Can I refuse my son taking his GCSE

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
  • Hi,

    I agree it's not down to schools to diagnosis ASD in their pupils but they should act on information and advice they obtain from the professionals who do.

    My sons school is an Acadamy and they seem to have their own rules.  The LEA do have provisions but Academies have to pay for their services so some pupils do not get the support they need.  In my opinion acadamies are all about good GCSE results not under academic achievers.

    Its GCSE time, my son hasn't attended school since January they haven't been in touch, no special consideration to help him get in to sit exams.  I've given up.  He's even been missed out of the end of year book because he didn't go in to get his photo taken(too stressfull for him).

Reply
  • Hi,

    I agree it's not down to schools to diagnosis ASD in their pupils but they should act on information and advice they obtain from the professionals who do.

    My sons school is an Acadamy and they seem to have their own rules.  The LEA do have provisions but Academies have to pay for their services so some pupils do not get the support they need.  In my opinion acadamies are all about good GCSE results not under academic achievers.

    Its GCSE time, my son hasn't attended school since January they haven't been in touch, no special consideration to help him get in to sit exams.  I've given up.  He's even been missed out of the end of year book because he didn't go in to get his photo taken(too stressfull for him).

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