10 yr old boy - move up a year or not? Any experience?

[Flamingoose]

Ds is one of the oldest in his year. We live in a country with a degree of flexibility over which school year your child is in. I chose for him to be an older child in the lower year rather than one of the youngest in the higher year.

He's bored. He's getting disruptive. We're having problems where we never have before. Partly this is because he's 10 and flexing his wings a bit. Partly this is because the schooling here is pretty shit; overcrowded, underfunded classrooms; disruptive children; no resources; no parental involvement.

He has one more year of primary school left. It will be his third year in the same classroom with the same disruptive kids and the same 1982 copy of the Guiness Book of Records. I'm considering moving him up to highschool early.

But moving kids up is a bad idea, isn't it? Especially boys. He's quite small physically. He'll be at a disadvantage with sports, which he loves. It would be a short term gain for a long term disadvantage.

But one more year of learning nothing in his crappy primary seems like a terrible idea too. His friends are a terrible influence. His teacher is lovely but ineffectual. His love of learning is being squished out of him.

But then if he's making bad choices at primary then he DEFINITELY needs a year more of growing up before heading to highschool where the kids are bigger and the temptations are worse.

I'm going round in circles.

To reiterate - he is entitled to be in either year. He wouldn't be 'moving up' exactly. Both years are available to him. What would you do?

I'd move him - another bored year could disrupt the whole of his education?

I was thinking you should move him until you made the point about small and sports.

Is there a cunning plan C you could construct? I’m no help. Sorry.

I suppose cunning plan C would be either to put him in private school for one year? Or move to a better school zone? Both pretty drastic. And both leave him having to settle into a new primary for the final year.

It isn’t worth applying to transfer to a different primary that you may get into that also feeds into the secondary?

Could you honeschool for a year. Clearly being at primary school is doing more damage than good.

Which country are you living in out of curiosity?

Are all the schools shit? What’s your plan for secondary. Is it any better?

We've tried to transfer but the good schools are so oversubscribed we've not had any luck.

Have also considered homeschooling. We can't afford for me to quit my job tbh. Even if we could I'm not sure he'd be very happy at home with me every day.

I think I will go and speak to the highschool and see what they think. The head is a nice guy and likely to give honest advice.

The schools in the better areas are fine, but we can't afford to live there. The highschool is not brilliant, but better than where he is now.

What are the private options like?

I have an intelligent bright small sporty chilled who is young in his year. I think he would be better off in the year below. Sporting wise, he is at a disadvantage and socially, it is also challenging.

Can you not talk to his teachers and ask them to give him some work which stretches him?

Forgiveness - this is EXACTLY my worry.

SixHoola - yes, she does try to challenge him. But she has 30 kids in a classroom, 6 of whom are very disruptive or have special needs. It's a triumph to get through the day without incident. And he's not exactly an angel - she gives him a harder worksheet but he doesn't say thank you and quietly sit in the chaos doing it. He 'loses' it and bunks off with his mates, none of whom are expected to do their work.

The more I think about it, I think the solution lies in finding somewhere for him to be next year, and then move to highschool the year after. There must be something we haven't thought of. A private school or a special school or... something.

Regarding sports, doesn't the high school split into teams by age, rather than year group? When i was at school (a while ago!) I was a year young for my academic year but in sports was placed in the correct age team i.e Under 13, Under 14, etc so competed in reality with the academic year below me usually. Until you get to 2nd and 1st team level, then it was on pure ability, not age. Don't they do that in high school where you are? That might negate tje sport worry.

Even if they do split sports by age, it still causes an issue because you are then not training and playing with your class mates.

I disagree forgiveness, it was great, I doubled my friendship group!

I think I would try to find a way to see out the last year of primary knowing that he can start afresh in high school.

Are there things that he could get involved with out of school that would offer him a different bunch of friends, something to stretch/challenge him and encourage different behaviours - sport, music, something academic, clubs, groups, scouts...

What response do you get when you talk to him about this? Does he want to move up a year? What are the rewards for good behaviour? At 10yrs I'd expect him to understand that his current behaviour isn't acceptable and to talk about how you might work together to resolve it.

Can you Not move? I’d do anything to get my child out of this situation. In fact we did. We moved to a different country purely because the schooling where we were was as you describe.

I think it is very bad socially for children to be in the wrong year group, especially if they are physically small. This is based on having had 3 physically small children go through school, a brother who only grew post GCSEs and a father & husband who were both put up a year and small. School is the only time when size matters, the rest of your life you can choose what you do. To be a very small boy in an environment where there are 18 year olds who are 6’4” and weigh 95kg is scary. The boys who go through puberty first are usually best at sport, again this is based on observation rather than scientific evidence.

If the country where you live allows going up a year, I would definitely do it. Especially the children in the year is a bad influence and your ds is bored. If he was born few days/weeks/month, he would have been in that year group anyway.
Only thing I would consider is, can he cope with disadvantage of being youngest, may not be the top of the year group academically, or physically small compared to others.

So is he actually educationally prepared to move from year 5 into year 7 (Or whatever your local equivalent is)? Leaving aside the physical aspects and the fact that he appears to be bored, will he actually have covered the basic stuff in all areas that the high school will expect him to have done in preparation for their first year? Will it improve his school experience (or his behaviour) to find that there are chunks of the curriculum that he hasn't covered)?

Presumably you are somewhere else in the UK other than England, since perceived wisdom is generally that absolutely anywhere else in the world, the education system is better than ours?

Could he move up to High school and then potentially repeat a year later on? I had a friend who was in an overseas country and had two of her kids up a year. Again the school was relaxed about it. It was a mixed success. Good academically, difficult socially. This was a good school though. Well, small, privately paid, independant school no government or church funding or guidance (which in my opinion was good in that country) with small class sizes.

I was moved up a year. So was my nephew. My advice, esp at that age, is really don't do it.