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?

Also worth mentioning that this is a country that doesn’t start specialising in terms of subjects as early as the UK. I believe this is the case in most of Europe?

All subjects must be studied to age 16 (including a minimum of 3 languages), then between 16 and 18 you do “specialise” but that means that instead of 10-12 subjects, you drop down to about 8.

In my region, at the A-level stage of education, we had to take 3 languages (2 of them with literature), history, philosophy, maths, and a basic science module (plus my school made PE and RE compulsory in the first year). On top of that, you have another 3-4 subjects from your strand. Biology / chemistry / physics / comp science if on the science strand, Latin / Greek / art history / geography / economics etc if on the humanities strand, and on it goes. There is also an art and music strand I believe.

The sheer amount of subjects studied all the way up to the uni admission exam, means that students really must have a grasp on at least 50% of the content taught, otherwise it’s impossible to keep up.

In most US schools from middle school on through high school (6th to 12th grade), students are placed on tracks according to ability and interest. They work at a level that is appropriate for their ability and style of learning, and can choose elective subjects they are interested in while still doing the subjects the state and the local school district require for graduation.

What this means is that a student in their freshman year in high school doing advanced/ honors algebra might have classmates who are aged 18, and advanced algebra is their final mathematics class after four years, where they started at remedial level as freshmen. There can also be freshman students sitting in calculus II class with students aged 17-18 because they have Russian parents started algebra at age 10. These kids will do engineering and comp science Advanced Placement courses for their remaining years of high school or can do further mathematics courses too, sometimes through local universities.

Or a student who can barely string a sentence together will do a remedial level English course that emphasises grammar and sentence structure in freshman year and progress to increasingly challenging courses, with elements such as spoken work poetry included to make the study of English relevant. They will probably not end up sitting in class with students who are on an honors/ literature analysis track from freshman year on.

My local high school offers multiple tracks for English and mathematics, and also several tracks for science. Students end up with a very individualized education.

Yes to this.

Summer school can help a student to advance and skip a year or a semester, or it can be used to redo a class that a student has failed. One of my DCs did summer school mathematics two summers running to get on the AP Calc track. She essentially did six years of high school mathematics.

Many high schools offer significant academic support to struggling students. Monitoring of grades, work handed in, and participation in class is always ongoing thanks to the GPA system, so redoing a course in summer isn't always the only option.

Students can often drop out of a course and hop aboard another within a window at the beginning of each semester.

Do you not think each school year should have a minimum set level that the child should know at the end? School is for education

Its a lot better than having kids finish high school not knowing how to read.

@Oopa
Education doesn't mean knowing a set amount of facts. It means being able to analyze material you read, hear, or see, form and express a coherent argument using evidence and drawing on rhetorical principles, and make connections between different disciplines.

I only know one kid who was held back a year in my elementary school in the US. And I know one kid in my kids school here who was held back. So not sure if it's more common in other areas?

I taught in a country which did this (not USA). It works pretty well. The kids are not in a class full of people several years younger than them, because many people repeat years (and some skip years) so everyone will be the same age to start with, but the more you go up the school the greater the range will be.

I knew a couple, but it was more of a case that they transferred into a private school and was placed in a lower year. The other case was a kid in my 3rd grade class who was going to held back and parents transferred him to a public school to move on.

I almost transferred to a private religious school from public in 10th grade but it would have cost me an extra year because I would have been too far behind on religion credits.

But answer the question… I think it’s not as common as it was in the 80s/90s and earlier as there was a big push to social advance kids.

I went to an American school and had a 22yo in my 12th grade class. I don't know many years they. Can keep trying but you can't graduate without the requisite points ie classes passed. The GPA system is harsh.

Is / was there a strong link between family deprivation and repeating years? It does seem to me to be a mechanism for further entrenching advantage ‘you have good family support, a stable home and educated parents - of course you move up. On the other hand, you come from a less advantaged background, you are vulnerably housed, your single parent is working all hours to keep food on the table - you have to repeat a grade’. Is that something we want to entrench? Does it help younger pupils if you have a concentration of older, bigger, disadvantaged, possibly disengaged pupils as part of the same class? Does it impact behaviour?

How are children with very spiky profiles, e.g excellent at Maths but poor at literacy; excellent reader/writer but dyscalculic, managed? Do you progress at the rate needed for your strongest area or your weakest? Does repeating a grade show a measurable improvement in weak areas while still allowing progress in strong ones? How are eg school sports teams (or anything ‘age related’) managed?

in early years students are often very spiky anyway. Schools aren’t holding students back often. Every grade has mixed abilities even with age grouping.

most sports in elementary are not linked to school. They remain based on age, not grade.

at the high school level, you don’t have to pass all your classes to advance. You can take 9th grade math over and over again and you will still be a 10th, 11th, and 12th grader. Summer school is going to trigger at that point though. Our school will also let you take some of your credits at the local community college, which is harder, so generally not an option chosen by someone struggling, but if they just need a different approach I could see it working.

School sports are primarily at the high school level and they are grouped 9-12 by skill. So yes, 14yo can end up competing with 18yo.. Some sports just have one team. Some have a varsity, junior varsity, and some even have a beginners squad. There are eligibility rules that prevent 5th year seniors from participating in most sports leagues so you won’t end up with the significantly older students out on the football field.

Students also have to maintain a minimum gpa to participate in extracurricular activities at most schools. it’s is not purely punitive. Some activities are incredibly demanding in terms of time . If a student isn’t passing their classes, they can’t really afford to dedicate the hours required to play a sport or to compete on the debate team.

That must be really tough for children or young people for whom eg dance or drama or music or sport is ‘their thing’, if academics is not - again, a double disadvantage where their area of relative high ability is denied to them by their area of low ability. It’s interesting, for example, that a UK conservatoire - very high grade music, selected by audition - has very minimal academic requirements (the 2 Es ir equivalent required for funding) to acknowledge that musical ability does not always parallel academic ability.

And it seems to have an underlying message that ‘nice things are only available to those who not only try hard, but do well’ - ie an philosophy that low academic ability is a student’s ‘fault’, which can be overcome by ‘trying harder’.

Is it a student’s fault that they cone from a family background of relative deprivation? That they have a specific learning difficulty? That their genetic inheritance or birth experience means that their ability is for sport, or music, or art, or dance, rather than narrowly academic?

Actually UK is in the minority. Most countries have the repeat system. I’m from an European country; my stepbrother had to repeat yr6 twice. Sure, he’s in the minority to repeat the same year twice but repeating a year once wasn’t that uncommon. An alternative was parents to secure tutoring for the subjects the child struggled with so that the child can pass the year but most didn’t bother.

It's not helpful, it's stigmatising
But the whole way they grade....which is typically on a bell curve as I understand it, is not really objective or particularly helpful...especially in determining of you can progress. And I have heard from several people that standards are lower. British students at US universities find the first 1-2ys to be very basic I am told

I went to a school where we had to pass each year-end exams before being allowed to progress into the next year group.

Are the requirements to repeat a grade universal (ie not school-dependent)? Or might a child be required to repeat a grade in high-performing school A but progress normally in school B?

I was held back a year in my French school in the mid 70s. From. 4-11 I went to French, US and English primary schools. Different systems, different age cut offs. Sometimes I "redoubled", sometimes I went up a year. I eventually landed in an English secondary comp age 11 in my "correct" cohort.

Interesting to read the EEF’s ‘take’ on this:

Here

Studies seem to show that pupils who repeat a year actually make less progress than similar students who don’t (rather than catching up) and that it entrenches disadvantage.

It’s interesting, for example, that a UK conservatoire - very high grade music, selected by audition - has very minimal academic requirements (the 2 Es ir equivalent required for funding) to acknowledge that musical ability does not always parallel academic ability.

This is the case everywhere in the world and makes total sense. Musical ability and talent is recognised this way, not just awarded to anyone. Academic ability should be recognised in the same way - qualification not just automatically earned by everyone.

Are you asking if there is a standard across all schools? In the US, in the state?

I think you have to remember and it’s been said here. There is no national curriculum/standard. There may be a statewide standard but not necessarily. There are standardized tests to see how students are doing in relation to students across the country and state but that has no bearing on their advancement.

From school to school there is not a universal requirement. I gave the example of transferring into a religious private school and would have been held back due to religion credits. If I had transferred at a grade lower and 6 months later decided to transfer back to a public school I would go back at the original level.

The point I was making was in response to a poster above, who said that extracurricular activities in some US schools were explicitly not available to pupils who were not reaching specific academic standards.

Which is obviously ridiculous, as by limiting eg orchestra or drama club or dance or football to those who were doing well academically you are denying potentially gifted pupils the chance to do ‘their thing’.

Don’t get me wrong - in the UK, the message to all children in the high level football/ dance / music etc schemes is ‘do your homework- no homework, no football’. So they require engagement with schoolwork, but do not set a minimum attainment level, recognising that not all gifted participants in sport or the arts are also academic.