GCSE options dilemma. Higher tier vesus lower tier?

Supercrumpet said:

My 13 year old Son has Aspergers and ADHD and is in mainstream school. He has to pick his options this month and the dilemma we face is that he excels in Science (level 7) and is good at Math (level 6a) and he really wants to do the triple Science award. His Science teacher is all for it and said he should sail through, but, he has been allocated the lower tier GCSE band and that means he cannot do triple science.

We have spoken to all of his teachers and they feel that he would cope in higher tier, his German teacher was the exception, he said that although he was top of the class at the moment (my Son is in set 3 of 6 sets in his year 9) he didnt feel he would cope at GCSE level. We went to the Deputy Head to discuss whether he could do higher tier so that he could do triple science but the Dep Head was just awful, so patronising and had no real interest in helping. He told our Son that it would involve extra work after school and that he wouldn't cope.The new English Baccalaureate is also being introduced so the school have told us that higher tier pupils MUST take a language and a humanity

We've worked hard to make sure our Son has the same chances as the other kids, we're just heartbroken to fall at the GCSE hurdle. We appreciate that our child may not achieve as well in all of his subjects as he will in Science and Maths but I'm at a loss as to how to challenge the schools belief that he shouldn't even be given the chance to shine at the subjects he is genuinely good at.

Has anyone else had this problem? Does he have to take the full set of GCSE's or can he drop some? I feel that fewer good exam results would be better than a higher number but with weaker results.

i'm a year 10 student my self my school doesnt have sets for science and english but in year 7  had an okay teacher but when i got to year 8 the whole year we just has supply teachers  and in yer 9 we had 2 different teachers for the first 4 months but they both left one because she was on maternity leave and the other for a reason we dont know he just stopped coming at the end of year 9 we had a end of yer exam that will decide weather we do higher or foundation my whole class didnt do well in that test as we didnt really have teachers for most of the year and we found out what the topic of the exam was the day before the exam when they told us our overall grade for the year my whole class left with 6a and  a few 5a but i got a 4a i was so confused of how that happened because we all did bad in the end of year exam and are work is all the same but they go higher grades then me and you have to get atleast a 5a to do higher tier i got a higher grade in my year 6 sats i found that so unfair and dont know whatbto do as it is ruining my opportunities because i want to go on and do Alevel biology and i cant because if you wants to do a level science you have to get atleast a B and it also ruined the opputunity of me doing tripple science and i really like science i am not looking forward to coming to school eveyday studying hard for an exam that i know the highest i can get is a C  any advise on what to do? would be much appreciated 

Supercrumpet said:

My 13 year old Son has Aspergers and ADHD and is in mainstream school. He has to pick his options this month and the dilemma we face is that he excels in Science (level 7) and is good at Math (level 6a) and he really wants to do the triple Science award. His Science teacher is all for it and said he should sail through, but, he has been allocated the lower tier GCSE band and that means he cannot do triple science.

We have spoken to all of his teachers and they feel that he would cope in higher tier, his German teacher was the exception, he said that although he was top of the class at the moment (my Son is in set 3 of 6 sets in his year 9) he didnt feel he would cope at GCSE level. We went to the Deputy Head to discuss whether he could do higher tier so that he could do triple science but the Dep Head was just awful, so patronising and had no real interest in helping. He told our Son that it would involve extra work after school and that he wouldn't cope.The new English Baccalaureate is also being introduced so the school have told us that higher tier pupils MUST take a language and a humanity

We've worked hard to make sure our Son has the same chances as the other kids, we're just heartbroken to fall at the GCSE hurdle. We appreciate that our child may not achieve as well in all of his subjects as he will in Science and Maths but I'm at a loss as to how to challenge the schools belief that he shouldn't even be given the chance to shine at the subjects he is genuinely good at.

Has anyone else had this problem? Does he have to take the full set of GCSE's or can he drop some? I feel that fewer good exam results would be better than a higher number but with weaker results.

i'm a year 10 student my self my school doesnt have sets for science and english but in year 7  had an okay teacher but when i got to year 8 the whole year we just has supply teachers  and in yer 9 we had 2 different teachers for the first 4 months but they both left one because she was on maternity leave and the other for a reason we dont know he just stopped coming at the end of year 9 we had a end of yer exam that will decide weather we do higher or foundation my whole class didnt do well in that test as we didnt really have teachers for most of the year and we found out what the topic of the exam was the day before the exam when they told us our overall grade for the year my whole class left with 6a and  a few 5a but i got a 4a i was so confused of how that happened because we all did bad in the end of year exam and are work is all the same but they go higher grades then me and you have to get atleast a 5a to do higher tier i got a higher grade in my year 6 sats i found that so unfair and dont know whatbto do as it is ruining my opportunities because i want to go on and do Alevel biology and i cant because if you wants to do a level science you have to get atleast a B and it also ruined the opputunity of me doing tripple science and i really like science i am not looking forward to coming to school eveyday studying hard for an exam that i know the highest i can get is a C  any advise on what to do? would be much appreciated