What are the cons in keeping DS in yr 1

[MrsC24]

My son is in year 1 with a birthday of 31st August and he seems to be strugling at school and hates it. At parents evening I was told he is not at the requied standard for yr 1 and by the end of year 1 he might be at the highest end of "lowest"! At a prevous meeting with his teacher she thought he had a problem with understanding as he would only carry out part of an instruction. I didn't believe he did have a problem as he is very quick to pick up on things he is interested in especaly sports wise as he loves playing or watching football, hockey or rugby.

He had his appoinment with the speach and laguage therapist to have his laguage reasoning skills assessed. The report from the school shocked me a bit as they also said he lacks confidence when comunicting verbally, problems with social interaction and only concentrates for 5 mins at a time. I think he is the most sociable child you could wish to meet and has no problems in asking other children he doesn't know if he can play with them. He scored well above age range and clearly doesn't have a problem with understading and concntrated for 40 minutes. I think alot of his problems relate to his fine motor skills as he struggles with his writting and hates drawing. He is very competitive and I think if he perceives a task as difficult he will play up in the class room so eventualy he will be sent out. I think he has a fear of failure. I have a meetng with his teacher on Thursday and may ask if it is an option to keep him in yr 1 another yr as may be being the oldest rather than the youngest will help his confidence. Just interested to know if there are any potential problems with keeping him back a yr?

[ragged]

It's a huge pahlova to persuade the LEA to let them stay down for a year.
He'd have to make a new friendship circle, he might have trouble living it down (getting snippy comments from peers) because it's so unusual.

[christinecagney]

Hello - two quick points: the school will have a lot of experience of children who are summer borns -they will have taken that into account in their report. Social interaction is bigger than asking other children to play - it may be about maintaining play or understanding rules of games etc - you need to ask them what exactly they mean.

Does your son have an IEP? Is he on the SEN register? Ask for the SENco to be present at the meeting and ask what interventions thay are going to put in place for your son.

Don't race into keeping him back a year - it creates as many probelms as it solves and isn't usually recommended. If he has specific extra needs them these must be addressed rather than moving him out of his peer group etc.

Problem with deceleration is usually around how/when they rejoin their year group.

[mrz]

Is it a state or independent school?

[IndigoBell]

Some LEAs mind and some don't. So it may or may not be an option.

If it is an option - with a birthday of 31st Aug I think it sounds like a good idea.

[MrsC24]

State RC school and they tend to be quite strict and children miss out on play time for fairly minor things but they are getting less play time outside as having to share play times with the juniors on a smaller play area due to new school build. There are 27 in his class and only 9 of them are boys but I know there are 30 in the year below.

I am just worried he wont cope in yr 2 as he says he only likes choosing time and only gets that twice a week now and probably wont get any in yr 2. He has prevously said he wants me to teach him at home and every week it's a battle to get him to do his home work mainly if it involves writting. Just don't know what the answer is but he is in danger of switching off from education and on a school day gets really stressed out about going which shouldn't be the case for a 5 yr old.

[mrz]

It's quite unusual in state schools although there are exceptions. I would make sure that if he can remain in Y1 he can continue throughout school a year behind rather than it be a short term situation. I would talk to the LEA as well as the school

[prh47bridge]

Agree with mrz. You particularly need to check what will happen on transfer to secondary school. If a child is held down a year at primary school it is not unknown for the secondary school to put them straight into Y8, skipping Y7 completely.

[piellabakewell]

If the homework is a battle, stop doing it. Why is a five year old getting written homework anyway?

I'm a year 1 teacher AND a parent of a 13yo with a 31 Aug birthday, by the way.

[colditz]

If you could have him moved back a year permanently then do. He'll only be the oldest by a few days.

[colditz]

As for 'peer group'

If he'd been born 2 days later, he'd be in the year below. Why are they an unsuitable peer groups?

Children change whole schools all the time. Moving into a different class wouldn't matter a jot if it meant his self esteen could be bolstered by not being treated as 'different' just for being the youngest in his class.

it would be far better fore him to be mid-low normal in next year's year one class than for him to have to have massive amounts of intervention to get him halfway caught up to low normal in next year's year two class.

[Sunshineonacloudyday]

Have you thought about what you are doing wrong because if he can't sit down to do his home work with you then he wont do it at school. I think moving him down a year will not solve the problem. Maybe you could try to sit down with him for 10-20mins in the evening after school and doing extra work with him so he can build up his confidence, its much more personal because its one-to-one where as in a class its him pluss 20 other children unfortunatly you can't rely on the school to teach your child you have to encourage him. Good luck

[forehead]

If your ds is concerned about getting things wrong, maybe you could find out in advance what topics the teacher is covering and help him with that. This will hopefully boost his confidence as he will be familiar with the area taught.
My dnep is 5 (year 1 ) and has an August birthday and left Reception unable to read( apart from the word 'dog',) my dsis was beside herself with worry as dnep 's foundation level was 2 out of a possible 9, which apparently is way below average. My dsis continued to do a little work most days but made it fun.
Three weeks ago my dneph (who was on pink level books) picked up a book belonging to his eight year old sister and began to read , something just clicked.
I am not sure about keeping him down a year, i would suggest that you continue to do a little work with him most days and to continue with this during the Summer holidays.

[simpson]

personally I would not have him repeat yr1 tbh (fellow mum with 31st Aug DS in yr1)

Would he feel like he has "failed" if he repeats???

I would concentrate on making homework fun (if possible) even if its not what school set for him ie scrap book and finding things in park for him to stick in and write about to gain confidence in writing.

My DS struggled in reception but now seems ok and is even in top sets for most things but he does struggle with confidence and will not speak to his teacher unless his teacher asks him something first iyswim.

He has been asked to bring in a specific book from home for tomorrow but does not want to tell his teacher he has brought it in as he is too shy

[Bramshott]

If the school are keen, then why not. There are a number of DC at my DDs school who have repeated a year and it's been really helpful. But as others have said, it is fairly uncommon, and if the school arent' keen, then you probably won't be able to persuade them.

It's all very well the school flagging up problems in concentration, attainment etc, but they also need to be clear what they are suggesting as SOLUTIONS to those problems - after all, they are the ones who have him in a classroom for 6 hrs a day!

[MrsC24]

Thanks for all the advice. Whilst I will support and encourage him I am not keen to do extra work after school as he just wants to switch off from school and at weekends I just want him to be happy as clearly he is not happy at school. Once I manage to find a solution to his writting I am sure he will settle down (I hope!) Over the Easter holidays he was so chilled out and willing to do bits of work as in the 1 week I had off work we could spread it out throughout the week and he was willing to have a go and read different books. But now back at school even after only a couple of days it was obvious to see that he was getting tired after school to do any work and wanted to just play football and go on the trampoline which I go along with as although he is behind it wouldn't achieve any thing if I try to push him instead we would both end up getting frustrated.

[munstersmum]

I wouldn't put him down a year. Learning seems to come in spurts just like growth. DS end Aug b'day in yr1 also avoided writing at all costs (sometimes just 1 sentence on a page in class) & drawing was 'for girls'! Now towards end of yr2 writing has suddenly come on. Build his confidence through his sport if need be. Perhaps ask him to write a very very short match report one weekend?

[Da1ryQueen]

I was at secondary school with a boy who was kept down a year at primary and so was the oldest in the year with a August birthday. He was brimming with confidence, had the advantage of being bigger than the other lads because he was the oldest, and very clever - ended up going to medical school. Everyone knew he was a year down, but it never made any difference socially, and it clearly benefitted him academically. I know it's only an anecdote, but staying down a year can clearly be very successful. I also know mum's who have kept children out of school and started them a year late because of August birthdays with great success.

Don't take this the wrong way, OP, but I noticed in your posts some basic spelling errors and wondered whether there was a family history of dyslexia? This might be a factor in your son's experience of school. From what you said about your son not liking writing, and even not liking drawing it reminded me very strongly of DS1 at that age and he has proved to be dyslexic. Ii know labels aren't always helpful, but they can be tools to get people to provide the appropriate support. For example, in DS's case, the school were convinced that he was just not very bright, and just kept telling me there was nothing to worry about, but once I got the ed psych in and he was assessed the huge disparity between his non-verbal reasoning and reading level showed up and they then had to take some action! I was fortunately lucky because DS is a sept birthday, but he was still bottom of the class. Repeating a year might be really beneficial in your son's case. Good luck!

[TheFlyingOnion]

I have a couple of children in my (private school) class who were kept down (and one who was moved up) and the other kids don't bat an eyelid. They have flourished in a class where they are not constantly emotionally and educationally bottom of the class, or even near the bottom, and you wouldn't know they were older unless you looked in the register at the birthdays.

Far better imo than watching a child struggle constantly, and there really is no hurry to whizz through the years.

In fact, in my school it is quite common practice to repeat a year.