Son stressed with gcse studies

uolypool

he does 5 hours of german over a 2 week period (they do week a and week b) if they do allow him to drop it then he would still have to stay in school , he would be allowed to work independently in the library as he is in yr 11, or he would be able to go into student support and work independently or his maths teacher whom he gets on with like a house on fire has already told him that he can study in his classroom. So he has plenty of options open to him if the school are in agreement.Also he is taking so many gcses as he has double gcse courses science, buisness studies he gets 2 for english ( 1 for lit and 1 for lang) etc .

phunkles

Then if its making him unhappy and he has somewhere to go and study other subjects (and studying those hours in school should mean less homework/hometime study) then he should drop it

He sounds like a wonderful young man uolypool you have every right to be proud

poet123

I agree. let him drop it, if he doesnt it may well affect his other, more crucial grades, in core subjects. He sounds like a lovely lad.

RazWaz

I dropped a GCSE subject, I was doing 10 to start with and ended up only sitting 9 of them, losing one subject gave me just enough extra time to pull up the other subjects I was having problems with. Most A level courses only need 5 GCSEs so I'd let him do it. I went from expecting to fail everything to getting 2 Cs 6Bs and an A* after dropping one.

soupdragon10

Unless he is aiming for a career where he would need German as a subject then particularly as he is only predicted a D by the teacher dropping this subject would be to his advantage. He would have more time to concentrate on his other subjects and therefore get good grades in these, and wouldn't have the lower grade pulling down his grade average.

patchwork_cat

Mupette wrote: »

The requirement for DS school is min of 5
that is for 6th form or college, not talking about Uni, not got to that stage yet, that's for a few years time for us.

Yes I did say 6th form ask for 5, but you have to think ahead to the step after. Funny it is German that was the only subject my DS got below C! He would have dropped it too.

Your DS's school may not let him drop it and I would think twice as some Uni courses do like a language and with the new Baccalaureate a requirement is a MFL, so school might not let him drop it.

RAS

Hi uolypool

I have seen far too many young people pushed to take far more exams than they need to acheive their life goals. I have to say that GCSEs are worse than taking Alevels and Univeristy exams IMO because of the sheer volume of work.

If your son is going to struggle to get more than a D, drop it. He does not need it for teaching.

A slate of 8 or more good grades across a good range of subject will see him set up for life. A D in German will actually detract from his record because it will stick out like a sore thumb.

The time would be better spent getting some of that course work away during school hours so he has a bit of a life once a week.

And you can always tell the teacher that he might consider doing it next year when the pressure is different.

uolypool

Again thank you all so much for your posts, Son spent lunchtime with the deputy head discussing this and after reading the letter that I wrote and listening to my son and his teachers the dep head has said that they will allow him to drop the subject with effect from Monday:).They have also got a school councillor that is going to meet up with him so he has someone else to talk to if he wants to.Son is so relieved that they have agreed, and is thankful that we havent had to wait for the monday meeting so he wont be so stressed over the weekend.The school are also going to look at his homework timetable and see if they can help him with that as they were quite disturbed that he is spending all evening , every evening studying.So perhaps this will not only help my boy but all the other students who are struggling but havent said.The dep head has told him to have this weekend off studying and to start afresh again from Monday.I read all your posts with interest and it was a relief to share the problem and for that I thank you:D

POPPYOSCAR

So pleased to hear this it is obviously a great weight off both your minds.

Hope you have a great weekend.


(PS just wanted to thank you for posting this as it got me thinking about my own Daughter and her GCSEs. Just had a chat with her to see how things going and she is moaning because she has 3 exams next week , 2 on the same day.I am just glad my exam days are well and truly over!!)

uolypool

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

So pleased to hear this it is obviously a great weight off both your minds.

Hope you have a great weekend.

thank you , yes it is a weight lifted, its the first time in ages that he has come home and put his school bag away rather than pull all the books out and start working.Also the first time in a long time he has come home and smiled:)