Any positive stories about children repeating a year of school please?

[abroad]

My son will be 5 next week and is nearing the end of the equivilant of his reception year at the International school he attends (we live in Holland). We've just had the 5th and final meeting with teachers at the school and finally decided that he will repeat the year due to social and emotional development issues (basically he is immature compared to his peers and needs another year to play before entering the more formal year one equivilant).

I would be worried with whatever outcome from the meeting i.e. just as worried if he were moving up to year 1 but I do need some positive stories of any children who have repeated a year of school with success to make me feel more sure of my decision.

One of my big concerns is that he is a big strong boy who will look like a big giant in reception - I just hope they put some dutch children in his class as they are big too!

My friend at uni repeated a year when she was 10 (she was dyslexic). she felt it was absolutely the right thing for her. She has an Oxford first degree and PhD, so it set her up well in the long run

Thank you TotalChaos! The teacher of my son talked about her brother repeating a year when he was 10 also and now he is apparantely a multi-million pound business entrepeneur!

I don't know if the two are linked but it makes sense I suppose that some children need a little more time to acheive their full potential...

my husband redid a year of kindergarden. i would have never guessed this on him as he is highly adept socially and is also brilliant (biased dw that i am), and is also succesfull at what he does.
also i know his mother and was very surprised to hear that she 'let' that happen (she is a very strong opinionated and convincing woman)
my mother also redid grade 3 (age 9) because she moved countries, she is also well adjusted.
There should be no problem, make sure you let him feel that it is nothing unusual.

I repeated a year when I started senior school (late August birthday...got a place in the senior school but they wanted me to redo Year 6 in their prep dept due to my age)

Did me absolutely no harm, now have an MA (Hons) and a PGCE

If I had not have repeated a year, I would not have met my dh in 6thform!

Thanks Dreamymum - thats just the kind of thing I need to hear this evening!

nell12 - fate that you should repeat and meet your dh and I suppose you would have felt that little bit more mature and ready for uni too?

It's really common here (Australia) to re-do kindy (reception year). There is real flexibility as to when to send kids to school so some people start them as soon as they can to see how they go, and if everyone feels at the end of the year that they'd be better off staying there for another year that's what happens. It is particularly common with boys and it doesn't seem to cause anyone a problem. Some people send their kids to school as it's cheaper than childcare knowing from the start that they will repeat them.

Re. size - because my 9 year old is dyslexic I put him back a year here on arrival. He is big for his age and looks like he should be Y5, not Y3 but nobody in his class seems bothered. I thought it was funny seeing him with his friends who are a full head smaller until I remembered that I was the tallest person in my primary school (including the teachers) at the age of 11 and I was in an age appropriate class!

Thank you sunnydelight - you're right about the size thing, I think it only matters to me as his mum but for him with his new peers it will probably be quite cool to be the tallest. I just want next year to start now so that I can see how it all goes - I think its all the speculating about how it will go that is making me anxious!!!

I think 4 is way too early for many children: he wasn't ready and you are so lucky to have the flexibility to repeat. If he was in the UK he could be forced to go up before he was ready....