year six child staying back a year

[frannyzooey]

Any advice anyone about what to fall back on if my son's head refuses to let him repeat year 6? He is being assessed by the ed psych next week and I plan to give the head a letter beforehand listing why I feel he should repeat. The school is aware he has emotional problems due to a previous bad relationship at home and he is only working to level 2/3 in all subjects. I am worried from what the head has said to me informally that he will not hold him back.
Can I appeal to anyone? Take it any further?
I want to be prepared so I don't stand there looking silly in the head's office! That would bring back memories!

I am not sure that Y6 with its focus on SATs is the best year to repeat. To be honest it sounds to me as if your child's current school isn't really meeting your son's needs. I would say that you may be better making sure that he gets sufficient support at secondary school as a fresh start may be what he needs. Do know of several children who had seemed "stuck" at a particular level at primary school but whose progress has really accelerated in Y7.

sayi,
thanks that is encouraging, I do think that emotional problems should be enough grounds to change tack with a child's education. Let's hope the ed psych sees it the same - meeting on Wed!

hockeyforjockeys,
i was told in reception to wait and see, then when we moved schools when my son was 9 i was told it would be ok, and i really don't want to wait around anymore and take the risk that secondary school will be a positive change. what if it's not a positive change?

Franny - you really need a two pronged approach.

Fighting for him to stay back a year is fine.

But you also need a plan for how best you can prepare him for secondary in case you don't succeed.

An update people - ed psych saw my son before half term and said she personally would not recommend he repeat as he was not far enough behind academically. I have not had any feedback yet from the head on my 4 page letter listing all my reasons. He says he is trying to set up a meeting with the Senco, but she was off sick on Mon and Tues. Every morning he says a pleasant hello which suggests he is not planning on letting me down! Next week is consultation - how am I supposed to discuss my son's progress without any feedback yet?

I would consider very carefully about keeping your DC back a year. We did this with DD but we were in the independent sector so no issues with the LA. I think it caused more problems than it solved.

DD was a July birthday and Dyslexic. She had emotional problems due to being bullied and lost all confidence. We moved her in year6 to an independent school and kept her back a year to try and give her breathing space to gain a bit of confidence and enable her to do a bit of catching up academically. It had a mixed Y5/Y6 year group anyway.
She made good progress(for her) and moved up to senior school still 1 year group below.

But she was still at the lower end of that year group, whilst being the oldest. This caused problems because she was out of place. She gravitated towards girls in the year above ( her true yr group) but the fact that she was still behind those in the year below made her feel even more "stupid" ( sorry, not my word!) this only worsened as she got older.

She did manage to gain good GCSEs ( again, for her, we never measured her against anyone else,) and she did go on to a fabulous college for FE BUT we have had a terrible time with her since. She has dropped out because she is now 18 and everyone else is 17. She has had enough. She never felt she fitted in anywhere.

So, in brief, keeping her back a year was a bad choice. It damaged her psychologically and only served to highlight her difficulties. It sounds to me that by keeping your DS back a year he too, would still be a low level for the year, and as you already feel he has made little progress at that school I cannot see why you would want to keep him in that environment any longer. I would suggest that moving up to senior school, along with many others who are at his level, where they probably are used to dealing with children at his level would be a better option.

Oh and if Maths is your prime concern, do try to find another tutor who is more suited to your sons particular difficulties, who can just work on consolidating the basics, it sounds like your previous tutor wasn't up to much.

downnotout, thanks. I will give it some thought. Maybe I'm deluded, but I thought as my son is physically quite small (he looks like a yr 5), and emotionally pretty young and naive, he might not feel out of place staying back a year. You said yr DD was bullied, etc - would you say when you made the decision to keep her back she was quite young for her age?
That has been one of the things that has really reassured me that it would be good for him.