To possibly hold my child back a year in school to catch up

[Daisywoodstr]

Our child started reception as one of the very youngest, if he'd been born 3 weeks later he would be in the year below. He is now finishing Year 2 and I feel like he is struggling a bit to keep up both academically and socially. He really tries but I can see the maturity level is different to most of his friends. I feel because of this he is more susceptible to being picked on, Which ive witnessed , e.g older ones running off on him etc. I would like to explore having him repeat Year 2, possibly at a different school to give him a chance to catch up and mature in line with his peers. It seems still quite early. My brother repeated year 2 due to a mix up with his application he was in the wrong year and it didn't do him any harm, in fact he is very successful.
DH doesn't think this is a good idea and feels he will have more stigma and confidence issues repeating a school year than just letting him continue on as he is. AIBU? Has anyone been in this situation and how did it play out?

Not all private schools would allow this. But maybe if they aren’t full.

It's worth considering but also consider how your son may feel in a few years. My daughter (summer born, now in year 10) really struggled in her early years of school, she was actually put on the SEN register in year 2, she could barely read or write and was quite behind. She quite rapidly caught up between year 4 and 6 and is now predicted to get some really good GCSE results. I had really worried that she would never be able to achieve a C in maths or English let alone any other subjects.

I was recently talking to her about how she used to struggle and that I could have potentially deferred her and she was fairly horrified and thanked me profusely for not doing it, I can imagine she would have been very resentful had I made her do an extra year.

I think it's a good idea to do it at that age if you can. A friend of mine asked to when her child was that age and the school brushed her off,.no she will be fine. A few years later, she's not fine and the school finally agreed with her - she's redoing year 5. Just no way she'd have been ready to move on at the end of year 6, but now it's really obvious and noticable and she wishes they'd let her do it when she asked years ago when the children wouldn't have thought much about it.

Someone will always be the youngest and all deferring and holding back does is widens the gap between the eldest and youngest to advantage your own child (in the absence of a compelling reason) so YABU

She repeated year 1

Another thing to consider is that some secondaries won't 'recognise' the repeated year and he might be moved straight into Y8, missing a year of secondary education and a year where he can find his feet in what he wants to do next.

I am a school governor and this is definitely something we have to consider when presented with deferral requests. Good luck, OP - I know you want what's best for your DS but this may not be it.

We are doing this my dd will be repeating reception. I was unsure initially but school explained it is best for her

We did this with my son who is 31 Aug…. But not until yr 5 which he repeated. He was at a private school though and the decision was based on many factors including recent dyslexia and processing diagnosis and testing to move up to the senior school. It worked really well for my son in some ways - repeating year 5 helped bed in some core knowledge, however we ended up moving schools a year later and he went “back” in to year 7 (still independent school) so effectively did yr 5 twice, skipped year 6 and then went into year 7 as part of his original cohort but in a new school. He is still the youngest in the year. Many factors went into that decision - the ability of the new school to “catch him up” through dyslexia support and tutoring, the timing/location and what worked for us as a family, the fact my son (despite being the youngest) is v tall/big, and v important for him now he is 16….sport….which is his life. If you’re out of cohort, you will struggle with school, county, regional, national sport at a high level. Eg if you’re in yr 11/5th form then your “year” is u16 - but if you’ve been held back a year, you can’t play in that team as your classsmates will be u15s. So you have to play with the perceived year above (not your buddies) and fight for your position in that team/manage timetable clashes etc. this was something g that would have impacted my son hugely but wasn’t really clear at the time

Are there any schools locally with a combined Y2/Y3? Combined year groups are not uncommon in small, often rural, schools. Such a class might let him move up with his age group, but still repeat some Y2 material?

Changing year won't help him get picked on less. If he feels things keenly and can't keep up with the older boys in the year it won't change, he will just be the older kid who still feels things keenly and still gets picked onz but now the kids doing it are a year younger.

Presumably he's in a state school, class of 30 or so, possibly with a 2-3 class intake so maybe 60-90 children? If it were me I'd talk to the teacher, work out which are the 'gentler' friendship groups and do some aggressive play dating over the summer with these people. Or ask to move him across into one of the other classes.

Would a school with mixed year groups be better?

Then you’d need make sure that the state secondary will accept the year change. Don’t just agree it with the private school and hope for the best.
I know they generally have no issue with deferrals from reception, but would want it confirmed that they’d have him go into year 7 a year “late”.

Yes I would because these foundations teaching them how to learn are essential and unfortunately the curriculum is so tight there isn't time to go back and help them catch up.

This is something I know a fair amount about. How easy it is depends a) on the feelings of the head teacher about it. B) how friendly your local authority it with regards to summerborn deferred entry.
if A is a no-go, you may want to consider changing schools, but starting in the year below.
also, prepare to come across plenty of ill-informed professionals

Why are you focused on changing situation (moving him back a year) rather than helping him deal with the situation? You say he’s happy to go to school - a few months of tutoring to boost his academic confidence with some work at home on his confidence and he’ll be fine.

Being picked on can happen to anyone and if he was older in the class you wouldn’t dream of moving him back a year.

@Daisywoodstr How is he with the school work? I know you say you'd move schools but by year 2 he's going to be fully aware he's repeating that school year. Would he be bored or frustrated doing it all again? Is moving him and getting him to adjust to a whole other school, set of kids, repeating the year he's already done better than keeping him with the familiar and working on areas he's finding more difficult, if he's largely doing ok?

My son is one of the older ones in his year, but due to autism he can come across quite young and something struggles socially. We've been working with the school and helping to build his confidence and teach him more about the dynamics with friends or how to handle the "not nice" behaviour and he's been doing pretty well!

I know children who have dropped a down a year/repeated a year and it's been fine/really positive experience. I'm sorry you weren't able to defer the start of reception, as this would have solved everything.
Absolutely move schools and drop him down a year if you feel that is in his best interests.
My DD is a mid August birthday but went straight into Y1 at 5 (not reading/writing). She had brilliant teachers who worked with her and she soon caught up/overtook peers. She is absolutely fine in the year group she is in but wouldn't have hesitated to make changes if it was in her best interests.