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.

Except that universities will do everything possible to avoid having 16 and even17 on campus/courses. So you end up with an unhappy frustrated child who has to mark time till they are age appropriate.

Things have changed massively on that front compared with 10, 20, 30 years ago.

Oh that's ridiculous, why would you have people waste years unnecessarily

Nah. Work on developing friendships within his year. He might have a high aptitude for learning and be way ahead at the moment but it's likely that there will be a handful of his peers who catch up. Theres no point making them stand out for being exceptionally clever....school and life experience is about so much more.

Well indeed - and even worse when actual department takes one view and the Admissions people take a completely different one.

And that's in a sector where being younger is very definitely a huge advantage - not the case in all sectors.

I have friends in the exact same situation but different universities and subject and they are getting the same pushback.

They don't care what your current levels and qualifications are, they will agree that child is more than capable and well suited to the course. And then give you the whole chapter and verse on safe-guarding and the importance of being able to socialise with peer group.

DD is hoping to only have to take one year out... but I suspect there will be huge pressure next year to take a second so that she is already 18 on day 1. Her BFF has an early September birthday so there would be no issues at all, but DD is summer and so those 9 months make her an enormous PROBLEM. 🙄

Meanwhile parents are left trying to come up with a plan that ticks the council/government requirements, doesn't further accelerate child in area they're focused on, and entertains/occupies them for 1-2 years without them going off the rails/losing momentum.

And don't trust U18 policies... they may talk the talk, but they have no intention of using them unless they have to.

I'm baffled with the comments re the social aspect. Why can't you be friends with people a year older than you?

@Isitreallysohard Because these older dc might be more advanced in other ways and see the promoted child as a baby. So music, games, dress etc might be very different and what they talk about too.

There is no reason to move a dc up. Teachers can extend the curriculum and do a lot more with bright dc, even ones who end up doing maths at Cambridge! No child should be bored and a good teacher would get advice on how to meet needs. Although explaining the process to other dc is useful learning: peer to peer.

university and not old enough to drink? Just a big no. Ditto sex etc. Why go early? I’m not sure there’s any advantage in doing anything early. Just do more depth at the correct age. Then live at university like everyone else.

I've one child who entered uni significantly before 18 and have been in touch with parents of a couple of others who were also 2+ years accelerated.
The biggest legal change in the last 20 years has been the equality act (2010) which forbids age discrimination by universities (but not schools). In that respect things have actually got easier. In practice we found most unis did follow their U18 policies. The only exception was Oxford, who talked the talk but did their best to manage out behind the scenes. Having compared notes with other families who've made early applications, it varies quite a bit by uni: Oxford, Cambridge, Durham and Surrrey are not keen on early entry, particularly before 17, whereas the London unis, Scottish unis and Warwick are considerably more open to it.
Generally we've found universities to be far more accepting of acceleration and early entry than British schools. UCAS statistics show around 6000 students per year enter higher education before the age of 18. Most of them are international students. It's also more common in Scotland than England.
I find it somewhat surprising that your child did apply (at least 2 years early), did receive an offer, you/they chose not to take it, and you're then lamenting that unis are dead against early entry and that you've been left scrabbling for an alternative plan. Whole-year acceleration leads naturally to early university entry. It seems you lost your nerve and didn't have a plan B in place. That is not the university's fault.

Extremely unlikely and not a good idea socially.
Unless your child is an actual genius (working several years above his peers) school won’t be moving him up a year. If he’s just working above by about a year then surely some things can be put in place to challenge him more.
Don’t underestimate the social impact of being out of year group.

My child is accelerated in their area of specialism rather than being out of cohort. And it was the department’s idea (with a lot of encouragement on their part) so it was direct application rather than via UCAS (there are various application routes so not totally unorthodox). Child has been working with them for years so I had no reason to doubt that everything wouldn’t go as smoothly as it has in the past.

Yes, I could have used the equality act - indeed they quote it in their U18 policy - and legal routes given written offers etc. But after 6 months of back and forth I decided that it was clear there were at least 2 people who were firmly against - and I didn’t think it was fair on DD to send her somewhere that wasn’t 100% on board.

Did I lose my nerve? Not really. I just think it’s a bad idea to send a child somewhere when there will be a couple of people waiting for there to be a problem.

Fortunately I have found a plan B that works.

I’m told 17 turning 18 will be fine… so we will see next year. I have Plan C in place in case it’s not.

I just think it’s helpful for others to know that even the best laid plans can go wrong once someone gets a bee in their bonnet about safe-guarding. And that life is a great deal simpler if you are in cohort.

I’m aware of what a gifted dc can look like but gojng up a year because of poor teaching isn’t the best solution. There’s always breadth to be found for most bright dc. The super gifted don’t always have a nice time being picked out as ultra special. It’s a burden.

The consensus of international research on acceleration (all forms, both subject and grade-based) is overwhelmingly positive. See e.g.
https://www.giftedpage.org/acceleration/
https://www.accelerationinstitute.org/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23025394/
https://www.ctd.northwestern.edu/blog/what-one-hundred-years-research-says-about-ability-grouping-and-acceleration-students-k-12

Set against this, the British school system is unusually rigid, and acceleration is so rare here that the teachers involved will probably have little experience of how to support it successfully, and school personnel tend to be heavily biased against it.
I have known cases where e.g. a child was successfully accelerated in primary, to the satisfaction of all parties, but years later forced to repeat year 6 because the local secondaries refused to take them. Not surprisingly the child was deeply frustrated to watch the year group they had integrated into allowed to proceed while they were held back. In order to be successful long-term, acceleration must be followed through. That can be difficult to achieve within a rigid system and without support of school personnel.
The problem is not acceleration, which works fine in systems where it is used more widely, but the rigidity of the British system and the ignorance/bias of teaching staff.

I would agree with this.

Back when my sibling and I were doing it, there was just a lack of any kind of support or system in place to help when things were a struggle (things that I regularly see 18/19 year olds struggling with today - but systems are now there).

And now there is so much rigidity that you are made to feel naughty and pushy and wrong for just wanting kids to continue on their current path at the right level.

There has been mention of Scottish universities and certainly when I went there were some 17 year old Scots in my classes. In Scotland they do Higher exams at 17 and the university programme is 4 years not 3.

The first year was a very general year. You choose 3 subjects to study. Two in your second year and then decide your degree subject(s) in year 3 (obviously they were one of your choices in year 1 and 2).

You are not going onto an accelerated course. In fact English A level students, and Scots who chose to stay at school and do more higher or A levels, had a very easy couple of years to really enjoy the social aspect of university without too much exam stress.

I do recall the 17 year olds having their date of birth stamped in very large print over their university ID card. I think this is why a lot of Scots waited until they were 18, so they could be treated like adults from the day they arrived.
So yes Scotland manages entry at 17 very well but it's not really going to work for students who are used to being pushed.