Jumping Grades

[Zeewick]

Hello everyone!
I've been browsing these forums for months, and I felt like I should finally post something.
A few years ago, I moved up a grade after the first quarter of my seventh grade year.
I completed the rest of the year as an eighth grader in middle school.
This was by far the best decision I have ever made in my life, and I was wondering, has anyone else on these boards made a jump like that?

[wander099]

My mother skipped a grade when she moved to Canada from England as a child. I probably could have myself when I was younger, but I never did and I think I am glad. I got enough ridicule at that school...

[i_am_not]

My elementary school wanted me to skip a grade in 2nd grade. I didn't as I was smaller than everyone else as it was.

[dramajuana]

I've never seen anyone skip that late in the game. It's usually done in primary school.

I knew a girl who skipped third grade. This made her one of the youngest in our grade (her birthday is in April, so while we were all turning eighteen, she turned seventeen). However, this girl happened to be incredibly intelligent (always in the top twenty at our school), very talented (in choirs, drama, musicals, dance teams), and pretty friggin involved in school, too (in student government, many after school programs, she was involved in her church, yadda yadda yadda). She was also one of those girls who is SO pretty that all the guys are afraid to ask her out. In short, the perfect girl who happened to be so nice that even though you wanted to hate her, you couldn't.

She's the only person I know who has skipped a grade and was totally comfortable with everyone else.

Usually, kids who skip grades are alienated from everyone else.

[Zeewick]

The district I've always been a part of tried to pressure me into moving up a grade once when I was in second grade, and again when I was in fourth.
Both of those were after I had across the board college level scores or whatever in every subject. But I didn't move up either of those times because I was completely anti-social and hated by kids.
In seventh grade, I finally started making friends, but they were all in the year above me. This time, we pressured the school to let me take the test to try to go to grade 10, which I passed with 99% in every category. So I finally moved up a grade, and now I'm happier than ever and finally social.

[MaxMan1986]

In my school district, I don't think any student was ever allowed to skip a grade under any circumstances. I never understood why. There were some kids who were incredibly intelligent but ended up doing poorly in school because they were so bored. Kids like that probably should have been allowed to skip grades as they needed to be challenged.

[jcb]

My school district asked my parents to let me skip a grade on several occasions. My parents always refused, citing my social development as their reason. Looking back on it as a fortysomething school teacher, I think skipping a grade would have helped the social issues rather than exacerbating them.

[marvin]

i have never heard of kids skipping a grade in nsw, but i taught 2 girls who did year 8 maths in the year 7 class (i set separate work) and continued on, sitting their final exams a year early. this does happen a bit - another example is students who do something like dance or drama outside school so complete those subjects a year ahead.
in nsw, it is generally considered preferable to leave a student in their year. unless they dont attend - then kept back if its considered to be appropriate.

[flutter_away]

marvin, my friend (I'm in Sydney) skipped 5th grade. She's so talented!! Her English is her strength and she manages to top the grade even though she's an entire year younger than us all. She's pretty mature for someone her age.

[lozzierandom]

I've never heard of anyone skipping ayear in the UK, even if it would be good for them. Sounds random, and they don't do it over here, but do your schools make you repeat years if you don't pass the end of year exams.

[Fuzzy]

Yeah my friend had to stay BEHIND a grade. Imagine how you'd feel in that situation never mind GOING UP.

[Zeewick]

In middle school and elementary school, at least in my district, they can make you repeat an entire year if they feel that you are lacking education-wise or maturity-wise.
In high school, you just repeat the class that you fail, at my high school, when I was in ninth grade, there were a couple of 12th graders in my history class because they never passed it and had to go back and retake it before graduation.

[wander099]

Yeah, in elementary/middle school you can get held back, but sometimes they just push you onward anyway and things get worse. I know someone who's a real mess now and that's part of the reason. In high school it is just the class that you have to repeat. My sister had a guy who was in grade 12 in her french class...her grade 9 french class. Yeah. He failed again too cause he never went to class.

[marvin]

flutter_away, i stand corrected!!! i have taught in a few areas in nsw - but not in sydney!

its good to hear that she's fitting in well and its worked for her. the social side is always the most difficult part of the decision.

[Zeewick]

I really can't stand the people that go to school and do nothing.
If they're not going to class, they may as well not show up period.
Either way, they lose credit.

[marvin]

Zeewick, we have had kids at our school (mainly girls) who skip class and hide in the toilets for an hour!!!! how bloody sad is that!!
if u do nothing, you will repeat. if u try and still fail , you still get to go on.

moral: have a go ya mug!!!

[Zeewick]

marvin, that's what I'm talking about.
At my school, kids are wild. I'm close with my ninth grade history teacher, seeing as he is the director for the drama program which I am a part of, and just the other day, he told me that he had a breakdown during his prep hour because a kid came up to him and said "I'll **** kill you" to his face. The kids reason? Mr. L (the teacher) put the kid on loss of credit because the kid missed 14 days this quarter.
It's kids like these that make me wish that school was optional.
I'd definitely go, but then hopefully the other kids going would be more serious, too.

[dramajuana]

End of year exams don't exist in the United States.

I think the US thinks that it's stupid to have kids fail simply because of how they performed on one single test. Yeah, there are AP classes that you take for college credit, but you don't get credit unless you pass the test at the end, but you still get a grade for the course, and you can even choose not to take the test at all if you don't want to (or can't afford to pay for it).

I have to say I agree.

You can be held back in any grade if you fail a certain number of classes. At my high school, if you received an F in any three courses, you were held back a year (you could take summer school to fix those grades, and you had to retake any course you received an F in as well, unless it was an elective class and you didn't need the credits).

They also hold you back in primary school if your reading or math levels just aren't up to par. They usually try to avoid that, though, especially if there is a learning disability like dyslexia, and they had a reading teacher that students went to like twice a week.

[Zeewick]

I'm not sure if it's like this all across the US, but in Michigan we lose a credit if we fail more than 50% of the semester.
So basically, we have two quarters and a Midterm or Final.
The quarters are worth 40% each and the exam worth 20%.
So fail two quarters and lose credit, or fail a quarter and the exam and lose credit.
It's not that hard to pass, but for some reason (laziness) it's actually quite common.

[MaxMan1986]

End of year exams don't exist in the United States.

They do in New York. They're called Regents Examinations and they're formulated by the state. We don't have them in every course, but in a course that has them, a student cannot pass the course without passing the Regents. Most Regents exams are "minimum competency" tests, which basically means that a student who cannot pass the exam has probably learned next to nothing in the class. From what I've been told, these exams were much more difficult years ago. I've heard that California used to have similar tests called Entrance Exams, but they did away with them some years ago.

[wander099]

Here in Canada we have summative evaluations which count for 30% of our final grade in every course. Depending on the course the summative usually consists of a project, a project + an exam or just an exam. So for art or writer's craft there would be a large project of some kind and for math there would likely only be an exam. Stuff like physics or chem have a balance between the two.

[marvin]

as far as i know, in NSW we dont make kids who fail repeat. only kids whose attendence is low or who dont attempt any / very little work get held back - the paper trail / proof needs to be very good to get support from those above if parents dont go along with it - which is common.

i dont agree with repeating someone who has done the work and failed. some kids do their best ....and thats all they can do.

[dramajuana]

Thanks for the clarification, Max.

I'd always assumed that the Regents exams were like our CHSEE (California High School Exit Exam - you get about six chances to pass it in order to graduate, and I think it's at about seventh or eighth grade level stuff) or possibly like the standardized tests that don't count for anything, but determine if your school gets extra funding or something.

Oh, for the record, if you score in the bottom twentieth percentile on our standardized tests, you get held back. IIRC, anyway. We used to call 'em STAR tests, though I'm not sure if they're still called that.

[lozzierandom]

Our school has hundreds of tests. Most of our subjects we take a test every half term, and we have 6 half terms in a year. We also have an exam at the end of the year that determines what set you are in the next year. you can't actually "fail" them. We had entrance exams to get into school. We take SATs, GCSEs, A levels, MIDYIS, you name it, our school make us take it. Our school is probably one of the worst for that though.

On the other hand, our school, and other schools in the area, get some of the top results in the country. Right now I'm supposed to be revising for a french test, a maths test, a "major" science test, a geography test, an ICT test, a history test. I've got 3 essays to write over the Christmas holidays, and a project I've not even started. Life sucks to be at our school!

[wander099]

Oh and I forgot about the standardized tests we get. We get them in grades 3, 6, 9 and 10. 3 and 6 are just general I think, 9 is EQAO or something, either way it is math, and 10 is the Literacy test. The Literacy test is the only one that actually affects anything beyond stats. If you do not pass you will not receive your high school diploma.