Making pupils repeat a year

[PigggieABC]

Is this likely to happen?

What would happen to the pre-school and year 6 cohorts in this scenario?

Can you imagine having 12 year olds at primary school?

Wouldn't it be much better to move all year groups up as usual but lower the expectations in each year's set curriculum?

I hope they won't do this.

The younger ones have years to catch up. It doesn’t matter if they’re still behind where they might have been when they start secondary - any year 7 group will always have a wide range of abilities in it, teachers are used to teaching at different levels.

GCSEs are going to need adjusting next year. Next year’s y12 probably need to do a catch-up course to finish the GCSE content in the subjects they’re doing A levels in. And next year’s uni 1st years might also have some extra work to do, depending on degree subject.

But otherwise - sure, they’ve missed stuff. Kids do. Somethings they miss bits of their education because they’re ill, or because they decided not to listen that year, or something bad was going on at home.

Our education system isn’t linear. We don’t expect everyone to be at the same level at the start of every year, which is why we don’t make individuals repeat years.

@Coasterfan I agree with you and this is an important point. There is such a variety in the quality of online provisions and the ability of children to access it efficiently that to treat every child the same and hold them all back a year would be wrong.
Some children won't need any help to catch up and some will need lots. Much better that any resources are targeted to those who need it more rather than spend a fortune on a 'same for all' repeat the year plan which in a lot of cases is not needed.

@LazyFace yes, I think they should extend Early Year’s, make it lot more about social skills and play, and leave off learning to read till year 2.

Logistically it is not possible because of the difficulties at the start and end of schooling.

Universities can't manage financially if a whole cohort delays starting a year.

Schools do not have the space for an entire extra cohort to start in a year's time, not to mention every single primary school needing to take on at least one additional Reception teacher who is happy to be employed only on a one-year contract.

Early years settings probably won't have the space or staffing to accommodate a whole extra cohort.

Better to provide funding for catch-up programmes where needed rather than make every child repeat a year when it won't be necessary for some.

@Coasterfan my boys’ secondary school is not delivering live lessons, but their recorded ones are fine. Being in school would be better. However last lockdown’s were awful - they basically missed a term. Ok for my y8, he’s got plenty of time to catch up. But my y11 has missed about 1/4 of his GCSE courses. It’s tough.

It's impossible. No space for incoming years in primary and an "empty" year in secondary.

[quote JellyBabiesSaveLives]@LazyFace yes, I think they should extend Early Year’s, make it lot more about social skills and play, and leave off learning to read till year 2.[/quote]
Yes. A lot of countries with very successful education systems don't even start compulsory schooling until 6 or 7.

@LazyFace we put babies in nursery for longer than a school day and reception is very play based. I disagree with you about brain development of 3-4 year olds and being unable to understand letter/number concepts.
Kids develop at different rates depending on the individual child and what they are exposed to.
I have 3 children all of whom knew most letter and numbers before they started school and including one who could read quite fluently.

I would hate to see the pandemic used as an excuse to deprive those 4 year olds who are ready of the opportunity to learn at a pace they are clearly capable of. This can be as damaging as pushing a child who is not ready.

My experience of our schools and teachers is that they are generally quite good at accommodating a wide range of abilities and we should celebrate that fact and use it to our advantage when we are is a position to move on.

I don't think they can for many reasons.
Permanent changes to school start and finish years. How do you suddenly get enough capacity in schools for an extra year of kids?

People who have already deferred youngest in year groups means 13yos in primary. Hitting the school leaving age before they sit any exams.

The teaching materials are designed to be age appropriate, they could suddenly be babyish for kids a year older

Can you imagine having 12 year olds at primary school?

I also think the logistics of repeating a year wouldn't work, but I'm highly amused at the idea of A 12 YEAR OLD AT PRIMARY SCHOOL!!! in and of itself is supposed to be shocking/absurd. You do realize that in most countries, primary/elementary school includes the equivalent of Y7 (11-12yos)? I went to a middle school so we went to secondary for Y8. I think the extra year of primary-style teaching was fine for us.

But no I don't think repeating a year is the answer.

Yes. A lot of countries with very successful education systems don't even start compulsory schooling until 6 or 7.

That's a fallacy.

These countries do have nursery and very formal pre-school systems where the children learn social skills, how to behave and learn in large groups and lots of structured play based learning.

"The teaching materials are designed to be age appropriate, they could suddenly be babyish for kids a year older"

I suppose this is part of what is bothering me - I don't feel my dds have matured in the past year in the way they would have done if they were at school. In some ways that's quite nice - kids grow up very, very fast these days, but my dd, who is summer born y5, will be very young to start secondary I think. I'm not convinced she'll be emotionally ready, leaving aside the academics. I just think a year of the familiar - catching up, academically, socially, maturity-wise, would really reap benefits later for our kids, who are facing a massive increase in mental health issues, which were already at very worrying levels. Logistics like buildings pale into insignificance really - you could just make future years' kids start a year later if you wanted to - or be MUCH more flexible about start dates generally.

The teaching materials are designed to be age appropriate, they could suddenly be babyish for kids a year older

I agree. It's more effective and efficient to lower expectations for all year groups next year. As teachers are already amazing at teaching a wide variety of abilities they should be able to fill the gap. I'm also wondering how computer based learning could help fill the gaps. It's much more easy to personalise the difficulty levels for starters. I'm not keen on excessive screen time but the current primary school cohort are so use to games, ipads consoles. Surely there is potential to support learning with these popular technologies?

And secondary schools are currently delivering a full curriculum anyway with live teaching. It would be very unfair making everyone repeat and go over the same teaching again. Best way to disengage young people!

Of course they won't.
It is logistically impossible.
What they will actually do is give schools and insufficient amount of "catching up" cash and expect them to sort it out.
Then, probably in less than 2 years will be criticising school/children/parents and insisting that standards must be raised. After all, if Eton and Harrow can manage it.....

Wouldn't be viable - but would have been really beneficial for my youngest to have repeated last academic year where they lost about 2/3 of it - both in terms of fully embedding the curriculum and actually being able to do decent transition arrangements for the next stage of education.

However would sentence me to another year of the collection of school mums from hell.

Would never happen anyway - they'll just expect schools to pressure cook these kids to get back to their expected standards with possibly a year of lee way before they start failing schools for shitty results.

It's such a complex thing. Kids will grow up just as they always have. I remember as a child with a cousin 18mths younger, I would have been and there being a point when she seemed really childish wanting to play with Barbie and I was totally beyond Barbie. When that was, maybe 11 and 12.5, I'm not sure but it seemed a very big gap at the time.

I think anything is possible with political will but I don’t think holding everyone back would be right. What would be sensible is building in more flexibility, there is such a variety of provision currently and autumn and summer children may well have varying needs though this is a sweeping generalisation and will depend on the individual.

6th form already has funding for 3 years if needed. No idea what’s happening with younger DC but anecdotally a lot of local schools set bridging work this summer and pretty much all the DC I know starting year 12 have coped well.

DS’s college have compared current year 12’s October tests with those of the 2019 cohort who sat A levels and are the highest achieving cohort they have had to date. Current year 12s sat the same papers as previous cohort and have exceeded their marks. As a result College are looking at repeating the bridging lessons on a permanent basis and it does show that for some gaps can be filled .

Others may need more flexibility with progression through the years and it would be sensible to look at this as a possibility for some but not wholesale across the board. It is the time for some creative thinking from the Government and a time to look at education systems in other countries to see if there are ideas they could adapt . Sadly I don’t hold out much hope of this happening.

For every parent wanting the year repeated, another parent is strongly against it.

Exactly.

If my child was expected to repeat a year, I'd pull her out and home educate.

It would be madness for my child, she's not behind at all. But then, I have the time, resources and experience in home ed to make sure she does the set work and extra work on top. Many families don't have that luxury or have a child who is reluctant to do home learning.

It would be carnage fo expect all children to repeat a year. For all the children it would help, there would also be a lot of bored, disengaged children being held back.

[quote Mumski45]@LazyFace we put babies in nursery for longer than a school day and reception is very play based. I disagree with you about brain development of 3-4 year olds and being unable to understand letter/number concepts.
Kids develop at different rates depending on the individual child and what they are exposed to.
I have 3 children all of whom knew most letter and numbers before they started school and including one who could read quite fluently.

I would hate to see the pandemic used as an excuse to deprive those 4 year olds who are ready of the opportunity to learn at a pace they are clearly capable of. This can be as damaging as pushing a child who is not ready.

My experience of our schools and teachers is that they are generally quite good at accommodating a wide range of abilities and we should celebrate that fact and use it to our advantage when we are is a position to move on.[/quote]
My experience is based on my childhood and my kids as well.
Reception is play-based but still too much for a lot of kids.
I'm not saying my home country was better as the system still doesn't allow individuals to learn at their own pace and once they start school, the speed and quantity they're expected to process is ridiculous.
I'm glad your children were reading etc (not being sarcastic here). One of mine was still not able to hold a pen properly at the end of reception and struggled with reading and maths, I was so worried. It was his year2 teacher who confirmed that he'd have done absolutely fine if he just started a year later (by that time I had him assessed for whatever I could).

There's loads of evidence how starting schools early is not good for their development, I'm sure I don't have to tell you that a struggling child will probably struggle for years and perceived as a low achiever by teachers.

@longestlurkerever
"Logistics like buildings pale into insignificance really - you could just make future years' kids start a year later if you wanted to "

No they don't pale into insignificance and no we shouldn't just make kids start a year later.

These things don't just happen. You are talking about creating sufficient nursery space for a whole years cohort at 8 months notice in the middle of a pandemic which would be impossible. Yes we created nightingale hospitals in a few weeks but we couldn't staff them. Would you want to send your baby to a nursery full of inexperienced unqualified staff built inside a conference centre?

We do have an alternative to this sledge hammer approach which is to allow kids to move on and adjust curriculum and expectations accordingly. Use extra funds on teaching and resources not buildings. Target the help to those who need it and let those who don't crack on.

There are lots of benefits but its way too late and if the govt couldn't be bothered to put money into making schools safe so they didn't have to shut, they were never going to be bothered with the logistics of this. Dont forget, their kids are all in private school and mostly unaffected, so why would they care?

@PigggieABC

The teaching materials are designed to be age appropriate, they could suddenly be babyish for kids a year older

I agree. It's more effective and efficient to lower expectations for all year groups next year. As teachers are already amazing at teaching a wide variety of abilities they should be able to fill the gap. I'm also wondering how computer based learning could help fill the gaps. It's much more easy to personalise the difficulty levels for starters. I'm not keen on excessive screen time but the current primary school cohort are so use to games, ipads consoles. Surely there is potential to support learning with these popular technologies?

And secondary schools are currently delivering a full curriculum anyway with live teaching. It would be very unfair making everyone repeat and go over the same teaching again. Best way to disengage young people!

Isn't there a complaint already about the level of education falling behind in England? Changing the curriculum would make it worse.

@lazyface
"There's loads of evidence how starting schools early is not good for their development, I'm sure I don't have to tell you that a struggling child will probably struggle for years and perceived as a low achiever by teachers"

I agree this is sad but true. But the answer to dealing with this issue properly is not to hold everybody back but to allow more flexibility to deal with individual children and their needs. Just like the way to deal with the current inequality of provision needs to be more flexible than just holding everyone back a year.

"Would you want to send your baby to a nursery full of inexperienced unqualified staff built inside a conference centre?"

My kids went to nursery in a camp in a wood in a middle of the cityw. Yes,obviously the staff with a cafe for lunch. Yes the staff were experienced but there are a lot of furloughed people out there and 8 months to retrain them. Or you could just offer half a day at nursery like used to be the case when my dd1 was that age and childminders/nannies/childcare bubbles do the wraparound care. As I say, not impossible. Difficult, yes, but not impossible.

To all that are in favour of repeating a year, what happens next year and the year after, I would be surprised if this is the last lock down we have to deal with.