Surely, repeating this school year is the only way?

[YardleyX]

In what world would it ever have been thought an option to just finish school for the year in March, and then carry on to the next year as though nothing’s happened?!??

Some schools have worked exceptionally hard to continue educating during the pandemic, but official line from the government is that the “curriculum is suspended”.

Therefore, unless the entire curriculum is being re-written, all the way up to and including A level, how can there possibly be an expectation for every child in the country to just ‘move on’ in September?

Year 11 and Year 13 could move on. Impact would therefore be no schools have a Year 11 this year, and some provision needs to be made in order to accommodate this years Reception intake.

Hardly ideal, but better than an entire generation of children falling so far behind, and in lots of cases probably never catching up.

This has been discussed at length already.
It wouldn't work for a huge number of reasons.
Adapting the provision for next academic year is the only sensible answer.

Repeating the whole year is impractical and probably not necessary, but repeating a term in their old class would seem sensible, both academically and psychologically.

Children due to start school in September could then just start in January. This is all presuming everything is ok by September. If not, then it’d need some other sectioning of the year.

I think there should be an option to retake the year
Normally, children are assessed constantly and, particularly, at the end of the year but, certainly in Primary, you don't teach Year 1 work because it's Year 1, you teach what needs to be taught depending on the children.

If I were a teacher, I’d support a mixture of going back slightly early, moving public exams back a month next year, extra catch up classes and business as usual.

It’s hard to see how the curriculum/exams could be amended because schools will have taught y10 topics in different orders. The only real option would surely be continuous assessment, with a really wide range of optional questions in the exam?

The disparity between home schooling provision is huge.

So huge in fact that it doesn’t really matter.

The government suspended the curriculum. Therefore, the default assumption has to be that no learning has taken place since 20th March.

To even consider anything else would be the discriminating against millions of children and throwing their lives on the scrap heap

What do you mean, don't need more space?

If R repeat the year, every R class will be doubled in size from September. And will be at double size all the way through to Y13. So in my sons school, that would be one year that forever had 180 kids. They need more space for that! At the local secondary school that is six form entry, by the time this reception year made it to y7 that would be 360 y7 kids instead of 180. Or do you mean that the R children due to start in September don't start? Where do they go for the next year?

I agree that suspending the curriculum for a year is likely to be detrimental to children. But I can't see that the solution is every child repeats their year. Extending the school day by an hour say, would be a better solution. But who is going to do that xtra hour every day? Unless we pay teachers more and I don't think the gvt want to do that either.

I suppose it depends where you are in the school treadmill. For younger children, i see that maths keeps building on skills you have so you need to cover the steps that came before. But some other subjects? I am not sure that never doing the vikings topic needs catching up. My children changed schools so missed some topics or did other things twice.
I also think the primary and secondary curriculumn arent well matched. My son year 7 maths was mainly repeating year 6. The secondary school literally never mentioned fronted adverbials again.
Now in year 8 he is never studying some of the subjects again and next year starts entirely new ones.
Any one thats started an exam syllabus has an issue

Not to mention that "repeating a year" is teaching to the lowest common denominator and not considering that all children have had different experiences. What about the children who have managed to learn during the past few months? DD (Year 9) has managed to keep her school work going pretty well through this term - yes, she's advantaged in that she has a device to work on, good internet access, a space to work uninterrupted, parents who support her and is also extremely self motivated and able to learn on her own - which I know is not true for all children. But she's already saying "I hope we don't have to just repeat all the work I've done this term once we get back to school, so that those who haven't done it can catch up" - so repeating will really not help children like her, either. At primary level, there are loads of things going round at the moment pointing out that your child may not be learning the normal things they learn in school, but they are quite likely learning other things instead.

Asking for kids to repeat a year just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how Students progress through the curriculum.
The curriculum is iterative. Teachers assess where the students are and teach them the next bit.
We don’t just start teaching at a set point to every year 8 regardless of prior knowledge.

Nobody has said Y13/U6 can't move on - they will be leaving conecwhat may (small numbers may repeat a yr just as always happens). Issues are around reduced university intake (primarily 2021 starts, but will impact 2020 intake too) and the financial impact on universities, and to the employment market in 3-5 years time when we have fewer nurses, teachers, accountants, lawyers etc.

The problem with moving Y11 on is doubling up Y12 provision.......unless you are suggesting that they move up to Y13. But then they are being penalised potentially. Hopefully they wouldn't be and any exams would be based on the parts of the curriculum that has been taught, but as schools may deliver this in different ways how that would be agreed/defined would not be straightforward. Again it has a knock on effect on uni's who may have to deliver part of what was the core curriculum to freshers in order to bring them up to speed/the required level for undergrad study. Potentially this will happen with the 2020intake where many had not finished the A level curriculum - there will be a knowledge gap. This could lead to students leaving courses which again has a knock on effect on Uni funding/future provision.

How does this all make a mockery of teachers/teaching? I think it makes things harder for schools and teachers especially if the Government does not look at adapting it's current methods of grading pupils, eg SATs, Progress8 as it would be unfair to hold children/YP's and by default schools up to the current expectations when they have not been able to teach and support learning/exam technique and the pupils have a potential knowledge gap in their learning. Alternatively maybe people will realise that knowing what a fronted adverbial is at age 6 is not the be all and end all and education is reviewed and delivered in new more flexible and age appropriate ways.

I have Dd in year 11 and Ds in year 10. Dd is sorted for GCSEs luckily for her did well I targets and mocks. I know though that the pressure into year 11 is massive, right from September they hit the ground running it's all exam pressure. No way will the current year 10s be able to deal with going straight into mocks (our school did them in December ad Feb) plus extra curriculum work to play catch up.

They cannot repeat the year either, all the years have to move forward. I think they need to know now what is going to happen with exams.

You do realise though that there’s a chance GCSEs and a levels won’t happen next year too? And that no year group will be in school full time in September? Then what?

To even consider anything else would be the discriminating against millions of children and throwing their lives on the scrap heap

How over dramatic.

It's not a workable solution and it isn't going to happen. You seem determined to ignore the reasons why it isn't going to work.

So much of the school day is lost for various reasons, change into PE kit arrive at field, no teacher, traipse back change again. Then the last week of each term out come the DVDs. Also there are so many “nice to do’s” scheduled in - 4 hours on a coach to spend 90 minutes at a farm etc.

I’m afraid next year will be hard work and hopefully they will catch up.

If I factor in my children's travel, uniform and the fact that I will have to hold back working full time for another year with that plan, then you are talking thousands of pounds. Who's paying that?

The trouble is, many children are not behind because they have been working throughout lockdown and /or had some leeway anyway because they were ahead prior to lockdown. Personally I would be hopping mad if my September born Y4 child were held back another year.

@Workerbeee

So much of the school day is lost for various reasons, change into PE kit arrive at field, no teacher, traipse back change again. Then the last week of each term out come the DVDs. Also there are so many “nice to do’s” scheduled in - 4 hours on a coach to spend 90 minutes at a farm etc.

I’m afraid next year will be hard work and hopefully they will catch up.

This may work at primary, but not for those of us with older children in yrs 9 upwards.

I can't see how any kids will be back in school as they were pre-virus. Although I would imagine the new Y11s/Y13s will have the highest priority.

I honestly think, except maybe the new Y10s in September, the curriculum can be moulded in such a way that no year-repeating is needed. They have gone to catch up on learning that is needed, and get rid of the less crucial lessons.

DD1s teacher (Y10) said not to worry too much if DD misses any homework as it will all have to be repeated - she said only approx 30% were submitting/engaging.

I can honestly only see that if exams go ahead next year, and I think they will, they will have to slim the curriculum down surely?

We have to trust that whatever happens will be fair.

Ffs. I hate not knowing!!

What about the impact on universities?
If you delay an entire year group going to uni then there won't be many universities around the year after.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/320772

Not sure if this has been seen/mentioned but I hope something is done about the curriculum content for those taking exams next year. This petition is to encourage to government to consider reducing the content so there is less to catch up on before exams

OP please address the finer points to your idea....

There’s nothing to stop Year 11s moving on? What if they are going in to year 12? But year 12 are repeating? Or do they repeat year 11? Or do we have double the amount taking A levels in two years time? What about the places available at university following that double exam cohort?

What about the children due to move school? Do they just..... not?!

I’m a childminder, what happens to the children supposed to leave me to go to school this year? I’ve already filled their spaces.... what happens there?

I think a big thing people are forgetting is that the summer term, at least at secondary, is about 2 weeks max of teaching. After that it's just revision lessons, summer exams, feedback lessons, sports days, summer trips, awards assemblies, off-curriculum lessons. The reality is, they've lost a half term of active teaching. This is very manageable to claw back spread out over the year. Making children repeat an entire year for 8 weeks missed learning is a tad OTT.

DH is a teacher and his school is hoping to cut a lot of the extracurricular activities next term to get extra lessons in. This does, of course, depend on the goodwill of the teachers...who may be asked to stop chess club in order to teach an extra lesson instead. But he seems to be finding that the vast majority of the staff are consummate professionals who want the very best for the children and are therefore preparing to roll up their sleeves and muck in.

What about Year 6? When lockdown started they were 5 weeks away from SATS? (excluding Easter holiday) -make then repeat it all? The whole year?

Should my Goddaughter in her 3rd year at Uni doing medicine -repeat the whole year? And yet, she has to complete the work for a Year 3 medical student else in year 4/5 she will behind in knowledge and experience?

The consequences are ridiculous and it's just not feasible to keep them all back. Unfortunately this is going to have a huge impact on everyone. My youngest (Yr1) has completed Year 1 with me (I say me but the older ones and a tutor help!) and now onto Year 2 work. Well into Year 2 work on every level. We are lucky we had a friend who was a very experienced primary school teacher who returned to the UK in March after a stint overseas. She has got a job for September as a Deputy Head in primary school but during lockdown I've been paying her to tutor my DC in Year 1 online via zoom. She's done 4 x 30 session a day with him on zoom and I've paid her. She's fab -but we have everything here from the older ones from wooden clocks, abacus, maths resources, even a huge whiteboard and chalkboard. So he's not going to be behind in September -in fact he's going to be well on track or ahead. He's effectively has a tutor two hours a day for 12 weeks.

However a parents at the same school at my youngest one who lives on our road -has said 'I haven't done anything' and she hasn't really in the school sense-yes making daisy chains and playing outside is great for wellbeing. But her daughter in my DC class -I said join the zoom lessons- and my friend was willing to do them both but no, she consider this 'A god given time to relax and focus on happiness and family' -I don't think the worse of her -her child, her choice. The differences between them will be huge. The ones with good teacher support / parental support and access or self motivated -will move on those that aren't for whatever reason, won't make the same progress. They can't. So in my opinion the gap between those that do and those that don't will be huge.

No one is denying an impact, no one is saying it should be ignored, no one is saying it's bloody hard but IT IS unworkable to just unilaterally declare the school year is to be repeated.