Possible to skip a year?

[M2boy]

Has anyone's child skipped a year in school?

My child is unhappy in school (yr 3) mostly because it's 'too boring' and child is above average in all subjects. Is skipping a year ever an option?

Unfortunately, we can't home educate.

Unlikely in state system, but potentially in private. It brings its own disadvantages though, especially in preteen/early teens. Schools should be able to differentiate work for more able pupils.

If your DC skipped a year they would also miss a whole year’s worth of important syllabus content.

As pp suggested the school could offer further extension work. Most schools run some sort of gifted and talented set up where avid kids are given work to stretch them.

My mum is a retired teacher.

My situation was similar(ish). DS was v good (exceptional) at maths and bored as hell. Average in other subjects.

Advice from mum was at this age, children’s progress isn’t linear. That she taught many a “child genius” that a year down the line was on par with peers who had caught up.

In short, trying to skip a year is pretty premature at this age. There are also consequences down the line.

I was at school with a child who’d been bumped up a year by her parents. She was clever and did well academically but emotionally I know she found it hard.

She felt “marked” as being clever and massive pressure to live up to this. She was also behind key milestones such as learning to drive, being able to go to the pub and drink.

Those may sound small things (and to be clear she was a friend and liked within our little gang and nobody teased her) but it did bother her.

Far better to speak to the school and see what can be done to stretch your child in the year group.

School was amazing with DS in giving him more challenging maths work along with another pupil who was in the same zone.

Wasn’t a big deal. They all got the same work in the class with a breezy “if you finish x you can come and get y to solve”.

At a teaching assistant, I'd say they should be being given extension work to the year above if needed, but not skip the year. The reason I say this is because children can be born with high aptitude, but this isn't knowledge. Your child could have the aptitude for work from year 4 or 5 or 6, but if he skips year 3, he may not have ever heard of some of the key concepts that he needs to use for work in the higher years. Also, is he really that able in EVERYTHING? Because if he skips a year, he needs to both have the capability and the knowledge of EVERYTHING, for every subject that he would have learnt in year 3.

What I would expect though is that he would be allowed to very quickly show he knows a certain topic and then be given harder work on that area. My son is excellent at Maths for example. In year 7, he comes home with some problems that I know (through my work as a TA with adults re-doing GCSE) that are GCSE level. I do sometimes have to explain odd bits to him though. Yes he then gets it, but he doesn't know it because he hasn't met it before. There is no way he could do the same level work in English.

However clever they are, there is still stuff in the curriculum they'll be missing if it were possible to just skip. You'd also need to have certainty that she'd be OK going up to high school early and into uni younger.
I'd focus on how school are supporting her, what you can do to ensure she's as emotionally matured et.c

No.

Believe me there will soon come a day when your exceedingly clever child will be average.

Skip a year? Absolutely not.

I skipped a year. Fine academically but v bad socially.
You need to ask school to provide extension work.

We had the offer in state school to let one of our children skip a year after a wisc test.
We declined. She wasn't mature enough to be with older student. She would have done fine academically.

I skipped a year in state primary. Pros- the work was more interesting. Cons- very hard to make friends as not many people were desperate to be mates with someone from the year below and a year is a long time when it comes to emotional maturity etc when you are 6.

I would push for more extension work rather than skipping a year.

I went to school with someone who was a year younger-it caused her some difficulties socially when others were turning 15/16/17/18 when they couldn't do the same things their peers were doing,

When my dd was in reception they put her on something called the gifted and talented register and she did extra work but stayed in her year .

I don't really get this, and other variations of 'they all level out anyway'.

Obviously development isn't linear but there is a huge variation in intelligence at population level even if you take out the people at either end of the curve.

Op, people often suggest extending clever children sideways outside of school but that obviously doesn't help in the classroom

Is he ahead by years on everything?ever
my dd now 12 was 3 years ahead reading in y3. Almost able to get exceeding on spag at 7. And ok at maths. Then (covid) missed 50% of y3 and obviously loads y4. At least 8w second lockdown and reduced school hours and another few weeks scjool closed due to cases. So probably missed a whole year overall.
By y6 she still got exceeding on everything on sats (except writing) - but so did loacs of the year. And she only scraped it on reading. I dont think the year made that much diffference. However she still isnt great on some maths topics like time. And definitely missed loads of geo/history and science and thats affected her liking of those subjects.
She is also a july born.

State schools its up to the HT if you want to move up or down a year.
You would also eventually need agreement from secondary.

I think too its easy to think in a small school they are really bright etc but secondary is hundreds of kids and at ours for eg getting exceeded at ours in maths didnt put mine in the top 20%.
Gcses etc are predicted on sats results. And gcse are scaled against the whole yeargroup so not worthwhile being young in year or going up a year as imagine you are say for eg top 5% which would make you a grade 9, going up a year might mean dropping back a little.

Also the fact you arent concerned over him losong friends this way either suggests hes very popular or that hes not close to his classmates so social issues?

I thibk i read being youngest loses half a grade at gcse though not sure if thats per subject?
The work in y4-6 isnt all that different. A kid able to do say secondary maths would still be bored.

You need to work with the school to enable your child to be stretched in the year group they are in.
Unless they are one of the eldest in the year, I suspect you would struggle to move them up. Sometimes it is poor teaching that is the issue more than a child's ability.....
We are likely to have to move one of my children up a year, as they are an early September birthday and have been working ahead all the way through primary school. There are a couple of areas to improve first but that is the long term goal......
Socially mine is better with older youngsters anyway...

@Sueyshi, my son says he doesn't have any friends and other kids only talk to him to get answers for school problems and want his academic help. Teacher says he's fine and is friends with everyone.

Does he get invited to parties or 1-2-1 play dates?

Would it be different in the class above?

i agree, it would be premature at that age. Children’s education is often relaxed and play based up to 7 years old and this is how it should be.

I skipped a year in primary and it worked out absolutely fine for me, but it was back in the 1970s, and I was tall and relatively emotionally mature for my age. I had no problems making friends, and by the time I got to secondary no one realised I was a year younger unless I told them. Luckily in the 80s no one checked IDs at pubs or cinemas so that wasn't a problem either (my DS had much more of an issue with that sort of thing as an August-born child in the correct year group with September-born friends).

But I think these days things are much more formal, both at school and elsewhere, and it would be harder for the child. I think the advice of pushing for extension work is sensible, and also support your child to follow his interests outside school.

I agree with others, year 3 is still young, the work will get harder and hopefully align with your DSs needs. I’d be asking for additional work first. Also what are his reports like, do the teachers agree the works too easy for him?

If he’s not got friends in his current cohort, what makes you think he will have them with the older children?

My DD is “skipping a year” sort of. She was deferred a year when starting school so technically she’s just moving into her correct age group, but we’ve not made this decision lightly. She’s had a year to transition, we’ve done extra work and the older class is full of her friends and social circle outside of school. It may sound silly but if she hadn’t been friends with most of the older children we probably would not have considered moving her, not yet anyway.

My older dd had a couple of children in her class who were working beyond the rest of the class, they had additional work and were able to be taken off to work in another classroom at times. But this didn’t happen until year 6.

Does he have any communication issues? It might be an idea to build interactions and relationships through clubs, hobbies, play dates,

It’s normal for children to work together and help each other in school. It’s important to remember that learning doesn’t develop along a linear line

I skipped a year. While it was fine - I would have rather have been the top of my year than average in the year above.

As someone who skipped a year I would beg you not to do it.

You are shortening your son’s childhood by a year.

He’ll go to secondary school a year early, losing the comparatively carefree time at junior school and jumping straight into the complexity of senior school life when he may be emotionally ill equipped.

He may spend his time at school feeling conspicuously younger and smaller than his peers. He’ll lose his innocence sooner as his year group will be swearing/drinking/dating around him.

He’ll sit his GCSEs and A levels a year early, which may not be to his advantage. He’ll leave home a year early. He’ll start work a year early.

Parents seem to think this is a badge of honour but from the kids perspective the benefit of keeping him stimulated now comes at a significant cost.

I skipped a year at primary, largely for the sake of my poor teachers' sanity. On the plus side, it meant I was only bored at school rather than insanely bored. And given that I was heading down the school refusal route, that was a pretty important part of me staying in education. On the downside it meant I was a year early going to university, definitely immature for a hardcore course, and ended up having to repeat a year. Oh, pretty sure I'm neurodiverse if that makes a difference.

I was moved up a year when in year 3 - i
am a late September birthday so wasn’t much younger than some of my classmates. Then was in a merged class of yr 5 and 6 when I was year 4 age, but I made friends in that year group too.

At my secondary there were three of us so wasn’t unheard of and did me no harm at all! I went to a selective secondary and was very average among that peer group and would have been fine back in my regular year too though.

However I don’t think it should be necessary!