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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

  • What's an SEN Adviser?

    At least they should be a qualified teacher and have some teaching experience. But they may have done a postgraduate course in Special Education Needs www.nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/.../SpecialEducationalNeedsTeacher.aspx  (unfortunately I cannot get this link to run, don't know why not - so try accessing through National Careers Service)

    It is important that you find out the qualifications and experience of SEN advisers - don't be overawed by them.

    The amount of exposure to autism on basic teaching qualifications may be a couple of days. The books usually accessible to them are minimal as well. Unless they have specialised in autism it is likely they will know very little.

    And let's face it there's an awful lot of SEN conditions out there for them to get their heads round, and most of their experience will be dyslexia.

    As IntenseWorld points out, as parents you need to get savvy about what real knowledge of autism most professionals, including "gatekeepers" are likely to have.

    I'm pretty horrified by the OP's description of the SEN teacher being adamant his son was just lazy. That was unprofessional - even if it was the case I'd expect something a sight more constructive from an SEN teacher.

    I also support IntenseWorld's point about children concealing their difficulties in school. Most people on the spectrum suffered badly throughout their schooling from bullying, but not the conventional two or three roughs stealing smaller kids pocket money. People on the spectrum may have odd facial expressions, poor eye contact, stims, clumsiness etc which will be perceived by their peers as a source of entertainment. In such an environment most such kids strive to be noticed as little as possible.

    So it is very likely that they will let fly their distress at home and not disclose much of it at school.

    Have you done anything to establish to what extent your sons (OP and other contributors) are enduring bullying, even if it just looks to teachers and ham SENs like ribbing or teasing. When it arises from disability teasing is abuse.

Reply

  • What's an SEN Adviser?

    At least they should be a qualified teacher and have some teaching experience. But they may have done a postgraduate course in Special Education Needs www.nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/.../SpecialEducationalNeedsTeacher.aspx  (unfortunately I cannot get this link to run, don't know why not - so try accessing through National Careers Service)

    It is important that you find out the qualifications and experience of SEN advisers - don't be overawed by them.

    The amount of exposure to autism on basic teaching qualifications may be a couple of days. The books usually accessible to them are minimal as well. Unless they have specialised in autism it is likely they will know very little.

    And let's face it there's an awful lot of SEN conditions out there for them to get their heads round, and most of their experience will be dyslexia.

    As IntenseWorld points out, as parents you need to get savvy about what real knowledge of autism most professionals, including "gatekeepers" are likely to have.

    I'm pretty horrified by the OP's description of the SEN teacher being adamant his son was just lazy. That was unprofessional - even if it was the case I'd expect something a sight more constructive from an SEN teacher.

    I also support IntenseWorld's point about children concealing their difficulties in school. Most people on the spectrum suffered badly throughout their schooling from bullying, but not the conventional two or three roughs stealing smaller kids pocket money. People on the spectrum may have odd facial expressions, poor eye contact, stims, clumsiness etc which will be perceived by their peers as a source of entertainment. In such an environment most such kids strive to be noticed as little as possible.

    So it is very likely that they will let fly their distress at home and not disclose much of it at school.

    Have you done anything to establish to what extent your sons (OP and other contributors) are enduring bullying, even if it just looks to teachers and ham SENs like ribbing or teasing. When it arises from disability teasing is abuse.

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