Repeating Yr 1 - experiences of explaining to child?

[WildPine]

My DS is at a lovely supportive school in London. He is August born and though working at an expected level he has struggled with reading - phonics in terms of his enjoyment and confidence since the move up from reception, and bubbled just under the average. He took a massive confidence knock right at the start of Year 1 seeing how much more advanced other children were, particularly the girls, that he decided reading and writing just wasn’t for him and gave up. He would much rather be playing.

he has started attempting to refuse school, hiding in his wardrobe and getting very upset each morning. The drop offs have been awful and hard with his crying and not wanting to go in. Staff have been great but I’m so worried about this. We are always encouraging a love of learning and books etc so it’s heartbreaking to see. Since January most mornings have been full of upset.

His school operates a Danish model in year 1 so there is still a great deal of play-based learning, but come Year 2 it goes back to traditional classroom learning.

The Head has suggested DS might benefit from repeating Yr 1, to give him the chance to continue in the play-based environment for another year and crucially to feel like he is one of the more advanced in the class- gain more confidence in his abilities - as he does tend to compare and compete with others despite us trying to teach him otherwise.

Overall we think the decision could really benefit him. The school is very supportive and say they do this quite a few times each year for all sorts of reasons to support the child, not only in cases of SEN. (We don’t suspect SEN at this stage). They would also help with secondary applications when the time came to alleviate any knock on issues and seem very relaxed about it.

So in terms of his learning and confidence we think it could work well. I think he would really be boosted by feeling as if he was as good as most of the class at phonics and even “knew more” than some kids - just the way his mind works. What we now need to think about is how to explain it to our DS. He can be very sensitive and proud and we don’t want him to get a whiff of “not being good enough / clever enough” vibes from this.

Has anyone else’s DC repeated Year 1, and if so what was your experience and how did you explain it to the child?

of course there’s no ‘evidence’ yet @Sideofnoreturn, my whole point is that we are only just starting to have the negative consequences come through now that the first cohort who could defer for being summer born are starting to finish school. There can only be anecdotes. I’m not sure why so many who have deferred their children get defensive, I have absolutely no skin in this game, defer or don’t defer makes no odds to me, I am simply - kindly - giving my time to help the op make a considered decision with the knowledge of the longer term effects rather than the widely currently available positives from primary school parents for deferring. I am bowing out now too I think, this thread just seems to want to be an echo chamber for those who have deferred or want deferring/repeating to believe they’re doing the right thing.

The only children I knew that were repeating a year had GDD, they weren't even close to achieving the average targets.

I think this is the thing most of us responding who work in education find so unusual. For a school to routinely hold back children who are meeting expectations is just honestly something that is difficult to comprehend.

A clear plan for the next year and potentially a tutor as you've suggested would make much more sense than just leaving him in year 1 whilst everyone else moves up.

This is completely incoherent. You said we are now only just starting to see the negative effects at the other end of their schooling and now that a fuller picture is emerging and with the knowledge of the longer term effects…but also that there’s no evidence - which is it? What’s this picture/knowledge you’re going on about?

Time is running out I know but I’d be thinking very carefully about what the Head has suggested might help and the implications this might have for him as he gets older.
If he’s reluctant to go into school now I don’t see how him redoing the year will alleviate this problem. No matter how positive a spin you put on it he will realise that he has been kept back and so will his friends.
I would be worried that him redoing year 1 will do nothing to boost his confidence and might end up having the opposite effect if he sees others in his new class moving ahead faster with their reading and phonics
Teachers have the hardest of jobs I know but what they’ve suggested seems to be a rather lazy solution if he’s meeting expectations in all other parts of school life. Unless he has other issues that haven’t been mentioned here I would have thought a more sensible approach might have been for him to go into year 2 as planned and for them, with support from the OP at home, to provide some additional help with his reading and phonics. In the state school my children go to it is very common for children to move up or down between classes for reading, phonics and maths.
In the OP’s situation I’d want him to move with his current class and if money wasn’t an issue would consider hiring a tutor to help him along with the things he was struggling with

Not sure of the rationale here. He hates the class he is in now so why suggest him tolerating another year of it.
Give him extra help to catch up with his classmates if he is behind (doesn’t sound like he is by a lot). Many kids who struggle picking things up improve as they go through school and get used to it.

I do broadly agree with @MyTealOP . While deferring is good to have as an option, I don’t think it should be the go to. There’s a tendency on here to act as if most children are September or October born - ‘a few weeks and he would be in the year above’ but there is usually a broad spread of ages.

I was wondering whether to defer my Dd. She is a July birthday and we have a lot going on at home: as awful as it is to say so, she may well be losing her dad around the same time she starts school, but if that happens I’ll have to help her deal with it.

Staying back a year is detrimental. He will know why, and I don’t see how it couldn’t affect him.

Will he continue to stay with that group once moved?
I only ask as my son had a boy who was held back a year in his class but then once they got towards the upper years they made him move to year 6 and miss year 5 so he was in the correct year group for secondary.

There is also the issue of whether your child will feel bored repeating the year. Having worked in year 1 it's been the same English books they have looked at the last few years, so even though he struggled this year, is there the chance he will say he has already done this work or that it's boring?

Also there is the possibility that he still struggles. What will the plan be if he still doesn't engage or finds it tricky? Or the same happens again when he does move up and while he does the repeated year ok, but then struggles when he does make it to year 2, will the solution keep being to do the year twice?!

I would want to know any long term plans.

Our LA (north west) allows deferred entries and applications to repeat years. I think it’s become much more common for summer born DC in recent years. My August born DS would have benefited so much from this. I‘d say grab the opportunity. Perhaps explain to your DS that many of the children in his class are much older than him and he’s going to be more with children his own age.

You mentioned some issues regarding comparing himself to others, and a bit of a competitive streak, with this resulting in him realising others may be more advanced than him so therefore giving up… is there a plan in place to work on this? I would be worried about a few things. 1) him then going into an environment as the eldest, expecting to be top of the class and then it backfiring massively when he isn’t or 2) he goes in as eldest, is much more advanced than others, confidence increases as well as competitive nature and still comparing himself to others as never learnt to stop this, was just put in environment where he can continue to compare but feel better about himself

I personally would be reluctant to have a child repeat a year group where he is clearly unhappy. I do not see the justification for this, especially as he has made it so obvious, and also even with school refusal etc he is meeting expectations still. Maybe what he actually needs is more structure learning, rather than play. Instead I would work on his self esteem issues and competitive nature, as this appears to be the crux of the problem rather than actual academics

I have an August born (adult) son, who i almost certainly would have deferred had it been possible then (I do appreciate that this is slightly different to repeating a year). However, in year 12 he was seriously ill and ended up repeating year 12. This is possible as children are funded to 19. If he had started a year later, it would not have been. So I think I would advise not to repeat - just remind him he is younger and it will take a bit more time!

I feel there is some denial of the fact that theres no SEN. A child who needs to repeat the first year of school clearly has some level of learning or social difficulties, even if there's nothing diagnosed on paper.

For a state school this might just be a way of alleviating the workload for staff. It's much easier for a teacher to work with a deferred student repeating things he's already done before, as opposed to a new teacher getting bogged down by a mild SEN student and having fewer resources to help the rest of the class.

This seems to have stirred up some very strident opinions.

Trying to stick to your original question, I would just say that his worries and priorities may well be utterly different to those of adults so I would start by sounding him out on how he feels about going up next year, and build towards it from there.

Different way round but my parents told me I'd be skipping a year when they found me in tears dreading having the scary Y4 teacher. The "big picture" of being young for my year forever, tackling A level material at 15 etc was nowhere in my head, I was just delighted to have the lovely Y5 teacher instead of the one I was scared of. I still remember the sleepless nights and then the relief.

I would focus with him about whatever his biggest worries or beliefs are about the next school year. Also maybe position it that this is about where the adults feel he'll be happier next year, not the learning. It's prioritising him-as-a-person.

PPs are correct that people can run into problems with secondary school expecting children to skip Y7, or the YP losing the chance to repeat a year later or use a 3rd year at 6th form. However you have to parent who he is right now. If there are resultant problems later on, you will find solutions or ways round it. Building up some savings just in case he needs an extra year at sixth form, that state colleges can't give him, might be a sensible precaution. But hopefully by that time, these decelerated summer borns will be much more common and systems will bend round them.

Yes, this is a real concern I think. In my own DD’s close friendship group two had an extra year during A levels. One who had eczema so badly that he missed so much he couldn’t catch up and one who has to do a GCSE resit alongside her A levels so floundered.

I would only consider if it you are also moving schools. Because otherwise he'll spend a lot of time answering "why are you not still in our class?" only phrased less tactfully.

If you're moving schools and he's an August birthday then you might get away with it.

But also would you say he's catching up or staying as far behind or dropping further? Because unless he's at least staying as far behind then the chances are that he's going to end up struggling in a class where he's the oldest - which will be worse for his self-esteem.
And even if he's only just behind his class, then there's a good chance that some of the new class will be better than him from the start, so he won't be in the position of leading the class.

He may find that the more formal learning actually is helpful in year 2. Mine all moved to more formal learning in year 1, but all of them (very different personalities and way of learning) found it easier to learn and enjoyed it more.

My ds was a young boy in the year. He hated school pretty much throughout. He struggled with writing, listening and I think I'd have been very tempted to defer him if it had been generally done.
But having finished school, I can see it wouldn't have helped him. It would have simply put off the extra support he needed as he could have hidden for longer. He's now at uni and doing fine, but it was a difficult 14 years getting him there.

Thank you @Blodgetthis is the most rational, child-centred and sensible post I’ve read! 🙏🙏🙏

I wouldn't keep him back. Learning is not linear. He can have a sudden 'I get it' moment and his reading could take off.

I'm surprised the headteacher is suggesting this. Perhaps they have other children outside the school wanting to join Year 2 and spaces going in Year 1 which the head wants to fill?

Bums on seats £££

Why not spend the summer hols working on the things he finds more difficult in a fun way? Six weeks where other kids are doing nothing gives him a huge chance to improve and catch up. That's what I'd do anyway.

Does he have good friends in his year group? School is much more fun if you have good friends, I'd be working on building up friendships over the summer too if possible.

I wouldn’t really consider it tbh. He’s working at expected level, and hasn’t enjoyed this year. Not the teacher’s fault, but will repeating the same year with the same teacher help with this? Especially as from your OP it seems like confidence is his main issue?
Wouldn’t a fresh start with a new teacher be more likely to help him?

My answer would be different if he was struggling academically.

Mumsnet isn’t very keen on deferrals / repeating the year and it seems to get quite strong responses! Worth a look at the Flexible School Admissions for Summer Borns Facebook group where there will be people who have actual experience of this.

Are you sure the school are not thinking of their Year2 Sats results , children mature at different times and he may catch up ? My concern would be secondary admission and any negative implications?

If he’s working at expected level why hold him back?

Year 2s don’t do SATs anymore.

Exactly! A lot of outdated responses on this thread.

Mum of a June born here, who was behind in practically every milestone when he was just turned four and should have been starting school so we decided to defer entry to reception so rather than being the youngest starting aged 4, he was starting after he'd just turned 5. It was the best decision we ever made. If he'd have gone with his cohort it would have been a disaster for his confidence. As it was, he still wasn't picking up a pen by the time he started school but he soon got it and then thrived, both academically and emotionally

i know it's slightly different in your case as he'd be repeating the year and not starting from scratch, but if I were you I'd consider myself extremely lucky that you have such a supportive school and I'd just explain to your son that sometimes it's better to do year one twice to make new friends and learn a bit more. Don't go into too much detail and just make like it's just one of those things, super normal and not at all unusual

you won't regret your decision

He doesn't like the class now so I'm not sure why he'll prefer it next year with brand new classmates.

I'm also concerned that if these new classmates are at a higher level than him, he'll lose confidence and become even more reluctant to go to school.