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.

"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"

This is not true for all kids though. Some kids are just a likely to have issues from being kept back a year. We should adjust expectations for kids who have struggled and give them targeted support rather than waste extra funds on keeping everyone back a year.

Schools are generally good at this already as most schools have a wide variety of abilities within each cohort. I have worked in a nursery school and volunteered in a primary and have the utmost respect for most teachers. Given the correct support from parents, government and the wider community together with an appropriate framework to work within I am confident they will do us proud.

Well you don't have to call it staying back a year, more deferring the end of school by a year and then it's up to you how to fill that time, I guess some kids could skip ahead, others could do broader curriculum stuff, some could go back over what they've missed

It's the same idea as yours really but just with a bit longer to do the "catching up"and a different default expectation

[quote Mumski45]@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.[/quote]
Can you point me in the of this evidence?

I thought that the research actually showed that starting school later meant that during the first few years the late starters are 'behind' but by age 12 all cohorts are achieving similarly.

And it is true that countries where children start formal education at 6/7 do have early years settings and learning through play.

Anyway personally this could be achieved but would have a lot of negative impacts IMO.

My kids would not benefit from repeating a year - especially my yr 5 child - she would find it intolerable! And my secondary aged child has coped well with her work. So for us as a family I don't like this idea.

Perhaps allowing greater flexibility and choice to individual children is a better fit?

Teachers are good at differentiating , but social development and mental wellbeing will also need to be taken into account.

If schools still have the same targets to achieve next year, will there be extra pressure to get all pupils to get to these targets. Children who have missed a large chunk of KS1 will they be ready to KS1 SATs. How many parents worry about their children 'failing' the phonics test.

Yes children in Primary school will have time to catch up, and some won't need to, but there must be measures in place to help those that do, and maybe accept that there will be more children working at a lower level for some time.

8 months may be long enough to retrain for basic nursery work but we will need staff at all levels to cope with a whole cohort of children not going to school.

I cant see university lecturers (the group with less to do in this scenario and losing jobs because there is a "missing" year) wanting to retrain as nursery nurses.

It takes a lot longer than 8 months to get enough experience to manage a good nursery. Parents will want to work if they can so even providing enough wrap around care would be tough and to what end.

And why would we put ourselves through that upheaval if there is another much more efficient option. Surely the focus should be on letting kids move on as normal and allow the staff who are already very experienced and in place make adjustments as necessary

@longestlurkerever

Well you don't have to call it staying back a year, more deferring the end of school by a year and then it's up to you how to fill that time, I guess some kids could skip ahead, others could do broader curriculum stuff, some could go back over what they've missed

Do you think kids are daft or won't know they are repeating a year?

But even getting the idea past kids, it still leaves the issue of what are you doing with the extra year of them?

How are unis and work places going to deal with not school leavers?

@LazyFace

Agree with nursery years being extended. The early years are way too demanding for many children. Long hours when they're 4 and their brains are barely capable of processing abstract concepts like letters and numbers.

I'm bloody hoping it'll happen.

Who is going to pay for another year of nursery? Many of us have to use more than the 30 funded hours. Where would the nurseries fit another cohort of children?

@ineedaholidaynow

Teachers are good at differentiating , but social development and mental wellbeing will also need to be taken into account.

If schools still have the same targets to achieve next year, will there be extra pressure to get all pupils to get to these targets. Children who have missed a large chunk of KS1 will they be ready to KS1 SATs. How many parents worry about their children 'failing' the phonics test.

Yes children in Primary school will have time to catch up, and some won't need to, but there must be measures in place to help those that do, and maybe accept that there will be more children working at a lower level for some time.

I agree entirely. Targets need to be rethought as it could take a few years for some children to catch up. Expecting it all to happen in a short space of time would be fine for some kids but overwhelming for others and a nightmare for teachers.

A more structured and thought through framework to get us back on track is needed together with a realistic timescale.

Can you imagine having 12 year olds at primary school?
My dd will only have been 11 for a week when she moves to high school so still wouldn't be 12 even if they repeated the year. Many children obviously will be the same. And yes, I can imagine a 12 year old at primary, can't imagine what the horror is.

I dont think logistically this is possible but I'd like it to happen so they can catch up emotionally and educationally to all they have lost

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

Who are all these extra people who want to train as nursery nurses? There's already a massive shortage in my area.

Do you think kids are daft or won't know they are repeating a year?

I just don't see deferring the end of school as the fundamental punishment that you do. Remember the world of work is going to be difficult - the economy might benefit from allowing the previous cohorts to get themselves set up with jobs etc before releasing another cohort of kids into the mix. There would be impacts yes, I just think the benefits outweigh the cons. But it's OK, we disagree, that's allowed. No one is accusing anyone of being daft.

As for staff, there are more people with "less to do" at the moment than university lecturers. But yes, nursery provision would probably be compromised a bit - you might have half a day of education and half a day of childcare only, but then you'd get an extra year of it so it probably comes out in the wash.

I'm not saying these are definitely the solutions, I just think they are potential workable options that need thrashing out, consulting on rather than dismissed out of hand.

It won't happen

Who are all these extra people who want to train as nursery nurses? There's already a massive shortage in my area.

There are 1.72m unemployed as of today and the graph is showing a steep upwards curve. Nursery nurse hasn't traditionally been a stable, well paid career option compared to others and so hasn't always been attractive but again, this isn't an immutable fact. Things can change with enough imagination and funding.

To those saying it's too late and it won't happen, I think that greatly depends on whether all pupils get back in the classroom before Easter.

Now I'm in favour of that, I wanted mine back straight after half-term. But if the closures were to extend beyond Easter then it actually becomes hard to see how they won't at least alter summer and autumn term dates, if not instruct everyone to repeat a year.

My DCs attend a city primary currently in special measures, there are so many children who are going to struggle emotionally and socially on return to school, never mind educationally.

It wouldn't be too late for admissions in that you just defer places. We'll find out on March 1st which secondary my Year 6 DD has a place at. We wouldn't need to apply to admissions all over again, just hold her place for September 2022.

Is very easy to say there are a lot of people who need jobs at the moment and they could retrain as nursery nurses. However leaving your child in the care of others is a very emotional prospect. You need the right temperament and social skills to be a nursery nurse and parents won't leave their young children in the care of someone they don't trust and they don't need to.

Let each age group go to the appropriate setting for their age which already exists and adapt what is expected to something realistic in the circumstances.

The buildings and the staff are already in place it's the content that needs to be adapted not the environment.

"Is very easy to say there are a lot of people who need jobs at the moment and they could retrain as nursery nurses. However leaving your child in the care of others is a very emotional prospect. You need the right temperament and social skills to be a nursery nurse and parents won't leave their young children in the care of someone they don't trust and they don't need to."

Yes of course, I am not saying all ofte 1.72m should retrain as nursery nurses. But there is a pool out there that could be recruited from.

My area had primary as yR-y3, and y4-y7. This became an issue when the National Curriculum and Key Stages were introduced and we standardised in line with the majority of the country. In y5, we were told that we would leave at the end of y6 and form a double intake with y7.

Our secondary school had a couple of years notice to recruit staff and expand with a mass of temporary huts to accomodate an additional year group (and also a growing roll from 6 form intake through 7 to 8)

As it happened I moved areas, was 6 weeks away frim completing infant school in y2 and was mentally ready for juniors then found myself in y3 still in juniors. Then never did a final year of juniors as the usual y7 opportunities like the residential or prefect places weren't opened up to us. I remember some years later, my beloved form tutor saying that prior to us starting, not only were we a year younger, we also didn't have some of those developmental experiences, and different schools prepared us differently. Our head teacher decided to teach us French a year earlier to prepare us, but that was largely repeated in y7 because not all schools had.

Repeating a year is logistically unfeasible down the chain (staffing, accommodation)
It's also emotionally and developmentally impractical. Pupils have been mucked about with enough. Also, it's not one neat school year, it's dragged through two year groups with some recovery time in the middle. While I worry about my children who loathe home learning (one with SENs) it's not helpful to hold back and under-stimulate those who carried on progressing.

Adjusting more superflous curriculum requirements, and funding and resourcing support is the more practical answer.

Maybe, particularly for GCSE/ A-Level progression, summer schools could be set up- not extending the term, but externally based with teaching/ college staff opting in to run units with students booking in to specific areas where they have omissions.

I would much prefer a repeat than the idea of "lowering expectations", what is meant by that? Skipping some topics?
How is that possible? If repeating the year or doing summer school is such a challenge, how easy it is to rewrite the whole curicculum?

I think my children would go absolutely ballistic if all their hard work over two lockdowns resulted in them having to be bored off their skulls and sit through the whole thing again because some people couldn't be bothered to stop playing x-box or get out of bed.

@PigggieABC I didnt start secondary school until year 8 where I lived, so year 7 was still in junior school.

I doubt they will repeat years as there will be empty years and what will they do with children waiting to start nursery and reception? Pay for parents to stay at home longer?

I wouldn’t see a problem with it as many other countries start their education a year later than us anyway, and a lot of them do much better than us in international comparisons of educational standards, but I think it’s very unlikely to happen.
In absence of this they need a much more comprehensive catch up plan, I believe that many of their interventions will be to support only the most disadvantaged of children (who of course should get as much support as they need) but that the majority of children will have significant gaps that simply won’t get plugged and will be at an academic disadvantage for many years.

@zoemum2006 that is quite judgemental

Some schools must miss topics anyway if they do 3 year GCSEs, as surely they can't teach KS3 curriculum at the same time

I dont get the problem with the ages of kids, there is a year difference between children in every class already.

It wouldnt be so bad to keep 1st year uni students in for another year, they missed so much too. In many countries you graduate at age of 23, it is not end of the world and there are no jobs for all graduates anyway, but it is too late to think about that for the final year group, they are about to finish now.
Then you have incoming reception class, this is the biggest challenge imo.

I think it is just not possible, but I strongly feel they year needs to be extended. It is possible to add 4 weeks. 3 weeks in Summer and 1 at Easter for example.
Money can be found for that as it was for fourlough.
The only problem there is with teachers time off, i cant think why parents would complain, we are not going anywhere, are we?
So how to get techears and school staff to work for extra 4 weeks? I would extend Feb half term to start with, to 3 weeks and offer financial incective for the other two.
Yes I would prefer time off in the summer too, but we are in pandemic, we need to be flexible and sacrifice everything, right?