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Can I refuse my son taking his GCSE

Scotty497

Hi All,

Struggling to start here and unsure how to begin so if this seems a bit jumbled and thrown together, please excuse me. 

My son has been struggling massively at school for years now, my wife and myself were convinced he had some type of learning disability and have been arguing with his school for years. today things finally came to a head, myself and my wife arranged for a meeting at the school after receiving his mock exam grade. All of which were grades g and u. For the first time today the school actually took seriously what we were saying after we in no uncertain terms made our anger and frustrations about not being listened to clear. The SEN teacher who has been assessing our son and was adamant he was just a lazy, moody teenager completely dissmissed the idea that there was anything underlying, although did point out that as he seemed to be a day dreamer he may have petit mal epilepsy and suggested we should visit the Dr just to rule this out. less than 2 minutes sat in the Drs office and that was dismissed immediately and we were informed that she believed our son may be Autistic. I am unbelievably angry that it has taken so long for this to be picked up. Autism is not something that we are to familiar with but it was something we asked the school to asses him for and we're told it was a definet no and there was no  point. it is now less than 4 months till his GCSE exams, and he is clearly going to fail them and i believe he has been massively failed by his school. At this moment my way of thinking is why should we put him through the stress of these exams only for him to try his hardest and take another un necessary knock to his confidence. His predicted grades u, f, E. Is anyone aware if it is legal to stop my son sitting his exams. I am not talking about pulling him from education altogether and we already had plans in place for him to go to college next year to complete his Key skills maths and English. Any advice anyone could give would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks

Scotty

Parents

  • You should be able to secure an arrangement with the school to do just a small number this year and take a second run at more next year. After all, they must appreciate that if he tries do do the lot, and passes none, that would be the same situation more or less anyway.

    But try not to just defer a year for the lot, because he is then learning with a different cohort one year behind, and that can be equally hard.

    In my own circumstances I was set to fail and the school advised I should do only a few, and my parents insisted on the lot, 8 I reall, so I failed most of them, and that set me back enormously. Two more years set back a year and I got dribs and drabs but no real progress. I can witness to the damage it did me by pointing out I went on to get a PhD, but just a bit behind.

    There is no shame in taking things bit by bit, especially if a diagnoses shows justification (I did not have that luxury). Quite a few students on the spectrum who make the grades and go to university still find it easier to take their final year in two parts.

    The perception of some kind of petit mal seems not uncommon, but is more likely to be tuning out because of sensory overload. Some people blow up, others lock it in, and when the stress gets too much they seem to fade out. There have been a few posting in the past about this experience of seemingly lost time, but it is merely cognitive switch off and most people seem to carry on on autopilot, so it is only really the mind wandering as they say.

    It does annoy me when schools make assessments they shouldn't. Not for them to say what the cause is.

    Confidence though is vital. Low self esteem and low self confidence can do a lot more damage. Give some thought to him trying some GCSEs to prove himself, if that looks possible. Not doing this year, and then running into the same problems next year will undermine his confidence more.

    College, being less interventionist and less peer pressured, may be the better study environment.

Reply

  • You should be able to secure an arrangement with the school to do just a small number this year and take a second run at more next year. After all, they must appreciate that if he tries do do the lot, and passes none, that would be the same situation more or less anyway.

    But try not to just defer a year for the lot, because he is then learning with a different cohort one year behind, and that can be equally hard.

    In my own circumstances I was set to fail and the school advised I should do only a few, and my parents insisted on the lot, 8 I reall, so I failed most of them, and that set me back enormously. Two more years set back a year and I got dribs and drabs but no real progress. I can witness to the damage it did me by pointing out I went on to get a PhD, but just a bit behind.

    There is no shame in taking things bit by bit, especially if a diagnoses shows justification (I did not have that luxury). Quite a few students on the spectrum who make the grades and go to university still find it easier to take their final year in two parts.

    The perception of some kind of petit mal seems not uncommon, but is more likely to be tuning out because of sensory overload. Some people blow up, others lock it in, and when the stress gets too much they seem to fade out. There have been a few posting in the past about this experience of seemingly lost time, but it is merely cognitive switch off and most people seem to carry on on autopilot, so it is only really the mind wandering as they say.

    It does annoy me when schools make assessments they shouldn't. Not for them to say what the cause is.

    Confidence though is vital. Low self esteem and low self confidence can do a lot more damage. Give some thought to him trying some GCSEs to prove himself, if that looks possible. Not doing this year, and then running into the same problems next year will undermine his confidence more.

    College, being less interventionist and less peer pressured, may be the better study environment.

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