Deferring Year 9

And taking your DD away from her few friends seems crazy. Re-entering an established year group will be very hard and isolating.

Yes, this is the thing that is worrying me most. But it is worth understanding where her few friends come from. DD switched schools about a month into Year 5. Again, suddenly, very, very unhappy, and the best I could work out about it was that it was a small community school, and there had been quite a bit of attrition - so that there were by then only six other girls in DDs class, and they had pretty much paired, so that when they had to work in pairs, DD had to work with a boy. And after years of not really noticing what was going on socially, DD had suddenly woken up and reached the stage of development where she noticed that there was nobody to play with in the playground.
And then I was chatting to a friend who just happened to have taken a new job as the administrator of a neighbouring school. And she, in passing, said to me, "it is really odd, we have a very long waiting list at every year level, except in Year 5, we have these two open places that haven't been filled since two families left in May". And I said to her "I think we might be interested in one of those places". I had a discussion with DD, and the following Monday we went to see the school (I took DD in late to her other school). I asked DD as I dropped her back whether this was what she wanted, and she gave me an emphatic yes. So I went straight back home and filled in the LEA form, then ran around filling in the faith requirements form, which I dropped into the school Tuesday morning. By Tuesday afternoon we had our place, and she started at the school the following Monday.
But I had my heart in my mouth, because who changes their kid at Year 5? But it was a terrific success. If I had been concerned about academics, I might well have said that the new school really didn't push her, but she spent the Year 5 year sociallising and making friends with a couple of other summer babies who were drifting a bit, and by the end of it, they were a close threesome. At Year 6 there were various incidents where eg she didn't finish the practice SATs papers in the time allocated, so she was sent to the library to finish, which she hated, but other than that, she was mostly allowed to cruise, doing averagely well and under the radar, and even if she didn't finish the actual SATs paper (which she told me she didn't), she got the expected level in maths, so nobody fussed.
And one of a range of reasons for going to this high school was because that is where her two best friends were going. But best friend number one is in Set 1 for the subjects she is in Set 2 in, and in Set 2 for the subjects she is in Set 1 in, and best friend number two is in Set 3. And the school isn't very happy about her cruising in Set 2 due to her not finishing papers, when she is capable of more. And a fourth girl has joined up with the group, who is also in Set 3, so best friend number two and this new girl are spending more and more time together, and it is becoming more like two pairs.

Oh, it is also worth noting that she goes to an art therapy group run by one of the charities for siblings of life limited children, and she has become friendly with a set of twins in that group, who I understand from DD are in fact out of year, and should be in DD's year, and who are going to be in her school next year. And we also have family friends who have one girl in DDs year, and a set of twins (boy and girl) who are actually closer to DDs age, but in the year below, and in the old days, when we went there, DD would play with the twins more than the older girl. Now she does interact with the older girl, as they see one another at school, but still seems closer to the twins, both of whom will be in DDs school next year.
So there are already potential friends in the year below - and maybe even more than in her current year. It is mostly best friend number one I am concerned about.
Oh, and DD decided this year she wanted to learn martial arts, and speaking to the sensei, we decided to put her into the younger group, which was supposed to be for primary school, rather than the high school group. So she did that this year, and has enjoyed it very much, and just last week had a trial in the older group, with the other Year 6s going up to Year 7, and that worked very well.
So every time she has a chance, she seems to gravitate towards girls from the year below - except for best friend number one - who is born at the end of August, and is an extreme summer baby. But yes, I am very worried about breaking her up with best friend number one.

I understand your travel ideas m, but are you going to be happy not to see your oldest for months and go off traveling? Are you going to have him home some weekends?

Were it not for DS1, I might be looking at spending six months to a year in Australia. I could even stick DD is school there (she is an Australian citizen through me)- except I really don't think she would cope, but a more resilient child might have a ball.

But because of DS1, I am assuming we would go to Australia for a month, come back and see him, go for a couple of weeks to Brazil, come back and see him etc. I am hoping that we would have him home, say around a weekend a month. Also there will need to be settling in periods, I can't see us doing any travelling in the first part of the academic year while we get him settled. But maybe by January.

As for taking her time to do things making sure they are right- many kids face exactly the same problem in exams and tests, if they had another half an hour could concentrate more on questions instead of rushing it etc.

I absolutely agree, but at what point does the rushing become so extreme that much of the test becomes reasonably meaningless?

Of course, that depends on what you are testing. Take fractions - is the job of the test to find out who does or does not know how to solve fractions, or is it to find out who can solve fractions at speed? Now you could have a test that does both. If you have a test with fractions of an equivalent difficulty throughout, then the kid who can't do fractions will not do it at all; the kid who can do fractions at speed will do very well, and the kid who can do them but not very fast will do half the paper.

But if (as with most papers do) have a series of questions with increasing difficulty, if the second half of the paper is left blank, you won't know whether that is because of speed problems or because of a lack of ability to do harder fractions problems. When the paper is not just fractions, but fractions and angles and indices, and graphs and a dozen other topics, you won't know whether the kid who only gets half way couldn't do the questions that happened to fall in the second half, or whether they could, but couldn't handle speed.

For some jobs speed is essential. Air traffic controllers need to be able to react with speed, as do derivatives traders. But if your goal is to measure knowledge absorbed rather than speed, then having a kid who only finishes 70% of the paper due to speed problems means that you just can't assess where they are on 30% of the syllabus.

You say her issues are around the speed she takes to do things- answer questions, unpack her bag and park up her bag etc. How do you see holding her back a year will help this? Things will still be done at the same speed.

Well no, because every year she does get that little bit faster. The problem is, so does the rest of the class.

If you think about it, we all know that younger children take longer to do things. In DDs primary school, they didn't have the reception kids change into PE uniform, just into plimsolls, and when asked why, they said that at that age, it took them too long to change, and it would use up most of the PE lesson. By Year 1 they had them change into PE kit, but they had the PE lesson at the end of the day, so they didn't have to change back, just went home in their PE kit. By Year 2, they were expecting them to change both in and out, and it was that year that DD kept being abandoned in the PE changing room, because the teacher didn't want to hold up the whole class waiting for her. But by Year 3, although she was probably still the slowest, she had speeded up sufficiently that the gap between her and the next slowest wasn't so dramatic.
Similarly we all know that buttons and laces are hard for little fingers, but as they grow older, they grow into handling them with ease.

And the same thing is true with writing. When they are first taught to form their letters, they go so slowly that only a sentence or two is expected of them at any one time, the following year, a bit more, and on and on. Every year they raise the bar a little bit higher.
But schools have an enormous amount of experience in teaching, and they pretty much know what an average cohort at any given age can do. So many parents of Year 6 children at around this time tell me that their DC is "oh so ready for high school", because they are. That is not to say that most Year 7s do not struggle at first with having to move themselves from classroom to classroom, and pack and unpack numerous times a day, it is hard for them at first. But by mid year they have normally sussed it. DD hasn't sussed it yet. My best guess is that she will by about mid year next year, but by then there will be new demands that your average Year 8 student has, and she will struggle.
Look, in DS2's year there was a boy who was playing football two years above his age group. When it came to sports day, not only did this boy come first every single time, there was sometimes several metres between him and the second place winner. He was just very very able at sport (academically was another matter).

My sense is that DD is the opposite, she is working at the year group below, not academically, but regarding anything that needs speed or agility, including penmanship and also both physically and psychologically. The girls in her year tower over her, some of them might even be as much as a foot taller, and most of them look like women, whereas DD is still looking very much like a girl. Most of them have started their periods. Looking at DD, and knowing when I started, I would guess we are at least a year away from that. That doesn't mean I need to rush to a doctor just not be surprised that she is not interested in some of the things her year are in, because clearly the hormones are not yet circulating.

Are their any OCD traits

I don't think it is OCD, if I had to look for a special needs type diagnosis, I might head more towards ADD, ie she seems to struggle to concentrate on the task in hand, rather keeping on being distracted by what else is going on (either externally or inside her head)

MurielsBottom Lots of very good points. I suspect she will be reluctant to go back to school. I was planning to tell that absolutely all I could manage was one year, with all the consequences that entailed and she would need to take that into account if we agreed to do it. She is a good girl, she does go off every morning, even if her face is so long it is hitting the floor. She really does try. She was so happy coming home today having finished school, she is just a different child.

Will it solve all the problems? No idea, but I just keep thinking back to all the concerns that have been raised over the years, and it keeps being that she grows out of them, only to grow into a new set where if she had been in the year below, the concerns would never have arisen in the first place, or they would have resolved before anybody got too worried. And to be quite honest I can't think what else to try.

I will have a look at the longer term home schooling. Maybe that can be the fall back if it doesn't work (but if I tell her that that option exists, then I suspect the alternative will for sure not work).

My ds had just finished year 8, and I would say that a child staying back a year would cause some talk. You say the kids won't know- they will go home and tell their parents she's repeating a year, and you will have many parents who know the system and will say she's being held back. Please don't be blinkered to this happening.

Of course the kids will talk, and they will certainly all know that she was previously with the Year 10s and is now in Year 9. But they will also know that she was not around in Year 9 the previous year. That will for sure generate talk from the start- where has she gone? What has happend to her? If she is in England the kids will see her around and ask her during that year, well before she comes back into Year 9. She will see them when she goes to the local shopping centre, when she is on the various mainstreets, around faith activities, everything. There is no way it will be hidden from the various classes long before there was any question of her going back into school. And that is regardless of which school she goes back to. Even if she goes to a different one, she will still meet the other kids everywhere she goes.
The question is, if we do this, what does she/we tell them when they ask and talk? No question they will talk. And that is why it seems to me that the line would not be "she is being held back" - even if that is the truth, but "she was not allowed to visit her grandparents if she was in school so her parents decided to take her out for the year so that they and she could visit her grandparents" (they all know that, following the requirements of the LEA, the school is draconian about not allowing holidays in term time and falling below the dreaded 95% attendance). The point being, that if her parents took her out of school to visit her grandparents in Australia in term time, and therefore she never covered the Year 9 curriculum, surely it is logical that she would have to do it the following year? Hence she ends up with the year below.

I doubt they will think that she is being "held back". You don't hold back Set 1/2 students - I doubt that will cross their mind. It will all be blamed on me and my (unreasonable) desire to spend time with my parents. Or alternatively they will be jealous that she got a year's holiday - although that should hopefully be tempered by the fact that she then has longer to go to finish school, as she is not missing any of it, just deferring it. I know how unhappy she is, but unless they know her very well and are party to her confidences (which as she keeps these things close to her chest, they almost certainly aren't) why will they necessarily assume it has anything to do with her, rather than the family's circumstances (and most kids are likely to be aware that she goes to events run by the hospices and other charities for siblings of life limited children - particularly as one of the charities runs a retreat, so every year we have had two days off school to go to it - retreats run by charities for life limited children and their families falling within the "exceptional circumstances" category of the school).

Just so I'm clear, does your daughter have SEN? Is she taught in a special needs class at school? Does she have additional support?

No to all of these. The Senco put her on the special needs register, but that doesn't mean she has anything formal. He put her on it because she is always slow at completing work, and was getting swamped by the combination of homework along with being told to finish work at home that she hadn't finished in class, and was similarly slow to finish any exam or test. He did some assessments but didn't seem to come up with any diagnosis, from what I could tell. He did talk to all the teachers about the fact that she was slower at doing work and not to overwhelm her. He also trialed extra time, which has really helped her to finish tests and exams.

However to be clear she is doing very well. Without the extra time, she was still performing at average to above average, with the extra time, she is performing towards the top of the cohort. For example, she gets most of any set of maths questions right, just that she seems to take longer to do them than the rest of the group. If given extra time she will end up with high scores. If not given extra time, she will end up with mediocre scores, because she will get right what she reaches, but she only completes 70% of the paper. If pushed to try and go faster, she gets stressed, panics, and does worse than if left to go at her own pace and only complete 70% of the paper. The same is true of her other subjects.

The issue is the emotional one. She is miserable, and feels constantly pushed and stressed and overwhelmed. The extra time in exams has helped a lot, but what she really needs is not just extra time in exams, but extra time in each class, because she never manages to finish what she is expected to finish, and she never manages to pack up her pencil case and unpack it at the same pace as the others, so that she is scrabbling around trying to do this while everybody else has started work or left the classroom.

But if given the time she needs - she is comfortably Set 1 material. Putting her in, say, Set 3, means that she gets easier and more repetitive work, which she doesn't need, but in terms of how much they want her to do, she still hasn't got her books and pencil case out and started with the others, so still doesn't finish the work in class that is set, even if it is easy for her.

Regarding the LEAs and summer born children - this report www.gov.uk/government/publications/summer-born-children-school-admission
is very interesting it says, amongst other things:

"10 of the local authorities which responded now have a policy of automatically agreeing all requests that are made to delay entry. 23 local authorities said that they only agree requests where parents present very strong evidence. The majority of local authorities (56) surveyed still expect parents to make a case as to why their child should be admitted to reception at age 5, although they admit that they are more likely to agree requests than they were previously."

Of course, this is talking about delaying entry to reception, not about deferring Year 9 - however, all of these kids who deferred reception will end up in Year 9 and higher out of year. Assuming one is in one of the 10 LEAs who will automatically grant deferral to reception if asked, or one that will mostly grant, then, as I mentioned, in a few years time, if not sooner, it will be commonplace to find summer born babies out of year. Given that I know of at least two children out of an intake of around 200 in DDs current Year 7 who are summer born and out of year - and those are only the kids that I happen to know, as we knew them from before high school, there could easily be another few who are also out of year. My guess is therefore that the year below will also have a similar number already out of year - the only difference being that they have been this way since reception.

Assuming my LEA is one of those that grants automatically requests for deferral at reception, or even one that ask parents to make a case but do not requires such strong evidence - and given the numbers I know about, it seems unlikely that it is not, then why should a case being made at a later stage, when there is more evidence, be treated any differently?

I will have a look at Interhigh, but I confess that I feel a bit daunted about trying to guide her through GCSEs, even with an online school as my support. And it would make it difficult for me to work at all, I would have thought. One year I might be able to flex (as mentioned I work contract), but to be out of the market for four seems risky.

I have wondered about the issues of putting her back into the same school (which then made me wonder whether in fact we should look for a different school). Truth is, though, I am very happy with the school as it stands, which is doing the best it can to help. Eg - the SEN has started something new he calls "forest school" - because he wants kids who don't enjoy school to have something that they can look back on that they did enjoy, and DD was one of the first to get the letters. She is enjoying forest school - where they take them out into nature and let them do want they want, even including climbing trees, and all the things DD likes doing, but it is one lunchtime a week, and not enough to compensate. He ended up putting DD on the special needs register, because she is too slow at everything, ie too slow to pack her pencils and too slow to unpack her pencils, and too slow to finish work in class (although she does it to a high standard), and takes too long over homework, and was just not finishing tests and exams (although doing them to a very high standard for the bits she got to - eg she would get 65 out of the first 70 marks of the paper, and then the rest up to 100 is blank because she doesn't get to it, regardless of what area is on the first part and what on the second. If given enough time to complete, she gets very high scores. So the SEN assessed her, and besides the fact that she took a really long time to complete the assessment, I couldn't make head or tail of what he thought he found, and I am not sure he could either, but something wasn't going right, so he said let's trial extra time in tests and exams, which has been fantastic, as it means she is actually able to show what it is that she really knows, but he cautioned us that when it came to GCSEs we may not be able to get it - because we need a diagnosis.

But this has been the pattern over the years. In Year 1 they were worried about the fact that she was still wetting herself periodically (whereas if she had deferred and been in reception, they would not have blinked an eyelid, as many kids were still doing that). In Year 2 that had cleared up, but they were worried that she couldn't hold a plastic cup without crushing it, or hold her pencil properly, and was not really playing with the other children, but playing by herself. If she had been in Year 1 I think that would have been regarded as within the bounds of normality. By Year 3 all that was resolved, except that because she was only then able to hold the pen properly, she had completely forgotten how she had been taught in years 1 and 2 to draw the letters, and her handwriting was dreadful. After jumping up and down at the SEN, I got them to give her some special classes focused on teaching her handwriting just as she would have been taught it in Years 1 and 2, and guess what, her handwriting came right. And all the way along we have had concerns because she cannot dress and undress herself for PE as fast as the others. But when she was taking swimming lessons with kids who were mostly the year below, there was never any complaint, because they were also by and large slower.
I really wonder whether it is not just that she keeps being pushed to keep up with an age group that is too advanced for her, and while academically she can mostly do that, whenever we have motor skills and the like involved, she just can't keep up.

My thoughts would be that the explanation she would need to give is "I took a year out to go visit my grandparents in Australia and my cousins in Brazil etc, but that meant I missed doing Year 9, so I have to do it this year". Kids don't know about LEAs insisting on in year admissions, or home schooling. But they can all see that if you don't do Year 9 of a three year GCSE, you could well be expected to do it again. Even if in fact we spent most of the year in Britain, the parts we didn't could be highlighted as the reason.

TwoGinScentedTears - I think what I was hoping/planning to do is talk to the school first. Maybe because of the experience of this boy we know - where it was the school who told the LEA that he should be admitted to the year below, and that is what happened.
Maybe it is different because the school is an academy and a faith school - but having just checked the admissions requirements on line for in year admissions (which is everything bar Year 7 and Sixth form) you apply to the school, with your faith credentials, and "also" fill in the LEA form. The school knows us, and knows that we satisfy the faith credentials (but we could get another letter certifying this without difficulty if we needed to).
My instincts are (although I guess I hadn't thought this through until now, with everybody posting about it, and I could be totally wrong) is that if the school felt it had a place, and it told the LEA so, then the LEA would agree. And if the school agreed she should go into the year below, and I can't see them wanting her in Year 10 without having done Year 9, then the LEA would defer to that (just as it did with the boy in the primary school).
But I wouldn't want to "spring" this on the school. That is why I thought the first thing to do would be to talk to the school, explain all the issues, and as well as getting a feel for what the chances of an opening in the year below are. Discuss with them why educationally I feel this is the best thing for DD and the family - maybe they will disagree, but it seems worth having the conversation. See if there are ways of making this happen. It is a "can do" school, that is one of the things I like about it, although maybe I will come up against a brick wall if I am suggesting something so radically unheard of.

Not sure how much an academy can dictate to the LEA on these things though, I don't fully understand the relationship.

And i just wondered if anybody else out there had tried something similar.

Oh - regarding DDs reaction if I did tell her: she discovered a couple of years ago that home schooling was possible (we have firends, although not in this country, who have done it will all of their kids), and tried begging me for it. I have kept telling her that I don't feel qualified to teach her what she is learning in school.

It was probably her begging about it that set me thinking about all of this in the first place. I really don't think I could home school through GCSE and A levels, as I have made clear to her, and if I told her, I would have to make it clear that it was just a year, and she would have to go back into the system, just a year later. I would certainly not force it on her, but given the way she is at the moment, I cannot see her doing anything but jump at the opportunity. There is a chance that things might change by the end of Year 8, but I am very sceptical that they will.
And it is not the school. No school is perfect, but this one seems pretty much as good as any other I could think of transferring her to. If I could solve the problems by moving elsewhere, I would be seriously considering that, but I think she will have the problems she has at any school.