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.

The problem with changing the school year to Jan-Dec is we'd be out of sync with the rest of Europe. That said I don't know how the travel restrictions will affect international students in any case.

I’ve worked my arse off to teach my seven year old at home. To my mental detriment. He will be in year 3 come September (assuming they’re back then ) and will absolutely not be behind. Potentially he’ll be ahead in some areas.

Judging from a recent full class Zoom meeting

AGAIN - Great for YOU. My two kids have done barely anything. I'm working upstairs on the only laptop whilst they are unsupervised downstairs (aged 6 and 7). By the time work is done, they are in no fit state to do any work. I'm lucky to get half an hour a week done with either of them. Their mental health is a mess. Trying to get them to sit down to do a worksheet or follow a powerpoint is just not happening.

Our school is not doing Zoom lessons.They send planning each day - for two different year groups, both in totally different formats. Surely they should all be getting together to send the same work but just differentiated for those with more than one child? Not bloody rocket science is it. But no. Let's send loads of work home that demands an adult actually teaches it to them, whilst the teachers are sat at home with their own kids merrily teaching them.

I'm actually furious about the lack of input from some primary schools. Our school only had 5 key worker children in the last 12 weeks. Don't tell me all teachers have been working flat out. They've been doing bugger all (takes max half an hour to type up the planning they've been sending out)

A change to Jan-Dec school year would also put us out of sync with universities.

Keeping children in classes over the summer and having a longer break around Christmas time would be horrible for some parts of the country. Our summer weather is short enough as it is in Scotland (I think the week we had in May was it this year!) without making children stay inside throughout.

Start utopia you have no idea how hard some parents have tried.
I'm dyslexic trying to help a dyslexic child with a toddler to distract. I'm going mad trying to do it for the sake of my DS.
Why the f* did I bother if the kids are going to repeat the year.

Nobody has had it easy.

If someone told me to repeat a year of school when I only had 3 months left would angry me. Most of June is spent typing up loose ends and watching movies anyway (scotland - we go on holiday start of July)

how about repeating the year for those dc who have struggled - this is done successfully in other countries
Basically for those dc who don't reach the standard for their year/level - it works well & wouldn't be as difficult as doing the whole year - its either that or government financing extra support within the year across the board

My kids didn't start school till year 3, we just decided not to school so young. They caught up within the year and went into year 4 doing well. Surely catching up will happen? Different for the teenagers with less time, I feel sorry for year 10 and 12.

It’s about time we caught up with the rest of the world and had a later starting age. I would be all for shifting starting age to 5 but there needs to be planning on place to do that.

@MurrayTheDemonicTalkingSkull Keeping children in classes over the summer and having a longer break around Christmas time would be horrible for some parts of the country. Our summer weather is short enough as it is in Scotland (I think the week we had in May was it this year!) without making children stay inside throughout.

Slightly off topic but how do kids in Scotland cope with August to December. When mine were young all the children seemed to be on their knees by the time they broke up in December, I can't imagine what they'd be like with a few extra weeks.

@DoingMyOwnThing

How about all students are assessed when they return in Sept. The ones that are not working at age expected standards get extra help in the form of extra tuition after school (not by the usual teachers though - supply teachers) to catch up. The ones that are on track or ahead don't need the extra help.

Therefore the ones most disadvantaged and fallen behind can be given targeted help. Obviously/Perhaps could'nt apply to every subject but core subjects English, maths, science at least? Primary literacy, numeracy, reading etc

And the kids who can't stay after cos they have to pick up their siblings and get home and get dinner on? Or whose parents just wouldn't countenance extra school time "because the teachers can't do their jobs properly", who catch the school bus, who are already exhausted at the end of 6+ hours at school? Any plan that extends works outside the standard classroom hours is likely to disadvantage those who are already disadvantaged.

Teachers are going to "just" jhave to work harder, and I don't say that glibly - DS is only in reception and we have tasks set twice a day which are marked within a few hours, I know his teacher is working hard, I've seen the time of night she sets up the tasks. I worry teachers like ours will hit burnout soon especially with classes going back.

Do people really think children's education will fail just because kids missed 13 weeks of school.

I completely appreciate it will widen the gap between children but it is 13 weeks only of school.

The impact on children will be from other things like parents losing jobs or being in homes with domestic violence and abuse.

13 weeks is really not going to make tons of difference in the whole scheme of their education.

Kids in Scotland either have a long weekend toward the end of September and a week in October and other areas have two weeks in October which helps to break up that long term.
The two week thing is historically related to farming.

@1forsorrow

Sorry haven't read the full thread so someone might have said it already but wouldn't changing the school year to January - December instead of September - August. There would be a group of children disadvantaged, the ones who are 5 between September - December but it would be easier to deal with than all children redoing a year.

What do we do between now and Jan tho? If it's just catch up, what about where schools haveargely kept kids up to date? And it isn't just the whole of schools, it's all the Universities, apprenticeship schemes etc too. It isn't as simple as saying we'll jsit restart 3 months later

We didn't close until nearly the Easter holidays.

Where am I suddenly going to find a brand new Autumn and Spring term scheme of work for literally everything to teach them if I have them again.

And kids don't take going over the same stuff well at a younger age. I don't want another 7 months (Sept-March) of them telling me 'We've done this!' It's bad enough when they say 'We did this with X teacher last year!'

Ok, on a more positive note, I taught Y6 when we moved from the old curriculum to the new. It was hideous. Those poor children had 2 years of knowledge squeezed into essentially, 2 terms to get them up to speed for what they 'should' know according to the DfE.

We worked bloody hard and it was really tough. But they did it. My class were remarkable & I was so proud of them. The national picture wasn't great that year but they mostly all caught up in the end.

The curriculum is one of the issues. It would make sense to streamline it anyway. There's far too much knowledge-based stuff in the primary curriculum that's more or less pointless. This is the perfect opportunity to look at what is actually important for education and cut out the unnecessary 'fluff.'
(Although the thought of going through yet another curriculum upheaval brings me out in a cold sweat )

And it would be wonderful if teachers could just be left to get on with it when schools are back up and running at full capacity instead of wasting time on all the stupid paperwork...but I fear the Government would never let this happen. Certainly not now as it's even more of a political football than ever

Well none of it is easy is it? We have to discuss ideas, well the government and schools do, when they have explored all the difficult choices they need to choose the least worst. We can't just wave a magic wand and make things go back to how it was.

@mumwon

how about repeating the year for those dc who have struggled - this is done successfully in other countries Basically for those dc who don't reach the standard for their year/level - it works well & wouldn't be as difficult as doing the whole year - its either that or government financing extra support within the year across the board

I always wondered why we didn't do this, but assume it's a nightmare when most schools run at full capacity and there's a limit on classroom sizes. So 5 kids in Yr 5 stay behind, 2 in Yr 4 do so 25 kids in yr6, 33 in Yr 5 (class is over capacity),

I grew up in a country where you sat exams at the end of every year and if you didn’t pass you repeated the year.

That’s something I’ve always said was a good idea but only for those who haven’t managed. To expect all children to repeat the year is entirely unreasonable.

And children are much more resilient than we give them credit for. If a child was already struggling they would struggle anyway in the next year regardless of whether they’d had formal education. But if they’re generally bright they really will catch up.

I am at this notion that a lack in thirteen weeks formal education is going to do lifelong damage to children. That’s more projection on the part of adults IMO and gives our children far less credit than they deserve.

@Blackbear19, thanks for the info, I've always wondered if Scottish children just had more stamina to make it to the December holidays. September - December seems a struggle for the younger ones. Breaking it up sounds like a good idea.

UK system does not require repeating years. Everyone moves up and extra classes or differentiated curriculum for those who need it.

Dd missed virtually entire year due to illness with no impact long term signs had minimum input few hours a week.

@1forsorrow - it's a tough slog. As another poster said, we have a long weekend in Sept and a week in Oct. I'm secondary and we move everyone up to the next year at the beginning of June for a month, so when we come back in August we're pretty much straight in without all the getting to know you stuff. November feels like the longest month. By December they're exhausted and ready for the holidays, but we have prelims in January (sometimes on literally the first day back) so there's no room for taking your foot off the pedal.

@AlternativePerspective I am confused at this notion that a lack in thirteen weeks formal education is going to do lifelong damage to children. That’s more projection on the part of adults IMO and gives our children far less credit than they deserve. I think it is linked to years of propaganda that a child missing a week at school for a family holiday is going to ruin their educational chances.

One of mine had surgery two years running, missed half a term each time and couldn't do any work as it was eye surgery and he wasn't allowed to read. When he went back to school he was only able to do half days for a while. He caught up, I'm sure most kids would.

@duedatemistake everything you said on page 1 I totally agree with - I would be quite annoyed if all the hardwork my son and I have put in at home was repeated once back at school - he'd lose interest quickly, it would be counterproductive. He's 6 and 1:1 teaching at home has had a positive impact on his writing quality and quantity. I am really annoyed with unions currently though - they should be back in school by now, my son is an only child and it's been hard on him. The current science tells us that transmission from children is miniscule (as was realised during key workers' only children being taught throughout lockdown) and contraction is also tiny.

The unions can't magically double the number of classrooms or teachers. Maybe blame the govt guidelines or even the virus?

This will only exacerbate the gap between private schools and state. Children in private schools are getting a full school timetable at the moment, with live lessons on Zoom. Some state schools are setting some work, others are doing very little and just sending links to the parents to BBC Bitesize. After 5 or 6 months of this, the private school pupils will be a long way ahead.