Grade Retention

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Hi Chaps

I'm trying to sort out my son who will be going to secondary school (in England) from September can anyone tell me if they have gone for or been forced into 'Grade Retention' (child kept back a year or repeating a year). This isn't very common in the UK.

I have reservations so I'm looking for both positive and negative stories.



Thanks

Help x

I can give you both positive and negative.

First, the positive. My oldest (who was just diagnosed as AS) was in the first grade when two very traumatic situations. The first was the death of her great grand father, who she loved very much, and the second was 9/11 (she takes on the emotions of others. The entire country was reeling - she could not handle it). She went into herself and most of her work consisted of drawing Pokemon on her papers (with maybe a little bit of work, but it was mostly drawings). She regressed greatly in most of her educational areas. This is when we actually had her tested for a LD, and by the end of the school year, she had an IEP. She was also educationally at the beginning level of a first grader (she was supposed to go onto second). We, and everyone involved said she needed to be retained. After a bit f a fight wit the superintendent, who said no child should be retained, she was and has done wonderfully. She is now going into 10th grade and has a strong concept of what she is doing in most of her classes.

The negative. I will just use me as an example (I also have AS). My mom knew something was wrong, but I was a kid before this was an officially recognizable diagnosis. I was given the label of ADHD, but since I was not intellectually behind, I was just pushed along. In the second grade, it was suggested that my parents retain me. This was because of a new teacher who had unconventional teaching techniques and ended up being let go in the middle of the year. I guess that I fell behind in some areas because of him. I threw a fit. There was no way I was going to repeat the second grade. Going to the third grade meant that I would go upstairs. It was like a right of passage (the upper grades were all located upstairs). As far as I remember, that was my biggest concern for being held back. They (the school and my parents) gave in, and I went on to third. I have since looked back at my grades, and they were average, but for some reason, I thought they were bad. All I remember about school was not only did it frustrate me, but it was as baring as anything I could ever imagine. When I was in the 5th grade, remembering that I refused to be held back in the second grade, I asked (and my mom pushed) to be retained. They did retain me. It did nothing to help. If anything, it made things worse. My boredom was tri-fold because I was taking the exact same classes that I had taken before (and was bored in). I think I did worse that year. It did me no good, and put me behind all my friends. If I could go back, I would never had suggested it in the first place. It also put me in the bad place of having no friends and feeling lost.

In a nutshell, it depends on why they want to retain your child (and his grade level). If he is behind educationally (not meeting benchmarks, seems too immature for his age), and he has your support to help him keep his old friends and make new ones, then it may be beneficial. If, on the other hand, they think that it might help him to do better because (for no other reason) he doesn't [i]appear[i/] to be doing well, you may want to reconsider it.

I will add that her father (who has some AS symptoms but I do not think is AS) was also retained because he just did not have the support at home to help him learn. I believe he was retained in the 2nd grade (it may have been third). He did fine and there were no ramifications that I am aware of.

I also will say that all three of us went to different schools the year of our retention. My daughter went back to her old school the following year and although it was hard for her to see her friends in the grade above her, she made a very close friend that year (it was more like that friend made her - lol). They were inseparable.

Thank you that's helpful. I removed my son from his previous school when it was discovered that they hadn't been helping him in lessons and he hadn't produced more than 1 sentence of work if that in any classes.

He has been homeschooled for the past 18 months and has done well but is still behind in his attainment having missed so much when in school and ignored.

He has spent Year 7 at homeschool (first year of big school) so the question is really whether to put him in Year 7 where he will be older than everyone but has the opportunity to start with a 'fresh' group of students who don't have defined friendships except those from little school or put him in Year 8 with his actual peer group.

My worries are:
*He has low self esteem anyway - will this lead to the thoughts that no one thinks he's good enough to be in the 'right' year.
*He is going to be behind in some subjects anyway because of his AS and dyslexia so grade retaining 1 year will make no difference he will still need help.
*He will be bored in the lessons he finds easy because he wants to be on the right planet for them and should be in Year 8 for.
*It keeps him in a school environment which he finds impossible because of noise and bullies a year longer than necessary when he could be going to college or work placement where noise and bullying are reduced.
*He'll feel bad being in school a year longer than necessary when he could be earning money like his non school friends of the same age and this will mean he loses focus (more than usual) at a crucial time).
*Year 8 will be too advanced for him and he'll stand out as 'slow'.
*Year 7 will be too young for him and he'll stand out as too old to be there.

Well I have lots of worries but then I'm his mother and that's my job.

The UK have just introduced law that means kids have to stay in education till 18 - it may not still be there when he gets to 18 but that's how it is at present. He wants to be an artist and musician. He doesn't excel at academic subjects but does have the ability. His dyslexia makes it all hard work and the AS means he struggles with imagination.

He's a very sensitive boy but he is really lovely (parenting bias aside. He makes friends quite easily but doesn't really understand the friendships.

Sorry to ramble.

Help x

I am not sure how much advice I can give as most of my school advice is not very nice. But I will encourage you to put your son into the class that best fits his academic ability, not his 'social' ability.

When I was young, I was 'academically advanced', and as such my parents enrolled me a year early. So, I started first grade at age 5. Needless to say, I didn't fit in 'socially' with my peers. I was considered immature and all that stuff, so my teachers recommended to my parents that I repeat a year (despite not having any academic problems). My parents decided not to do it, and I just moved up with the rest of my class. As it turns out, I didn't fit in with my class, and I never matched up 'socially'. However, had my parents held me back, I would also have failed to fit into that class. And if they held me back 2 years, I still wouldn't have fit in. The fact is that I was not going to fit in socially with any class, irregardless of the relative age.

But by moving me along as fast as possible, they managed to reduce the number of years that I spent in school, and thus minimize the damage done. So, yeah, don't worry about the fact that your child isn't fitting in socially, because thats a lost cause. Just get schooling over and done with as fast as possible so your child doesn't have to suffer any more than necessary.

Don't retain him. I skipped a year in school at around his age (when I should have started year 9, I started year 10) and it was a lot better for me. It was tough to catch up on a whole year of missed stuff, and in the subjects I found hard I maybe dropped a grade, but so what?