Supporting my son who is repeating reception class

[Welshy221]

We are happy for our son to repeat reception class, but have had little support on how to tell him apart from being positive. Any experienced parents/ teachers willing to give advice please.

Is there any particular reason why? If so, I’m assuming this isn’t a reason to share with him?

Does he like the teacher/TA? What does he enjoy doing? I’d be trying to highlight the positives he sees, rather than what you hope he will get from it.

It’s certainly a very unusual situation.

Id just focus on transition - this is who your teacher etc will be next year and this will be your classroom. See if the new intake are coming for a visit and try ensure he is included.

Why is he repeating it? Even at age 5 you have to be honest in an age appropriate way.
is it going to cause problems as he goes through school? Will he miss another year at some point to rejoin his peers or will he just move up to comprehensive a year older than everyone else?

What about sports in and out of school, in things like rugby will he have to play with his own age group (they grow a lot in a year) so maybe think ahead to things like that.

In my experience it’s fairly unusual for a child to repeat a year. It’s only ever happened twice to me in 20 year of teaching. Both of those children had developmental delay and significant SEN. This being the case they were not really aware that they belonged to a specific year group and that they ‘should’ have changed classes.
How aware will your son be that his peers have moved class? Can you just tell him - you’ll be in Miss So&so’s class next year, isn’t that great??? You can still play with your favourite……. Will he have a sense of being ‘different’ or ‘left behind’??

Assume this is a private school, otherwise very unusual and you may need to think about senior transition.

It depends on the situation- if it’s due to missing school for illness and treatment then it’s for making sure they have the chance to do all the fun stuff he missed.

If it’s due to learning difficulties - if he is summer born I would say you had the choice to send him to reception a year later, and think he would much prefer to be the oldest than the youngest, and promote the positives of maybe being bigger & stronger at sports day etc?

I'd have been so happy with this. And tell him that, too. That he/she can stay and play a bit longer for a year and practice everything he's/she's learnt.
I don't know why everybody got sp stuck on the fact that it's unusual, that wasn't the question.

If it hasn't already happened, you need to ask about an Education health care plan (ehcp). Just make the most of him staying, say that he will get to keep the same teacher and make new friends. I assume he can still have play dates with kids from his current class and will see them at playtime? What does he like about school? Maybe focus on bigging up that part?

Yes my son has social and academic developmental delay, has had past trauma and is an August birthday. Both my partner and I are teachers and like you have been in the profession for over 20 years. Again it is very rare to stay behind but this is definitely the right choice and all teachers and senco agree he needs another year to learn how to play. But we are worried about how to bring it up.

Keep it low key. Act like this was always the plan. Explain he will have new friends arriving in September and he can look forward to playing with them. Don't over complicate it for him.

Forgive me but bookmarking, as this is something that may become relevant to our family

My son repeated year 2 - in fact the transition was fine as he was developmentally more on a level with the kids in the year below and it enabled him to have more class time and less time stuck in a room by himself doing catch up work. He has had a great year. Next year he is going to an Sen school with a split year class and on paper will revert to his normal school year (this is in his echp) but had this not been the case we would have been happy for him to stay with his repeated year class. Repeating gave us a breathing space while we were applying for an ehcp. The school managed the transition last summer by letting him go on trips with and spend time with the class below to get used to them.

We explained what our GP had told us, in an age-appropriate way. The GP said a child who needs to repeat, and doesn't, will keep struggling in school year after year. A child who does repeat gains by it, both academically and socially. We seemed more affected than our DC, who just thrived in their repeated year, and has ever since. The age-gap is not a problem, either, which is great.

Good luck, OP. We were really happy with our decision.

If it’s the right thing, do it. I’ve taught two children recently in secondary who repeated a year. One was new to the country in year ten, and repeated year eleven. One had mental health issues which resulted in low attendance which led to repeating year seven.

Oh as he is an August baby then really it could be a bonus year - he is lucky enough to get to do it twice because he is so young, he can be a friend to all the new children who will be a bit scared and he can show them the toys and where to sit etc.

My son repeated reception. He was one of the youngest in the class, but also young for his age and 18 months behind socially and with things like fine motor and speech. He was upset about the idea. I spoke to him about how people are ready to do things at different times, and he was one of the youngest and needed a bit more time to be ready for year one. That his teacher and therapists all wanted to make sure he was ready and that this was what he needed. I also spoke about some things that he could do that other kids his age couldn't, he's great with mental maths, how the other kids weren't ready for that yet, they'd be ready when the time was right for them. I spoke about challenges I had and his siblings had.

He didn't want to repeat and I know the first few weeks back at school it upset him a lot to see his old class mates lining up in front of the year 1 classrooms. After a time he made new friends and stopped asking why he was repeating. It worked really well, he was ready at the end of his second reception year. We did a lot of targeted therapy though to get him there.

Something to consider, ask the school what they're going to do differently this time to get him ready for year one. Not just repeating and hoping he'll naturally catch up in that time. Some children won't narrow the gap even with significant therapies and supports, for others a year of development might be sufficient, but it's much more likely to help narrow the gap if the relevant issues and lagging skills are targeted by the school and any therapists you have. With my son it was things like helping him him to develop basic social skills, to enter social interactions, encouraging him to speak in groups, lots of praise when he did his work at all even though he didn't meet all the task requirements, then slowly moving those goals forward once he was doing those things without help.

Thank you for your wise advice. At this point in time we don't think our son will understand our explanation of what is going to happen in September, but think the first few weeks will be very tough when the penny drops. That's great advice to ask the teacher what the action plan will be put in place for him to be ready this time next year .. many thanks.

My year 1 child complains about there being fewer toys and less time to play in year 1 so I would just say it’s so he can have more time playing.

If possible try and arrange so meet ups and parks and soft plays which his new classmates.

Hiya, our son has repeated reception, hes april born so not particularly young for his age but has always been a slow developer, crawled, walked, talked late etc. We then had the added bonus of lockdown where he got very little preschool, with both my husband and I working still full time we weren't able to offer him much schooling (plus we had little idea what we were doing!!). So far it's been the best decision we made, he had no confidence last year, hadn't really made many friends and was struggling all round. This year he's so much more confident, and has made some nice friendships. Academically he seems to have caught up. For us it was the right decision. The way we explained it to him is similar to what other people have said, "we all are ready to do things at different times" but mainly "all the teachers choose who they want to have in their class and you are so lucky you were chosen by xyz" he seemed happy by this. I think some of the children teased him a little, and by teasing i think they were just asking him questions or curious so he was a little upset but seems to have taken it in his stride. I didn't want him struggling through his school years and to enjoy it as much as he can which I think we are a far better place for that to happen. :)

Honestly my sil simplified it to her ds saying that you had to be 5.5 ( what ever age) to be into year 1 and he wasn't that age yet..
Dneohew accepted that pretty easily

I have a family member who repeated reception at a private school who is now grown-up. I think August born is probably ok in your situation as the difference won't be so great.
However anything earlier in the year I would certainly question about whether there are other ways in which the child can be supported.
Repeating a year - especially in the UK - can have life long consequences.
I think some private schools use this as a lazy way of avoiding dealing with issues and shifting the problem onto the parent and at worst the child
In my relative's case, there were no academic issues, in fact they were very advanced, but it's clear now they are probably neurodiverse in some way and were a little behind socially.
Unfortunately my relative has felt it was very much a defining experience. They felt they had failed and got the message loud and clear that there was something fundamentally wrong with the way they interacted with the world at a very early age. They were also the oldest for everything, it made 11+ options tricky and some awful teachers used it as an opportunity to humiliate them if they struggled with an aspect of learning or development.
I would advise people on the thread to really interrogate the school about whether this is the only option for their child and think about state options.

Hi runningpram,

Can you elaborate on what these life long consequences are in repeating a year? My son is currently repeating reception, it would be good to know what might be coming down the pike.

Repeating is the norm all over America and Europe. And most countries allow discretion for parents of summer born babies. UK system is positively anarchic. Time to move with the times.

@user1479588581
@AuroraCake
Life-long might be a bit much to be honest. But certainly long-term is accurate.

I think the issue is that while retention happens in the US and Europe this situation is not at all the norm in the UK and it doesn't really happen all in the State sector.That meant my relative was constantly having to explain their situation, right up until sixth form and these questions were really difficult to answer. No child/teenager wants to admit to having social/learning difficulties and have talk about themselves in those terms again and again. It's also extremely difficult as a young child to tell an adult or older child to mind their own business.

There were issues at 11+. They wanted to transfer to a grammar but couldn't because of being in the wrong age group.

Then, there were the constant flow of small issues that over time eroded their self esteem. If they struggled with something compared to others in the class it felt worse because they were already a year behind so should understand. Or if they did well, it was because they were at an advantage because they were a year ahead. Plus, the odd horrid teacher that would make my relative say their age out loud to the class as a way of humiliating them. My relative felt his excellent GCSEs didn't really count because they were the same as those of kids over a year younger and some had done better.

Also I would say do not underestimate the psychological impact of telling a child of 4/5 that they have failed on some level - even though you, of course, don't use those words. At such a formative age it does stay with them.

Although things were a better socially initially, once they got to secondary the kids in their class had caught up and social difficulties became an issue again - so it didn't really solve that area either.

I'm not saying my relative's experience is universal and it did take place in 90s, so things may have moved on now. For late Summer born babies - I'm sure it's ok if handled well. Also if there are a number of children in the same class experiencing the same situation than it's a bit more digestible.

But I think for someone born May/April and earlier and the only one going through this situation it really is worth thinking carefully about whether this is a long-term solution.

The point I want to make is repeating a year is not the gentle option it might appear. It's a sticking plaster that might seem ok for a year or two. But it's really not going to be a long-term solution if the child has ASD or some other form of neurodiversity or just needs some support with catching up in a few areas because they are so young or due to external circumstances like lockdown.

I strongly would advise you to ask the school what other support they will give your child before taking this option.

^^ completely agree with everything said here having known people in similar situations.
Also knowing people who've been moved up a year encounter similar problems when moving to secondary school!