To ask if you think if not back till Sept,. the kids will have to redo the school year?

[Thelowquietsea]

Just a thought. Someone mooted it to me today and it hadn't occurred to me. DS is in primary.

I very much doubt it. They're only missing just over a term. It would be a logistics nightmare to keep the entire country back a year. Plus, they're supposed to be learning at home.

What, and have the government stump up the cost of educating them all an extra year, while absorbing the delay in them joining the workforce and contributing taxes to the coffers? I doubt it.

It won’t make any difference, we went travelling for a year and they picked up everything they’d apparently missed in under a term

No. Impractical.

In primary they will just carry on where they left off for maths and English. Primary is a 7 year curriculum.

They'll have to accept slightly lower standards for GCSEs next year, but as they are graded on a curve these days that should be possible.

My kids are getting loads of stuff to do at home - isn't yours?

This would create a nightmare for universities who wouldn't be able to survive financially with a whole year of students missing. And schools who would have to accommodate double the number of reception age children.

No, because where would that leave children due to start school in Sept? There won’t be classrooms/teachers for them, they would have to start straight into Y1.

No - the current year 11 will move on to college, all of the others will move up as normal and the new reception children will start. Redoing the year will not work.

I don't think so, I would hope that where possible the children would have the same class group and teacher next year, but still be in the next year group up, just because they would not have the chance to meet kids in their new class or a new teacher which seems unfair. Everything will already be a bit daunting and unfamiliar after being at home for nearly half an academic year plus summer.

I don't think this will happen. My 12 year old is doing his usual timetable every day, teachers are around during timetabled lessons to take questions. They can't do the practical stuff in science or tech which is a shame and have stopped the Shakespeare play they were working on in English but I guess they will just catch up when they go back. However, they can't make the children do it, and I don't think every child in the class is engaging in every lesson (or even any lesson) so there may be a big gap between them when they go back.

I wonder how that squares with the policy on absence/holidays going forward? Or, is it ok because the whole cohort are all absent at the same time?

How will that work? (Clue: it won’t)

Lots of children already have their places for new schools in September, do they just not go?

They’ll move up a year at the normal time

The curriculum for that year may have to be adjusted a bit to make sure they have actually grasped the essentials of what would have been covered during close-down.

There’s often a post-summer-holiday dip. This one will be particularly bad

I wonder how that squares with the policy on absence/holidays going forward? Or, is it ok because the whole cohort are all absent at the same time?

Yes I'm sure we'll all be getting attendance letters and fines from the LEA for this 🙄What a stupid question

No that won’t happen. My year 7 dd is following her usual timetable from home, so they will have finished the curriculum by July. No point in doing the same stuff over again for year 8!

Still move up

Teachers have a wider range of levels than usual within the year group. The top attainers with dedicated parents would have shot ahead. The struggling kids with parents also struggling will be behind.

And for whoever asked about attendance:

Code Y is used to indicate where a pupil is unable to attend school because:

The School site, or part of it, is closed due to an unavoidable cause; or
The transport provided by the school or local authority is not available and where the pupils home is not within walking distance; or
A local or national emergency has resulted in a widespread disruption to travel which has prevented the pupil from attending school.

Both my DC have "y" on their online accounts for attendance since school has to close. It hasn't changed their % of attendance

Thanks all. And for those of you who ask about home schooling, yes we've been given a steer etc, but I won't be strictly following the curriculum, nor are any of my other parent friends.

A Year 6 mum I know says she’s heard the current Year 6s will have to go back to primary for a few weeks ‘until they’ve done their SATS.’ I told her I thought that was rubbish. SATS are cancelled and the kids will start secondary in September (fingers crossed!). If school needs tests to set them they’ll just do their own in the first couple of weeks.

I had a lot of time off secondary school due to needing several major operations. In total over years 8-10 I missed a good year of school. I did do a certain amount of work at home though mostly my preferred subjects.

I did well in my exams. Maybe I would have done a little better if I’d not missed any but remember, I didn’t get any allowance made for the time I’d missed. Nearly all children will have the time and resources to make up for lost time.

They've cancelled exams and it would be too problematic to put every single pupil back a year - what would happen to the rising reception children?

The children will move up as they should and we will do our best to make sure their education doesn't suffer too much. We have all been sent work for our children to do and maybe this is a good time to look at personal development for them. But putting the nation's children back a year is not going to happen.

The year won’t get repeated, but it’s an issue, as 80 days says - those bright kids with engaged parents will shoot further ahead, and those that struggle and or those with parents who don’t bother doing anything during lockdown will fall further behind. Not sure what can be done though?

I'm threatening my Y8 DS with this as a possible outcome if he doesn't sodding well get on with some work, but I can't see it actually happening. They'll have a few weeks' intensive revision of the material they should be covering and then go on as normal, I expect.

I would hope that where possible the children would have the same class group and teacher next year
Great idea! I hope schools apply it.

I wonder how that squares with the policy on absence/holidays going forward?

Really? You think this is the same?

Assuming we get back into school in September and that school is uninterrupted for the full course of the academic year, the only people who will really suffer are the current Year 10 and 12 cohorts who will have lost about a fifth of face to face teaching time. And they will only really suffer if there are no concessions made - and I suspect there will be because no way will we complete the exam spec in time.

As for everyone else, teachers will pick up the slack and will work their socks off to make sure your children are where they should be at each tested milestone. We’ll have to because league tables, Progress 8, Ofsted.