Is there any reason why children should not repeat a school year?

Surely no teachers in their right mind are already booking holidays abroad for this summer? Or families for that matter, unless it is carried forward from 2020?

paddyanne

Can someone explain the English system to me ? Here children go to the school local to them both primary and secondary .Why would a primary age child be able to choose what school they go to? Why would parents be able to decide what school unless its state v private ?

Paddyanne in England the parents have ‘parental choice’ and can in theory choose which primary and secondary to attend.

It doesn’t always work!
The educational authorities have certain criteria which have to be met in order for you to get a place. E.g. special-needs, siblings at the school, distance from the school and order of choice -you can put three schools.
If your school of choice is already full then you will be offered another school on your list. If they are also full, you will be offered a school regardless of proximity to where you live.
For secondary schools, you can add into that, schools that have their own entrance criteria, e.g. exam, religion or gender.

Ellianne

Well I for one would cover for the stressed teachers during those extra weeks voluntarily.
Provided I could do things MY way, no following the curriculum, just getting back social skills, letting the kids re acclimatise and reigniting their love of learning.

Other jobs are also very stressful with long working hours. Many employees have only 4 or 5 weeks holiday in the year.

I've always wished that those who imagine they could teach a class could just be dropped into one, I'd give them half a day in the nice ones and half an hour in some of the rougher ones. Even the nicest children in a class will play up when they sense inexperience and there are many very experenced teachers who have been on supply and cried in the loo because the class was playing up. It ain't as easy as it looks!

Universities and Colleges could reduce their courses to two years again. It would help those struggling to pay tuition and accommodation costs. I know of several students who have limited tuition ( one hour on a Tuesday and three hours on a Friday for example) and we know a few students with free time who don’t use it for study but go to the pub or stay in bed all morning. Those who work hard work hard anyway.

Trisher ???
Show me a teacher who doesn’t think children engage with learning and behave better in a structured setting, however ‘relaxed’ the structure is. Just dropping in and expecting them to be excited by something different is not guaranteed in any age group.
I (being mean) stopped the ‘last day of term bring in your own toys’ routine because they cried over lost or ‘stolen’ pieces, dead batteries, not sharing etc.

As for repeating a year, I can think of several children who would have needed that, but not necessarily benefitted from it because they’d have felt belittled.
In a way, ‘repeating time missed’ is what happened from September. We allocated time and staff for catch up for those children who hadn’t engaged with online learning and the rest of the children also did revision of what had been covered. What will happen if we stay in lockdown now, I don’t know-but we’re already discussing it in SLT.

And which parent would be happy with random people volunteering to 'teach' their child.
I am happy to volunteer to look at peoples electrics and plumbing if they wish. I have no skills or experience in these but what the heck

galaxy ???
We could all tell the government a thing ir too as well!

Laughterlines

Universities and Colleges could reduce their courses to two years again. It would help those struggling to pay tuition and accommodation costs. I know of several students who have limited tuition ( one hour on a Tuesday and three hours on a Friday for example) and we know a few students with free time who don’t use it for study but go to the pub or stay in bed all morning. Those who work hard work hard anyway.

I don't understand what you mean by "again". My degree course lasted three years and I believe Scottish university courses last four years.

What about all the university staff who would have to be made redundant?

trisher

Ellianne

Well I for one would cover for the stressed teachers during those extra weeks voluntarily.
Provided I could do things MY way, no following the curriculum, just getting back social skills, letting the kids re acclimatise and reigniting their love of learning.

Other jobs are also very stressful with long working hours. Many employees have only 4 or 5 weeks holiday in the year.

I've always wished that those who imagine they could teach a class could just be dropped into one, I'd give them half a day in the nice ones and half an hour in some of the rougher ones. Even the nicest children in a class will play up when they sense inexperience and there are many very experenced teachers who have been on supply and cried in the loo because the class was playing up. It ain't as easy as it looks!

There's no way in the world I would volunteer to go back in the classroom to teach proper lessons. In fact, I don't think I ever want to go back in a school. I'm quite happy teaching one-to-one. I like teaching teenagers and I like my subjects, but schools as institutions spook me. I might do it if I were offered eye-watering amounts of money, but I still couldn't guarantee I'd do a good job.

Repeating the year may be good for some but awful for others. Those that have attained good grades at their mocks and are still working hard would be bored stiff if they have to do the year again.
For younger children many would catch up once school is fully open again and with a shorter summer break.

Some primary school children are almost a year older than the youngest in the class and many even started earlier. What is this standard that all pupils have to reach by a given age?

In Germany, children only spend four years in primary school, but international comparisons and my own limited experience has shown that they are achieving the same as UK pupils by the time they transfer to secondary school.

paddyanne

Can someone explain the English system to me ? Here children go to the school local to them both primary and secondary .Why would a primary age child be able to choose what school they go to? Why would parents be able to decide what school unless its state v private ?

It's pretty much the same as the system in Scotland.

There are no guarantees, as obviously schools fill up, and there is competition for the more popular ones, but people have a right to express a preference.

Sorry I caused 4 or 5 derisory posts towards myself after my comments.
I omitted to mention I have been a teacher and Headmistress, admittedly at an independent prep school. So yes, I have plenty of skills and experience. What I did say was that I would be concentrating on social skills above curriculum requirements and making sure children were proud of their own individual achievements, not having to meet levels specific to their age.

Not read the whole thread- but I can think of two good reasons. Not educational - I think educationally it would make sense.

But

1 . - space - where would most schools find space for an extra school year

2. - staffing - where would most schools find the necessary teachers, etc.

There is a huge shortage of the above already.

growstuff, huge difference for a few children to repeat a year because they have not reached the necessary level to go on to next academic year- to the whole year intake doing so.

BTW- the concept of streaming/setting is really not continental and very unique to UK. A class on the continent is generally a 'whole' of more or less the same standard children, who go to all classes together as a 'whole'.

Unlike the UK where a form is made us of children of very varied ability, who may well be in totally different classes and sets for a variety of subjects. Totally different system.

I’ve been wondering if summer schools could provide an answer for some. They could be staffed by NQTs and university students with a small number of more experienced or even recently retired teachers. Maybe ‘school’ isn’t quite the right word - more somewhere pupils can access additional support/tutoring in smaller groups. Personally I believe young people are much more resilient than we sometimes give them credit for. and that this past year won’t have as much of a detrimental effect as portrayed in the media. Students can miss large chunks of school for various reasons - ill health, accident or injury and manage to catch up. Media headlines about ‘a lost generation’ are really not helpful.

Peasblossom

Hmm, dare I suggest this might be the moment to question the Curriculum altogether? How much of what is missed is really that important? Could they catch up with what they really need if a lot of other stuff was dropped?

Does anyone really need 11 or 12 GCSEs?

I know one thing: no one needs to know what a fronted adverbial is...

Unfortunately, you're right!

Blinko I taught several languages for 20+ years and I had never heard of a fronted adverbial !

The longer this crisis has gone on, the more everyone has had their lives turned upside down in the educational world. School pupils, university students, teachers, lecturers etc. Let's not also forget the many parents who have worked so hard to educate and entertain their kids while carrying out their day jobs at home. No one has had it easy.
Instead of labelling it a lost year and going on about young lives ruined, instead of worrying who has worked harder than others, maybe we should just be grateful that technology has served us so well and that by the new school year every adult will have been vaccinated. Most importantly we should be grateful that our children have remained unscathed in terms of their health. It could have been a lot worse.

Lucca

Blinko I taught several languages for 20+ years and I had never heard of a fronted adverbial !

That's because frontal adverbials were invented for SATs. They don't appear in any grammar book of the English language.

Adverbs and adverbial phrases are important in German because they change the position of the verb, but I'd never heard of them either. I can teach inverted word order in German in a couple of lessons, so why on earth primary schools need to teach them is beyond me.

Ellianne

The longer this crisis has gone on, the more everyone has had their lives turned upside down in the educational world. School pupils, university students, teachers, lecturers etc. Let's not also forget the many parents who have worked so hard to educate and entertain their kids while carrying out their day jobs at home. No one has had it easy.
Instead of labelling it a lost year and going on about young lives ruined, instead of worrying who has worked harder than others, maybe we should just be grateful that technology has served us so well and that by the new school year every adult will have been vaccinated. Most importantly we should be grateful that our children have remained unscathed in terms of their health. It could have been a lot worse.

I'm sure my son will be delighted, having not had any face-to-face teaching at uni for nearly a year, but still paying £9,250 plus rent for the privilege. I doubt if he'll be vaccinated this year and I somehow don't think he'll be cracking open the champagne when I am.

As long as my family is alive and well when the pandemic is over is all I care about .the grandchildren will all catch up.
Their mothers and their schools are working well together.

My Croatian friend missed years of school during the war in his country in the 80's.he and his family lived in their CAR .They all survived and went to school and got good jobs and happy lives.You can get too hung up on qualifications I think

I agree paddyanne-life lessons are equally as important.

My son in law says he is enjoying seeing how his kids learn and what their strengths and weaknesses are during this homeschooling period. So there can be an upside. Obviously being back in school is a better option though,