To think the US system if repeating grades is weird?

[llamajohn]

Like you could repeat 1, 2 and 3 and be what? 12/13 in the 5th grade (peers would be 8-9) - how is that helpful to anyone?

It is incredibly rare these days that a student in K-8 is not passed to the next grade. Consideration is given to the social impact of losing peers and the stigma of being held back. Students are often given summer school or additional tutoring instead.

older students absolutely have to pass their classes in order to get credit. They have grades/years, but they are largely irrelevant. Students end up mixed together across ages quite often because many courses are not linked to year at all. For example, any student can take Art I. but if you don’t pass year 9 english-language-arts, in year 9, you have to keep taking it until you pass. It is a required course to graduate.

It’s normal where I come from in Europe. I think the limit is to repeat the year twice. You can also skip a year or delay start time by up to one year.
The children I knew who were held back once or twice ended up finishing education around 15 (primary school finishing age in my country-this was back in 1997) and going on to do technical education and gaining non academic qualifications. Some are doing very well as adults.

I see where you're coming from, but I think it ignores the wide variety of reasons why children can 'fail' a year. It might be a kid who has been ill and missed a lot of school one year. Or, more commonly, teenagers whose hormones are all over the place, suddenly refusing to put any effort into their schoolwork once they're 14/15. These kids don't have learning difficulties, but for whatever reason are not keeping up in school. In my experience (not from the US, but from another country where kids do occassionally resit a year), holding these kids back a year can help them catch up. Of course it's always a trade off - for example if a kid has been ill a lot teachers might decide it is more beneficial to keep them in the same year group as their friends, rather than having them resit a year. Especially in primary, that flexibility is usually there.

From my younger days, I know a couple of kids who repeated reception year, and a handful who had to repeat a year in secondary school (often the final year after failing their final exams). In all of the latter cases there did not appear to be an underlying reason for struggling with the material, just typical teenage behaviour & not putting in the time required to study for exams. All passed their final year at the second attempt and subsequently went off to uni.

My school used to do this, back in the dark ages, but it was a private school. I remember one pupil being held back in the first form for two years running, in hindsight I'm surprised her parents didn't just take her out. They also used to put new pupils into whichever class they felt appropriate for their abilities, rather than according to age, so that in effect some people skipped a year or two. The ones who were kept back tended to leave after GCSEs, although that wasn't universal.

It's not just the US. Lots of countries do this. Though as PP have said it would be extremely rare to fail more than one year.

When I was at school there were also separate remedial classes if you weren't able to keep up with students in your year. It worked out like intense tutoring and in my opinion works better than having everyone in the same class at the same time as seems to be the case in England.

My experience is upper primary, so it may be that you’re right about secondary (by which time many if those who move through primary with the highest levels of SEN may well have moved to alternative provision). Thinking about my current class, none would benefit from ‘doing the same again’. 2 absolutely need alternative provision (working around 4 years behind, for reasons that will not change with age. At least one other , probably two, would benefit from alternative specialist education focused on autism but with subject content at or above age level. 3 more would benefit from specialist dyslexia support / provision, but are academically capable of accessing the curriculum for the expected age group with this support. Several would benefit from additional challenge while remaining socially with their age group. Two need additional dual language education but with it are capable of accessing the age group curriculum. One needs acute MH support.

But as I say, none need to ‘do the same again’.

Children in school repeat exam years in the UK too.
You can also repeat the year at uni.

Where I live on the continent this is the norm.
Very common in the 14-18 age bracket.

In my child's class there will be 7 fewer students next year because they will be repeating the year.
It sounds awful, but when the compulsory curriculum includes the study of subjects such as maths/ foreign languages to 18/19, you can't pick and choose topics here and there. They build on what has been learnt the previous year.

It gives the majority of students who repeat the chance to actually understand and those who progress, the chance to move forward rather than forever having to wait for those who are behind.

It is however within a system where there is a choice of school systems which include a very varied selection of both academic and vocational courses. The standard of maths required in a school which specialises in tourism and hospitality, or agriculture and horticulture say is not the same as one which specialises in STEM.

Do you KNOW the systems in most countries?

I lived in a European country as a child. If you failed a year there, you resat the entire year - that was the system.

My father (Scottish) repeated a year - albeit a long time ago - cos he was a lazy arse who never applied himself. Don't think he learned anything from the experience, like, but there's always one.

I repeated year one it did me no harm.

Honestly it makes so much sense.

What doesn't make sense is a 15 year old sitting GCSEs that they will struggle to get 2/3s in, when they could just take them a year later and have a better chance of getting some 4s.

It's not a level playing field because a child living in poverty with 4 siblings and only one parent at home may just not have the support they need to do well. Compare that to a child from a dual income family with maybe 1 other sibling and lots of support.

Out of interest, would you be comparing an 18 year old graduating American High school against a British 18 year old doing maths a level, or against the average 16 year old doing maths gcse?

I.e. comparing age group or basic arithmetic level at the compulsory level? Same with English.

I think repeating one year wouldn't be an issue - there are already big ages differences in UK classes between the child born on Sept 1 and the one born on 30 Aug. Also it seems to have become more and more popular, at least where I live to have "joint" classes so half year three, half year two etc.

Same with moving up a year which I understand is also a possibility in other countries, it seems to make a lot of sense rather than allow the brightest kids to grow bored and disruptive.

However more than a year or two, and particularly things like when you have 14 year olds going to uni, I could see being a problem.

My DS was adopted at 3, summer born so started school at just 4, still struggling with everything that had happened in his life pre-adoption. He was always two steps behind his peers academically and emotionally, he never had a clue what the hell was going on, he never caught up.

I ended up home schooling him in Y8, when he was in KS3, gearing up for GCSEs. I discovered very early on in home schooling that he didn't know all four sides of a square were the same length and he didn't know his times tables at all, including 2x.

Some of the blame fell on me as a parent, but at home I was more concerned with his emotional wellbeing. I was letting school look after the academic side of things, I just tried to keep his anxiety at bay so he could function at school. I was aware he was behind, but still shocked that he got to Y8 without anybody flagging up to me just HOW FAR behind he was. How did that happen??

Depending on the state there is a maximum age for free public school. It ranges from 18-22 yo so that generally will be enough for someone to graduate from a traditional high school.

If someone ages out then they have the option for a private school (if they’ll accept them) but more likely they would transition to a GED program

The GED, which stands for General Educational Development^ but is also referred to as a General Education Diploma, is a set of tests that when passed certify the test taker (American or Canadian) has met high-school level academic skills. https://www.collegetransfer.net/AskCT/What-is-a-GED#:~:text=The%20GED%2C%20which%20stands%20for,high%2Dschool%20level%20academic%20skills.^

In France it's common to repeat a year and also common to skip a year.
Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. I think the system of getting children to progress together by age at all cost here is terrible. I know one child who repeated a year here and it worked out great for them.

It is not that the children are with their class and then at the end of the year they're informed that they need to repeat the grade. Parents will be involved through out the year and the children will get additional support and if it is apparent that they need something different then that is provided. If they missed school due to absence or due to lack of maturity and effort then repeating might help. It is also not a black and white system where people just keep repeating and 15yo are in school with 11 yo. It is a collaboration

In my state, there are certain requirements for graduation in terms of courses that have to be passed to be a high school graduate. It is less than a full schedule of 4 years, but it will include things like 4 full year courses or ELA, 3 math, 3 science, 1 art, etc. The school district can add on additional requirements about course variety. For example, our district has a substantial technology requirement.

If you don’t get all your credits in all the required categories, then you can’t graduate. I believe the deadline is age 21, but I’m not sure. It’s not something that happens very often in our wealthy area. Students don’t tend to have the out of school stressors that prevent learning and I can attest from utilizing the services for my child that we have excellent special needs support.

The alternative is that a person can get a GED. Any adult who is old enough to have graduated from high school is eligible to take an exam instead. It is not as highly regarded as an earned diploma, but it is much better than not having any kind of credential.

Yeah, nobody repeats first grade and second grade and third grade. I’ve never heard of anyone who repeated more than one grade in a normal classroom setting.

I grew up in the States and went to highschool there. It was a modular system, so you needed to pass a certain number of classes in core subjects to be able to graduate. I changed highschools when we moved house after my freshman year, and the new highschool had a different expectation for core subjects to graduate, as a result I had to take a summer class to catch up. Summer school was a common option for kids who weren't passing core subjects; I don't remember coming across anyone who was actually held back a year. Maybe one or two people at most.

To add on to what others are saying. There is a lot of opportunity to make up and retake individual classes to gain credit once you are in HS. So it’s not that common to be held back a year by that point.

So let’s say you fail a semester of 10th grade history class. You would advance to 11th grade but then the next year you would take 11th grade history + retake a semester of 10th grade history. There is generally space with your elective courses to fit this in. The other option is that school’s offered some classes a summer classes so you could retake that 10th grade history in the summer between 10th and 11th grade.

There are kids who come up on graduation who don’t have enough overall or core credits to graduate, and they may come back for another year. But more likely they’ll finish in either an adult HS program, GED, or Summer School.

The max age generally comes into play for kids that are held back in the elementary grades and for HS age kids who have immigrated (maybe with little formal education or who are learning English)

Because work has to be differentiated for different DC. It's not the case of there being a set level they have to know to pass.

8-9 is usually third grade, fifth grade is 10-11, and occasionally 12 year olds.

While far more rare, holding back or a school pushing for entry into a lower year group does happen in the UK. In the cases I know of, it was for children who had missed significant amounts of education mostly or a couple cases of families couldn't provide evidence of education who applied for entry to Year 10 by age where the school pushed for Year 9 entry. We also have schools with in with internal alternative provision where KS3 and KS4 children are being taught KS1 skills - and there is a massive growing need for this. All systems are trying to find ways to manage the issues around age not automatically meaning capability.

Many early schools in the US and elsewhere had children of different ages learning together and people passed up grades upon completion of testing, not by the calendar, and resources for additional support and spaces are slim so repeating was the most practical option.

It has grown much less common in the US the last few decades, as more places ban the practice for all but final year students, who may be required to repeat some classes or tests to meet school and state standards (though they may be encouraged to go the GED route instead, and may be required to do after a certain age). It's why there are so many US teachers complain about 'socially passing' children who have failed or school district policies refusing to allow children to be failed, the bans usually are implemented with the explanation of the social impact on children, though evidence-wise there is little support that simply repeating a year improves outcomes for most children without adding in additional support. I don't know of any school district that would enable 3 years of repeats, they'd usually then be moved into special education or alternative education routes well before that which works very differently in most districts I know. It's not unusual in some districts for those with significant additional education needs who can't be in their own grade academically to be in the same classroom with the same teacher the entire time they're at the school for academic or sometimes all subjects, so their actual grade doesn't matter that much.

There is no one US education system. Even within the same school district, it's possible for different elementary schools to have different entry requirements from birthdate cut off to developed school readiness skills (some kindergartens require kids to come in and demonstrate their skills before they can have a place). Different high schools, while having to meet state and local standards, will have different graduating requirements which can change each year. When I graduated, the grade before and after me had different state tests that had to be passed, and every high school in the city had different course requirements. There are state and local standards for content, but the curricula caries widely - I started high school at one where the maths were separate (Applied Maths, Algebra 1, Geometry...) and moved to a school where it was an integrated maths system more similar to the UK. There is also a growing trend in areas with local colleges or universities for high school students to do both high school and uni classes - some high schools even put university classes in their options for students now who can test in those programs.

International education studies do show that the US requirements in English and Maths for simply graduating are low compared to many other countries

I wouldn't argue that the US graduating standards aren't lower, it's fairly well known, it's why the US college system has general ed requirements and such a large community college and adult education system.

I would argue that international education studies have a very difficult time comparing very different systems and tend to rely on things like time required in education and state-required content for things like graduating requirements. This is why many countries, like all the nations of the UK, have bloated and pushed content down the curriculum in a dick waving contest among nations. It's similar to how nations including the UK changed the definition of how literate the population from how many can read and write to the amount of the population that has a certain number of years of schooling - it's not quite the same thing, but it's easier to compare. The US has also joined in on this dick waving, just more slowly.

More isn't always better. I personally prefer a lower level of content prioritised and focused on for general education that most of the general population use and can show they have attained than a higher level of content that give schools little breathing room and most are failing for little reason other than bragging to other countries. There is always a balance to be struck, but the US's 87% graduating with a high school diploma - requiring enough to pass 20-30 subjects well enough - does stand in contrast to less than 50% of English kids get a strong pass in English and maths GCSE. That schools can be rated good with 15% of kids meeting what is meant to be the basic standard boggles my mind.

Also common where I grew up.

IMO the benefits are twofold:

• Children get to learn/firm up assumed previous knowledge they will need to move further up the years.
• Children learn the value of responsibility and hard work - if you don't put the work in you'll have to bored hearing the same stuff again next year and still put the work in anyway. If you struggle a bit more than most, the sense of achievement when you get that pass is huge. Both things stay with you, and are a good thing.

Good to see so many posters agreeing that it would be a good thing in the UK too. The current system here is abysmal - and I am stupdily naive, as it never occurred to me that it could be about saving money!

That doesn't really happen any more.

A child who was struggling that badly would have an IEP and would be promoted along with his or her age cohort, possibly mainstreamed, possibly in a SN classroom.

Special Ed provision in schools in the US tends to be streets ahead of what is doled out parsimoniously in the UK.

There are vocational schools that those children can go to instead, so they start learning a trade and take core subjects to the equivalent level of the compulsory secondary school exam. It’s an option used frequently for those who are in danger of repeating a second time, or clearly don’t have a shot at passing the final exams.

There are of course special needs schools too, for those who do put in the work, but will never be able to achieve the minimum requirements in a normal state school - they are not judged by the same standards in this case.

There is a clear difference between children who genuinely can’t (SEN, etc) achieve the same level as their peers, and children who won’t because they don’t put in the effort. Of course the system isn’t perfect and some students are failed by a lack of assessment or an inadequate one, when trying to determine which group they belong to.