Pupils re-sit a school year - start year later as per mainland Europe?

[Fizzydrinks123]

I understand arguments against not re-sitting a whole academic year and was on board with this during March 2020 etc

However, my concern is the emotional impact this is having on the young - they know they've missed out on lots of social as well as academic development.

Is it right to just move them on to the next level of their education knowing they've missed out on so much and expect them to step up to more demanding work?

In mainland Europe it is usual for children to start school a year later than here in UK.

I understand university may be adversely affected due to funding - but the kids currently at university aren't happy paying out £9,000 and asking for refunds.

Am I being unreasonable to suggest re-sitting an academic year is seriously considered?

The new variant is so much more contagious that there will be more uncertainly ahead until the summer.

Are the current Year 6's really ready to go off to senior school? It would seem better they go back to junior school they know and re-sit that year and prepare to move on to secondary school the following year?

Why not make it optional? It is possible with increased funding. Post war they did lots of rebuilding, including hospitals.

For others a better route would be FE colleg for retakes before choosing a technical or uni course. Re-organising courses to allow part-work, part study - with a good online offering for flexibility.

Also if you are thinking that suggesting resitting a year will take the pressure off in terms of parents wanting kids back to school now, oh my god you are so wrong.

People want their kids back in for a multitude of reasons, not just because they might be slipping behind academically. It's more because they need it socially and because our economy is based on parents being able to work when children are in school.

Why not make it optional?

If you make it two tier it becomes a stigma and a two tier system whereby probably the lower ability kids parents drop them into the year below, away from the friends, while their high ability peers coast on. Really demoralising for the kids, in fact.

Noidon’twatch - having the two tier is not ideal, but massively outweighed by:

1. higher funding as more kids in education for longer (some of whom would be negatively affected by being held back)
2. harder to teach kids where the disparity in knowledge is really high because of inequality during lockdown down

It’s not going to be a big stigma because lots of kids would be offered it. If they do want to move with their friends then that is ok, but they have to weigh stuff up. I also think increased funding for summer school could help fill in gaps.

[quote Fizzydrinks123]@bogroobogof - same as mainland Europe - children start school a year later - so new business for nurseries to expand into space.[/quote]
school might start a year later, but many countries have mandatory kindergarten/preschool before that.
which sort of reflects reception year in uk, just (usually) in a less formal looking way.

@Fizzydrinks123 we still hired new graduates in our sector last year and have a new person starting this week.

We would struggle missing a full year of new graduates as we are a specialist core science sector.

Not rtft, but an extra year of preschool for my 3 year old would financially cripple us. We planned our second child based on only having to cover 2 nursery fees for 18 months, any more is impossible at £18k a year. Unless we're going to be given free childcare for that extra year we can't delay school.

but then won't there be lots of unemployed from hospitality sectors, etc that might be willing and able to retrain?

In my experience plenty of people, either trained in early years straight from school or as a career change later, decide it's not for them. Sadly many people think it's about playing all day! Which is precisely why early years staff are so undervalued. Your heart really has to be in it- people certainly don't stay for the money!

I'm not sure it'd do the industry or the children any good to be staffed by people who are only there because nurseries are suddenly desperate for staff due to children having to repeat a school year, and they're desperate for a job.

We need a constant stream of newly qualified doctors, nurses, teachers, midwives etc, to replace the hundreds of thousands who retire each year.
No kids leaving school = no university students = no graduates for a year.

This would require providing funding to schools and other educational establishments. Our government do not like to do that.

It doesn't really make sense to talk about "mainland Europe" as if there was a homogeneous education system. Kindergarten in Germany is not obligatory and children only learn to read and write after starting school, normally at the age of 6.

Whether it would be better to raise the school starting age in the UK should be seen as a separate question and not a solution to the current problems - it certainly shouldn't be brought about rashly and without adequate preparation/capacity-building.

Holding everybody back this year thus can't be the answer, and in a lot of cases it would be unnecessary or even counter-productive anyway. However, I agree that introducing some more flexibility and giving children the choice to repeat a year so they don't struggle to catch up for years to come would be helpful.

I think last year's exams debacle (shortly to be repeated) demonstrates that you can't change one part of a complex system at short notice without massive knock-on effects, some of them unpredictable.

I don't know what the solution is but it's definitely not Saturday school! I taught it a state school for a while that had Saturday school (because some courses were taught at their partner independent school. Attendance was woeful.

One poster has mentioned they carnt hold their 4 year old back a year due to them being advanced. Their child hasn't even started school yet. The priority has to be the needs of all the year groups who are in school and who have missed a huge chuck of their education not kids who haven't even started yet.

We carnt fail an entire generations of kids just because a few 4 year olds MIGHT get bored waiting an extra year to start school.

@Marzipan12

We carnt fail an entire generations of kids just because a few 4 year olds MIGHT get bored waiting an extra year to start school.

We also can't lose millions in working parent/new graduate taxes and a full cohort of trained professionals.

Sorry, make that billions.

This shouldn't be about working parents, this should be about the failure of kids in the education system. The new cohort of professionals you mention need their education aswell. Sorry but you carnt fail an entire generations to appease new parents? It's a pandemic they will have to manage like the rest of us have had to.

I think the issue with Saturday school, as I've seen pointed out on other threads, is that it takes away from time for children to pursue individual interests in the community.

I get this, but come on--we are talking about educational loss which could cause huge increases in inequality.

UK society is being very Disney Dad about educational losses. Everything that might get kids back on track-shorter summer holidays, shorter other holidays, Saturday school, longer days, cut out fun activities and teach more intensivelyis being written off on the grounds of mental health, "that wouldn't be fun" "But my kids LIKE going horse riding on Saturdays" etc.

The COVID situation in the UK has got so bad, in part, due to a tendency to keep choosing the option that's easy right now and keep kicking the can down the road. The thing about viruses is that they snowball when ignored. It's not so different with educational loss. When kids miss out big chunks and don't master fundamental skills of the current stage that they are on, it makes it harder for them to master the next stage, and the whole thing just starts to cascade.

I just feel like having one really tough year (or 18 months), accepting longer days, weeks and terms and just grinding through the work, would be better than long-term educational failure for many or most of the poorest kids. And teachers are going to have a much, much tougher time in the next decade if educational loss gets really entrenched. Imagine the range of attainment levels you are going to get within a single class---it is going to be an absolute nightmare to teach.

If repeating a year must happen, leaving back selected kids ONLY might be a better option. Stigmatizing, but being stuck at the bottom of the bottom group is pretty stigmatizing as well.

@Fizzydrinks123

It's not just about whether academically behind - it's social and emotional development - in fact is equally as important and why I don't home school prior to lockdown - I want my dc to experience life outside the home.

Home Educating prior to pandemic was outside the home. Home Ed children attend many social groups, sports , classes, workshops at museums , park meet ups. We don't keep them at the kitchen table. Home schooling during the pandemic is no way a reflection of the how the Home Ed community works. They are very socialised in many many ways.

I am depressed because it's hard to seen teen DS engaging & keeping up with A-levels. He could stay engaged with the daily structure of physically attending college and interacting in familiar routine ways; but at home we can't stand over him most hours daily to try to help him engage the way the college wants. He won't accept this support from us. The college will kick him out instead.

Clever hard-working kid but he's odd and not self-organised -- Hope I'm wrong & he's not example of perfect casualty of the educational disruption.

Yes the option of a deferred year might give him another chance.

@Marzipan12

We carnt fail an entire generations of kids just because a few 4 year olds MIGHT get bored waiting an extra year to start school.

It's not a case of getting bored, it's the fact that pre-schools, nurseries and childminders don't have the capacity for another year group.

I was responding to a poster who said her child couldn't be delayed entry to reception due to boredom . Sorry but the education of every child already in the school system comess before children which haven't started yet possibly being bored.

But what would the incentive be for kids to engage with a catch up/core subjects year if you take away everything fun? More likely to turn them off education altogether!

lljkk is UpLearn available in any of his subjects? Even the free trial might get him back on track.

Maybe the answer is to add an optional year on to senior school , so children most at risk of gaps in their education affecting their GCSE / A level results have more time to catch up. Adding capacity in sixth form / other adult education settings to accommodate it & providing those children an additional year of publicly funded education may be easier than everyone repeating a year.