework so no grammar was needed as there was no writing exam.