Anything wrong with placing a child out of year?

[NotResilient]

DD has confidence and emotional issues due to undiagnosed SEN. She is "working towards" expected levels. Now we have a diagnosis and EHCP, isn't placing out of year in a different school the only way to catch up and rebuild confidence?

What would motivate them to put a child back in the original year group? She will be behind again in the deep end. It will destroy all progress. Would they really do that to a child?

There is an hysterical ideology in England about children being out of year group. Usually from people who dont seem to understand that even 20 yeas ago children weren't pushed into school at just 4. Successive (Conservative) governments have centralised more and more in education so instead of a qualified and sensible head being able to make a decision that benefited the child. That no longer seems to be acceptable. Yet more dumbing down of education professionals. No wonder they are leaving the profession in droves.

If you believe that your child would be better off in the year below then go for it. The current evidence that headteachers rely on when discussing declassification is severely out of date; reliant on incomplete research and uses examples from other countries with vastly different education systems. So quite frankly a load of bullshit. The "establishment" are so frightened of people not behaving like lemmings that they will say anything to keep your child locked in place, at no matter what cost to them.

As pp have said, placing a child out of year group is at the school's discretion; however, I wouldn't approach this as the easy solution it may appear to be. Research from the Sutton Trust suggests that repeating a year may actually hamper progress.

How far behind is your DD?

'Working Towards' could indicate only mildly behind within a single year group, which is well within the normal variability within a year group - so pretty much any mixed ability class in a normal state school will have a group of children at 'Working Towards'. It will also have a group exceeding, and a group broadly meeting the expected level.

On the other hand, the vast majority of primary classrooms will have children who are very significantly behind due to significant SEN - so for example in Year 5 but working at perhaps a a Year 1 or year 2 level.

Which group would your DD fit into? The 'working towards' group that is somewhat below age related expectations but not many years development behind, or is she working 3-4 years below her chronological age?

If she is 3-4 years + behind, then yes, there might be an argument made for her repeating a year. The move down could be permanent, but IME the children this applies to are often considered for special school (or mainstream + specialist unit) entry at secondary transition.

If she is working towards the current year group expectations but not so severely below, then tbh your best option for accelerated progress is to leave her exactly where she is. Where i work, and I am sure it is pretty much universal, we work exceptionally hard with the 'Working Towards' children in the hope of moving them into the 'Expected' band by the end of the year. We don't neglect anyone else, but that is the group we are seeking to accelerate the most.

ANY classroom contains a proportion of children 'working towards', so that in itself is not a marker for moving down a year. Significant SEN leading to a very very large learning gap between her and her age peers might be, under certain circumstances, but it remains rare.

You may also want to consider what strategies could be used if your daughter's progress accelerates or slows over the course of the next 12 months- would you want her to go back to her year group or continue in the year below? Or if she struggles to reach the 'expected level' at the end of the repeated year, would you want her to repeat the year again?

I have always wondered, by the way, what happes to children with SEN or simply of very low ability in systems where you only move up if uyou 'pass' the year. IME, the majority of children who are working at a level below their peers in e.g. upper KS2 are those who have always made slow progress, and often have specific barriers to their learning. If they repeat a year, then it is entirely possible that they still won't achieve the required standard - and even if they do go up second time round, they are probably the most likely to repeat the next year as well. Do you get children spending their entire schooling in the primary years? Or are still in year 1 at 9? Or is it simply that special schools kick in at a lesser level of difficulty than English ones do?

Tethers makes a good point. What if she remains working towards expectations at the end of the repeated year? Should she re-repeat?

Is it worse for her self esteem to be where she is, with her age peers, or know that she is still struggling but is the oldest?

Thank you for your comments.

DD is where she is exactly because teachers couldn't be bothered to meet her needs and foster accelerated progress at the expense of her self esteem. DD dragging at the bottom for the rest of her school life because she was failed by her primary school is not an option I can take lying down.

So far the only solution I hear from a school is to move her down a year.

What would really help are ideas how to make the school to work on accelerated progress and rebuilding her self esteem.

What if she remains working towards expectations at the end of the repeated year?

That would mean the school cannot meet her needs and a EHCP review and needs reassessment is needed. Then she needs to go to a suitable special school with suitable provisions.

Dragging at the bottom of the mainstream class for years just hides the fact that the school cannot meet her needs at the expense of DD..

cantkeepaway - I have wondered the same about America, where I believe they have to 'pass' each year to move up. I imagine a 14 year old sitting with the 5 year olds and assume this doesn't happen....

It's not as simple as saying if she's working towards they aren't meeting need. Some children will always be working towards. National average for passing 5 Gcse is 65% (ish).
You need to look at the rate of progress. Children should be making expected rate of progress. They can try and close the gap but cognitively some children won't have the skills to be working at expected level. Here in the U.K. they move up year groups anyway.

You need to ask the EP to assess the cognitive skills of DD and decide from there what the expectation is and how to address this. Then agree on the support needed to bridge that gap. If she can make expected or better than expected progress wit support she can remain in year group with interventions.

Dragging at the bottom of the mainstream class for years just hides the fact that the school cannot meet her needs at the expense of DD.
Someone has to be at the bottom of any class. Unfortunately that is a fact.

Equally, not all students will be expected standard/pass all GCSEs because all children can't be at or above average. The maths don't work. Again, this is unfortunate but part and parcel of the existence of a bell curve and a system where pass rates are limited. That doesn't stop me working for all students and supporting their needs so they have the opportunity to succeed. Some of biggest progress jumps can occur with those who were working towards for years.

I think you need to speak to the school and find out how 'working towards' your DC is because thay can mean within tolerance for the year group or way below. If your DCs needs are so different that mainstream is struggling to meet them then repeating a year with another mainstream non-SEN specialist is unlikely to have the impact you want.

OP - my son made accelerated progress. He was working towards (in literacy)until end of year 5 and achieved expected progress in year 6 by the narrowest of margins.

He had extra classes during Assembly and other lessons since year 4. Each week he had small group help in spelling, handwriting, comprehension and reading. (His maths is fine) By the end of y6 he only needed the spelling and handwriting sessions. It’s a massive shame that he missed a lot of DT and Art in KS2 but his writing is one of the best in the class now and he achieved expected in SATS so hopefully he’ll be able to pass his English GCSEs in y11.

eyebrows,

That is exactly the kind of thing I was referring to when I said that the best chance for accelerated progress was to stay in year group. Most schools work very, very hard, in class and in lots of small pieces of extra time, to accelerate the progress of children working towards the expected level.

OP, what would accelerated progress look like to you and your DD? What additional support is determined in the EHCP. Presumably, you agreed to the terms of the EHCP in draft form, before it became definitive. Is there anything in it that will address support to improve her feelings of self worth? Or any small group or individual support for accelerating progress academically.

If you are feeling that her needs would be better met in a more specialised setting, then a request to review the EHCP with a view to changing the setting, with the support of an EP and other professionals involved could be a way forward.

Ds attended an ASD unit in secondary school and one of the boys there was being taught out of year. He was out of year fundamentally because he had missed a chunk of schooling due to being excluded and the wait for getting a statement of SEN. Academically and socially he was better catered for in the year below and really the only issue I could see was that for a while he was physically very much bigger than his classmates particularly as he was a very tall young man anyway.
I'd say your dc would need to be faring far worse academically for them to consider repeating a year tbh ds was at p scales in y2 and still stayed within his year group.

Thank you for your comments.

Foxy, indeed, there are unresolved issues in the EHCP, we have the right of appeal on all parts. I am trying to figure out the wording of EHCP outcomes that would achieve accelerated progress, which for me clearly is to work at expected level in 5 subjects including English and Maths.

Any suggestions?

I think the question you have to think about is whether the barriers to her making accelerated progress are broadly 'academic' - e.g. gaps in her understanding, or difficulties with certain skills [an example might be handwriting or spelling] due to lack of provision earlier in her school life or a particular need such as slow processing or dyspraxia - or broadly emotional - e.g. lack of self-confidence.

Obviously the two interact - so if she has gaps in her knowledge or understanding and this leads to her rating herself as 'not clever', then filling those gaps through targeted intervention or support might well lead to increased self esteem . Equally some pupils with very low self esteem simply crumble in the face of a task and thus don't make progress in their learning, leading to gaps in their understanding.

However, which way round to start addressing it - ie interventions / targeted work to address academic weaknesses, or pastoral care / support / counselling to address self esteem issues as the priority - depends on which seems at the moment to be the predominant difficulty.

If it is gaps in her learning, then the EHCP might be focused on - or perhaps the accompanying 'what are the school doing' would state - identifying and filling these gaps in core subjects, leading to accelerated progress. If it is emotional needs, then the EHCP / school provision might focus on directly addressing the self-esteem,. looking to measure progress through improved attitude to challenge within her lessons, leading to accelerated progress. Does that make sense?

You also have to be a little careful with how 'expected level' is measured.

Schools are free to use their own data / tracking systems, and there is no requirement for them to be comnparabl;e.

The omnly exception is at the end of KS1 (Y2) and at the end of KS2 (Y6).

Even if the school has put in place tracking systems that refer to an (internally guessed) 'Expected' level for any other years (including all secondary years), then there is no validation for any of these. One school's 'Expected' could be another school's 'Greater Depth', and a third school's 'Working Towards'.

So while you might want to target reaching 'expected levels' at key points - at the end of Y6, for example, or the '5 GCSEs including English and Maths' measure, then in reality progress against these cannot be objectively monitored in the intervening years. Schools will do their best to do so, using their own systems and processes, but these are not validated, are not comparable from school to school, and may well not mean attainment of the same levels in actual externally benchmarked tests at the end of KS2 and at GCSE.

This is a very helpful analysis, helps me to unpick the problem.

I think there are academic barriers to learning such as speech and language that the school should address to access learning. There are also gaps, which the school is trying to plug, but this takes time away from learning the current year material, hence my thoughts of out of year. But the biggest barrier to all kinds of progress is low confidence, so it is the priority.

some pupils with very low self esteem simply crumble in the face of a task and thus don't make progress in their learning, leading to gaps in their understanding - sadly this might be DD

the EHCP / school provision might focus on directly addressing the self-esteem,. looking to measure progress through improved attitude to challenge within her lessons, leading to accelerated progress.

This is exactly what we need, but how to get there? What practical steps could I ask from the school to improve attitude to challenge?

What year is your DD in? Does she have any 1-1 support?

My son was very behind, couldn't count to 10 until start of year 2 but then he revived 1-1 help and also something just clicks and by the end of the spring term he was average in Maths for his class. Reading didn't really click until he was in year 4 and this was with lots of targeted support.

Could you get your DD a tutor to fill in the gaps. I would suggest she isn't removed from her classes usual lessons for targeted support as she will never be able to catch up.

Yes, I put outcomes at KS2 and KS4 in the draft, I would insist on this.
I also put some emotional outcomes.

Do we need then some outcome at KS3? Something like
"Attains in line with nationally expected level"

Could you get your DD a tutor to fill in the gaps. I would suggest she isn't removed from her classes usual lessons for targeted support as she will never be able to catch up. - that basically means out of year.

My child school runs booster sessions before school to help students catch up. I meant along those lines and a tutor at home rather than out of year.

Not, do gather that she's currently in KS2?

If so, then the 'plugging gaps' thing is MUCH easier. As she is in a class who remain together, with no more than a couple of teachers, times for intervention can fairly easily be 'squeezed' out of each day - assemblies, registration time, maybe the last 20 minutes of Art, or instead of changing time for Games [given time to change at break or lunch], for example. While it has to be balanced carefully for the child, it is fairly straightforward in a timetabling sense to squeeze about 30-40 minutes, in 3 short blocks, in each day

In secondary, it is harder because there is less 'unstructured time so it is difficult to remove from a lesson without her falling behind. A school I am aware of sets aside a subject block [usually used for a second language in Y8] for additional 'core subject' interventions, and then has a couple of GCSE option blocks that are used for intervention rather than the child doing an additional subject - so they will end up with 8 GCSEs not 10. Another possibility might be the very beginning of the day, possibly arriving 15 minutes early, or at the end of the day, or a lunchtime session [SEN rooms are often open at lunchtime], or taking up a registration session.

In terms of attitude to challenge, possibilities might straightforwardly include counselling. It might be targeted TA support in those specific lessons where challenge is highest. it might be small 'nurture grup' type events where 'non academic but fun' challenges can be part of every session, so that the child can try and fail in a supported group in a way that 'doesn't matter'.