The repetition of a school year: when is it considered necessary?
In Catalonia, repeating a school year is only applied in studied and exceptional cases and when it has been proven that it will be the most beneficial option for the student
BarcelonaThe course ends and the closest horizon for students is the summer holidays, but a little further ahead, as the calendar moves forward, is starting a new school year in September and meeting up with friends again. Taking a step forward and, in some cases, changing stages. But there are a few students for whom these holidays will only be the prelude to Groundhog Day, as they finish the course knowing that the next one they will return to the same classroom, the same subjects, the same teachers, but with different classmates. While, years ago, it was a little-questioned reality, now many variables are considered before making a student repeat a year. In fact, in Catalonia, it is only applied in studied and exceptional cases and when it has been proven that it will be the most beneficial option for the student.
“If you focus on results and the school’s objective is to achieve the highest possible ones, repeating, whether or not it is considered an aggressive solution, is an option. If, on the other hand, you value and focus on processes, proposing that a student repeat requires studying it very well and taking many other factors into account before deciding,” points out Mar Hurtado, a teacher and president of the Rosa Sensat Teachers’ Association. The teacher points out that if a child’s academic development is valued by their upward progress, even if it is not at the level of the whole group, making them repeat makes no sense. “Furthermore, if we advocate for individualized attention, despite the lack of resources that we all know about, it makes no sense to only think about results because we will end up cutting all students to the same pattern”.
In fact, the regulations indicate that if there is no singular situation to the contrary, students must be promoted to the next grade. “There may be students who repeat with three failed subjects and others who pass with four, for example,” points out David Vilella, head of secondary studies at Institut Escola Sant Felip Neri in Barcelona. He explains that if the faculty is not convinced that repeating will be of any use, they often promote the student and continue working with the necessary adaptations. “In any case, their personal situation, the context, their special educational needs, their emotional well-being, and their fit within the group are taken into account, both in the current group and in the possible group below. And all of this is what shapes this decision a little, which must always be well justified”.
Damages and losses
According to Mònica Nadal, research director at the Equitat.org Foundation, repeating a school year is a measure that by itself does not serve to improve learning or encourage young people to continue studying. “It is an intuitively very good measure, but if you do not change the learning method, if you do not support them and do not pay attention to and understand why they have not achieved the competencies, what happens to the student is even worse.” As Nadal states, repeating can cause damage to the student's self-esteem and their self-perception: that they are not good enough to study, that they are bad. And then there is the emotional effect: they become detached from their class group. They become the one who couldn't keep up, and that is also painful.
“The expectations that teachers have of boys and girls who repeat also tend to be low. They receive a student who has difficulties and if they have to go through the same process without understanding and support where they have had it or where they have gotten stuck, it is most likely that they will not do much better this second time,” adds Nadal, who underlines the fact that international evidence indicates that when a student repeats, the probability of dropping out of studies soon is much higher. “All the research tells us that it is a sentence to premature school dropout. Therefore, it should be the last of the solutions, when others have already been tried.”
“This is not about overprotecting, let's not be mistaken. Sometimes, when I talk about this topic, there is an immediate response that children are considered too much, but this is not about limits, it is about understanding the child, their relationship with others, and looking at them globally as a person who learns and relates,” emphasizes Hurtado.
Necessary support
“Repeating a grade can only be successful if it is accompanied by personalized intervention and support measures. Repeating is not a magic solution, it is no miracle,” emphasizes Núria Pedrós, doctor in pedagogy. While she agrees with all the factors pointed out by other experts, she also brings up another fact that leads to a student having to repeat a grade: perhaps the support has not been adequate. She believes that the school should also conduct a self-examination to see why a student is repeating. “It must also be said that this is a catch-22: if we have twenty-five children in class and five need special support that they do not have, do we teachers have to dedicate ourselves to the remaining twenty or to the five who need to learn other things?”. In this regard, Pedrós acknowledges that teachers have a “messianic attitude” and a tendency to dedicate themselves more to those who have more difficulties. “But we must always support the diversity we have in the classroom, and if we don’t have psychopedagogues, social workers, speech therapists, etc., it’s all much more complicated”.
Providing individualized accompaniment and follow-up is synonymous with having the resources to do so. “Primary education needs a good system for early detection of difficulties or learning disorders, as well as the capacity to monitor how students acquire competencies, to be able to count on other support professionals and on co-teaching models,” points out Mònica Nadal. The research director at the Equitat.org Foundation also explains that there is evidence that repetition is an extremely expensive measure. “If instead of spending so much money repeating a student for an entire course, we invested it in measures to develop attention to diversity or to provide additional educational support, the good results would be much higher.”David Vilella, a secondary school teacher, also calls for more possibilities to support and accompany these boys and girls because sometimes their situations go beyond the educational sphere. “In some cases, they are young people who are lost in life, who come home and are alone, have dinner alone, go to bed alone, get up alone… In the end, whether they pass or fail often ends up being a consequence of their lives, of their situation, or of their family's situation, which cannot afford extra English or music classes, and this is a reality. I believe that the composition of this entire sociocultural, economic, and well-being environment of the boys and girls is key,” he concludes.
In any case, Pedrós points out that if a student has to repeat, it is better to do so in primary school than in secondary school. “The social group is not so strong, they do not have consolidated ties, and because, in terms of brain development, acquiring and consolidating basic knowledge is more beneficial.” Nadal shares Pedrós's opinion and points out that students are often made to repeat when it is already too late and they carry the deficiencies from previous years. “Perhaps they got lost at some point in mathematics and when they reach the third year of ESO they have certain dysfunctions. Or perhaps they had a reading comprehension problem and if they have not consolidated reading skills well, which is a foundational thing, they cannot learn.” If the student has to clearly repeat in secondary school and when the class group is very consolidated, Hurtado recalls that they are often recommended to change schools to, in a way, make them start from scratch. “Otherwise, they can end up feeling powerless and their identity can be weakened, in addition to feeling isolated and invisible.”
For their part, Vilella also talks about positive retention and, in the case of their school, about students who, after repeating a year, have been able to finish secondary school successfully or with a good average grade. “There are cases where that retention has given them the opportunity and the time, sometimes, to gain maturity and responsibility. They often need time to know exactly what they want to do or to find motivation to study, and this retention causes a change in dynamics the following year,” he concludes.