To think kids should repeat the school year

[Everythingnotsaved]

I am starting to think that if there is any more lockdown, kids will need to repeat the last academic year or really be disadvantaged down the line?

I am pissed off enough that private schools mostly got full online teaching which already shits on social mobility but any more will really be a disaster.

Aibu?

in all but formal naming it "repeating a school year" it will happen. depending on the size of the class it will take weeks to reassess who is at what level and what material has been understood. and yes some material will not be fully covered or may be omitted entirely as a result.

They probably should, but what about reception year? Two lots starting at once- the class sizes would be huge for 12 years+.

Yes. If there was the money (there.wont be).
Mine would be more than happy picking up where they left off. 13yr old has muddled through at home. 11yr hasn't done a thing, huge meltdowns over school work so I gave up after a while.

Every child has certainly not been in the same situation.
My Dd is year 10, she’s been working hard & we’ve helped as much as possible, she’s doing ok.
Her best friends comes from what could, at best, be called a chaotic household. She certainly hasn’t been given help, she’s lucky if she’s allowed to use the computer/internet once a week. This is a child whose mum won’t buy her sanitary towels (I know this because I buy them & Dd gives them to her) the school are aware & tried to get her into school during lockdown - mum wouldn’t allow it. Some children have it much worse than this girl.

You’d need the government to fund a massive expansion of the nursery provision so that those due to start R this year continue to get their 30 hours’, rather than being pushed out into nothing by the incoming three year olds and their 30 hours.

Seeing as they can’t even fund the thousands it’s costing each school to adhere to their cleaning regimes, I doubt very much they’d be willing to sign themselves up for an extra school year per child in the U.K.

Everythingnotsaved
there are plenty of students who, because of the months of strikes and the pandemic, who would very much like to repeat a year actually.

I don't know any students that want to pay to repeat repeat a year because of lecturer strikes and the virus.

I do know that various universities are preventing students from deferring a year because the universities can't afford to lose anymore money.

Especially with the loss of external students.

None of the suggestions of repeating a year or changing the school year to run Jan-Dec are workable in a few weeks.

Nurseries, schools, colleges and unis would all need to be involved in discussions and planning. It would take months, if not years, to organise and agree on

Children with sen frequently miss months or years of schooling due to forced part time hours or having no school place and local authorities provide little or nothing in place of a school place. If they eventually get a school place they do not get extra education time to make up for what they have missed.

So what about my year 6 child who has now left primary school? Does he just go back and do another year, he passed the 11+ in October and has been waiting for all this time to go to high school. He’s be devastated if he had to go back to primary, in fact I wouldn’t make him. And what about my nephew, who has just got his first primary school uniform, do we just say “no sorry, back to nursery you go”. Oh and another year of paying fees for his parents who can ill afford it.

What about the children who have made their A level choices and are ready for the next stage, and children/ young adults who have secured university places or apprenticeships.

It just wouldn’t work for any of the transition year.

Surely kids starting reception (in the nicest possible way) aren’t that important in the big scheme of things but for older kids, there is way more impact especially secondary kids.

Maybe not, but then there wouldn't be enough nursery spaces for children under primary school age and therefore lots of parents would need to resign. This might include teachers, doctors, nurses and other crucial jobs.

And when exactly would school get back to normal and kids start at the correct age and leave at the correct age if everybody was to repeat the year?

I could be missing the point entirely, we don't have any school age children in the house. But is 4-5 months of school really that important in the grand scheme of things?

I had a 99% or higher attendance record and looking back on my education the only thing it feels like it was useful for was passing exams that allowed me to progress onto the next set of exams. Obviously there is a certain amount of numeracy and literacy skills which are essential. But I find it hard to understand how the loss of 4-5 months of schooling will have a huge impact in the long run?

I'd imagine it will cause alot of stress to individual children who feel under prepared for exams. But again, there are work books for each of the exams which you can pretty much memorise and still pass the exams. And from memory each level didn't really build on each other. Biology for example, every year when we started they pretty much went 'Forget everything you've learnt up until this point, this is how things actually work'. That carried on all the way up to degree level... So I do wonder how much impact the second half of this school year will have on next year.

Plus presumably everyone will be treated the same when they go back. I know that in our local universities for example everyone is being given their course average for the year or their exam average, whichever is higher. If schools do something similar then everyone should do ok in terms of exam marks and then next year is a fresh start.

Lockdown wasn’t until March. Easter and half term would have been 3 weeks holidays. In reality they missed about 10-12 weeks. By the time you’ve factored in practically no teaching in the normal last weeks of terms, school play rehearsals and exam weeks, they probably have about 7-8 weeks worth of content, so no, I would want them repeating a whole year - they’d be driven demented. My kids’ school did a pretty good job of providing some live lessons, narrated powerpoints, and homework so they may be a bit behind where they should be, but only by a week or two and they can catch that up easily enough. It would be better to fund tutor support for small groups of pupils who need it to help them catch up.

I don't see why they can't change the school year so it starts in January...then from September to December the kids can repeat the term and then move up to the next class in January.

@Frazzled13

Surely kids starting reception (in the nicest possible way) aren’t that important in the big scheme of things but for older kids, there is way more impact especially secondary kids.

Maybe not, but then there wouldn't be enough nursery spaces for children under primary school age and therefore lots of parents would need to resign. This might include teachers, doctors, nurses and other crucial jobs.

To be clear, I'm not saying it wouldn't matter if people in non-essential jobs had to quit (I would probably be one of them), just that it would have a lot of wider societal effects, not just individual ones.

Repeating a year is neither feasible or helpful to most children.

What would help is if the govt decided to considerably adjust end of key stage expectations for next academic year and adjusted public exam content to lessen the impact of months off school on disadvantaged children.

I can't get worked up about privately educated children. They'll be running the country in 20 years time even if they sat at home playing Roblox for a year now. It's the other 90%, specially the vulnerable and were just about coping children, who need our attention.

My nephew is due to start school nursery in September. He needs it. Another year without it wouldn't be great for him. The same goes for many children due to start reception.

Teaching will need to change next year to accommodate what has happened during lockdown. Repeating a year isn't feasible.

We had 14 weeks of school closure plus 3 weeks of school holidays up until out July school holiday.
Some schools may have done an extra half week at the end of term (ours were already planned to be INSET and staff had already done the time earlier in the year.)

So just under 36%, or just over a third, of the school year.

For those doing GCSEs and A levels (or equivalents) this is a significant amount of lost time.
For the others, whilst important, it is less of an issue and can be caught up on longer term.

I don't agree. My child is due to start reception in September and is very ready for it. Completely outgrown pre school.

@formerbabe

I don't see why they can't change the school year so it starts in January...then from September to December the kids can repeat the term and then move up to the next class in January.

But how does that work with Universities or are you suggesting everyone moves to January?

Never going to happen.

formerbabe - because it requires a massive structural change, and will affect exams, university and college entrances, apprenticeship schemes, school start changes and therefore nurseries and childcare provision, and more.

Repeating a year is neither feasible or helpful to most children
moderate evidence?
It has worked for many in Germany, especially when it is voluntary (freiwilliger Rücktritt) as opposed to mandatory (sitzenbleiben).

No they will not repeat.

There is always a disparity in what pupils receive at private and state schools - that's why parents pay for a private education and all the additional opportunities it provides over state school. However, this year the gap is larger.

Some state school gave a good online provision and some were poor sending just a weekly email or worksheet.

Let's hope schools return in September without teacher strikes (some on here have suggested they will strike) and with good cleanliness and no national lock down in school education can continue as best as possible.

In an ideal world everyone would catch up on all the things that they missed during the pandemic, but it's completely unworkable and impractical for children to repeat the school year. It's really an unprecedented situation and everyone just has to suck it up unfortunately.