Can an Academy Grammar School Legally Hold my Child Back a Year?

[DontBlink]

Hello All, I'm a newbie looking for some sound advice please as I have searched Google with a fine toothed comb and come up empty on this!

sorry this is long...

My daughter is in Year 8 at an Academy Grammar School. She has a rare and serious back condition and is waiting for an operation at GOSH. She has had a lot of time off due to pain both this year and Year 7 (rarely a whole week, but often, 2 or 3 days at a time when she needs bed rest plus doctors, physio and hospital appointments) and when she has the op she will have approx 7 full weeks off school.

At the moment during her time off, she keeps in touch with school via email and moodle and nearly always manages to catch up with work (admittedly, it is probably not always to the standard of others as she wasn't in class) . Any assessments she misses she does when she's back at school during her free periods as she no longer does PE.

I am fighting with the school (who have offered little help) to get her 5 hours of tuition a week during her time off for the op, not sure yet if that will come through but both my daughter and I am committed to keep her as up to date as we possible can with limited help from the school who have said that it would be impractical to put lessons online for her.

Anyway, sorry, to get to my point.... during my meetings with the school, the main agenda on their part is how much time she has had off and will be having off. They are saying that they want to keep her back next year to repeat year 8. They are saying that as Year 9 is the beginning of the GCSE's, that she won't be ready as she hasn't made the expected progress.

When I asked them to clarify this, they said that as she came into year 7 in the top 30 of the year and she is now just below half way that she hasn't made the predicted progress that was expected based on her first assessments at the school at the start of Year 7.

My daughter really does not want to go back a year and I think that she is going through enough with out having to make new friends now too. She is facing a Circumferential Fusion of her Spine, scars front and back and a 6 month recover period. She needs friends to help her through this, not strangers.

As for her progress, I know my child better than the school does and I know she will bounce back academically. I've talked it through with her loads and even explained that with everything she is going through, going down a year could take the pressure off her right now and that could be good too. But she just doesn't want to do it. I know that she is clever enough to be able to cope and quite honestly, I really don't care if she is top, middle or bottom of her year group. I just want her to be happy. And besides, what about any other girls that are below my daughter in the year? They are not threatening to hold them back.

But unfortunately, the school is like a dog with a bone and won't drop it. Can they really force her? The way they are talking, it is their decision, NOT ours! I've had a meeting with the Headmaster and with her Head of Year and the Deputy Head, they are all saying the same.

Any advice on my Legal Rights and how to handle this would be really appreciated please.

Many thanks in advance xxx

I can see where the school is coming from, and it is entirely with their eyes on the league tables.

This web page has a helpful checklist of things to consider when holding a child back a year and has references to evidence which shows that it doesn't as a rule help academically. It also says UNESCO 13 says every child has a right to be educated with their peers. This is in relation to SEN children but certainly could be used to argue that your child has a right to be educated with her peers despite her educational disadvantage of being very ill.

The key here is that the school needs to show that it is in the best interests of your daughter. Show them the research and ask them for a detailed breakdown of the evidence that was used to inform their decision. Put more onus on them to argue their case.

Another thought: will they be holding back every child who has not made the expected progress? Or are they just discriminating against your daughter?

As your daughter is still around the half way mark in terms of ability, it is hard how they can justify keeping her back but not keep back the children who are doing less well than her. I too would put the ball back in their court in terms of having to make their case.

I don't know the ins and out of the legal position but it sounds dodgy to me.

Is your DD on their SEN register? She has clear special needs, should be on the register and the school should therefore be duty bound to try to meet those needs (ie with the tutor provision).

It might be less pressure on her though, when is her birthday?

I am sure my DC would want to stay with their peers like your DD. However, (ignoring the school using stats for their own benefit) would it not benefit your daughter too to redo the year after she has had surgery and recovered. Her current friends will not disappear if she changed year groups although it would obviously be more difficult. From your OP she is obviously a bright child. How will she feel if she gets lower GCSE results than she hopes for due to her circumstances with her back. Schools and universities do take similar circumstances into consideration but it surely makes it more difficult to learn if she has missed vital building blocks?
I hope you didn't mind me offering another view and hope that the surgery goes well and that she makes a good recovery.

The fact this is an academy is irrelevant as far as the legal position is concerned. It is generally the school's decision but they should be doing it because it is in your child's best interests, not for their own convenience.

"As for her progress, I know my child better than the school does and I know she will bounce back academically."

Errrr.... I would be very careful on this. Do not underestimate how much knowledge of education teachers have - far, far more than you.

This whole 'the school/teachers are out to get me/my child' adversarial rights-based culture of the state sector I find very depressing (I have clashed with another parent on this before). You guys need an attitude change!

To me, there are two things you should be looking at:

1. is the school looking at this with an eye to the league tables?, or

1. is it actually in the best interests of your daughter?

Education is sequential. How it is structured most resembles a brick wall. Every time a child misses a lesson, a brick in that wall also goes missing. This is especially problematic in maths, physics and chemistry.

No matter how bright your child is, she has missed and will miss a lot of school.

So why are they urging her to re-do the year? I think it is for her benefit. A year in the life of a person is nothing in terms of her long-term future. My advice would be, trust your teachers.

You need to ask whether her entitlement to post 16 education will be affected, as she will presumably then be 19 when she finishes her P16 education, assuming a 2 year course - I work in a special school and LA's are getting bolshy about funding 3 years of P16 (which is the norm for our students) if they have repeated a year earlier on and therefore older then their peers.

You need to ask whether her entitlement to post 16 education will be affected, as she will presumably then be 19 when she finishes her P16 education, assuming a 2 year course - I work in a special school and LA's are getting bolshy about funding 3 years of P16 (which is the norm for our students) if they have repeated a year earlier on and therefore older then their peers.

a lot of people would give their eye teeth for the opportunity for their child to repeat a year. A couple of girls did it in my class and they settled into the year below in no time. If the teachers think it'll benefit her, why not?

where we live it is completely normal (even pushed for by many middle class parents) for kids younger in the year to stay down a year to repeat. By common agreement, it is taken to be "a good thing" for younger kids to do so..They continue in the same (lower) year throughout primary and high school. It's almost to the extent that those born in the middle of the academic year end up being the ones disadvantaged as they become the youngest in the class!

Malcolm Gladwell's "outliers" seemed to suggest the same thing, summer born kids fare worse at school/in sport/even into adult life, relatively speaking.

I know your daughter's case IS different but it may well be in her own best interests to repeat the year and have the chance to really do herself justice. Of course this has to be measured against the emotional effect of not being with her peers at such a hard time, for you both and the school to decide, not easy.

I completely understand the strong pull of her friends, but I can't for a moment think that the school is motivated by the almost imperceptible difference her results might make to the league tables. That seems too shallow for words. If they are as clear in their advice as you say, they must feel strongly that it's in her best interests to re-do the year.

Thank you for your advice so far.

The link from noblegiraffe is interesting but is based on findings up to 2006, so I wonder if anything has changed since or if an Academy doesn't have to take any advice, as I'm still not sure how they work?

My Daughter was born in Early December so is one of the eldest in her year.

Believe me, we really have seriously considered that it could be a good thing to repeat a year but no matter how much we discuss it, we always come back to the view that it isn't right for my daughter.

During her primary school, she was in a mixed class all through school, there were a group of kids that were the eldest in the year and from reception they were moved to year 1 in order to make room for Kids starting in the new year, she spent the rest of primary school alternatively being in with over half the class in year above, then with over half the class a year below. On 2 occasions during this time, when she became the elder year mixed with younger children, she was bored, bored, bored. As the younger class was the biggest, they mostly catered for them and each time they had the same teacher who had taught them the year before and they were repeating the same topics. This was mind numbing for my daughter, she needs to be challenged, not bored.

All I see happening next year if she repeats this year, she will yet again, be doing Animal Farm, Romeo and Juliet, Making another necklace in DT, another bag in Textiles, doing the same Maths and Science that she has already done, going on the same school trips, repeating the same topics in History, Geography. I know it will be the same subjects because we looked ahead in year 7 and her topics this year are the same as last years year 8. She will hate it. How, if she has already been getting the same mark as her peers in her assessments on these subjects, will doing them all over again, with kids who will be between 10 months and 1 and a half years younger help her? Ok, so she might improve her marks slightly but what will it do to her mental health being so bored again for another year?

Surely having her brain energised with new topics will be better for her, she will be well into recovery by September as the operation will be in February or March?