Students jump in the 6th year after doubling

Photo dominic scali
Blaise Guigma, 14 years old with his father Athanasius Guigma and Karine Paquette, assistant director of the école Sophie-Barat.

Dominique Scali

Monday, 23 October 2017 06:30

UPDATE
Monday, 23 October 2017 06:30

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Each year, approximately 350 students from the Commission scolaire de Montréal skip grade 6 and go directly to the secondary even if they have already doubled in the primary, a controversial practice that risk of spread.

This is not because they are too talented for these students to jump their 6th year, but because very often, they are considered too old for primary school.

“It’s the pinnacle of absurdity. It is like depriving the students of a law, ” said Nathalie Morel. Why we don’t give them one more year in elementary school ? The young person has the right to have access to the program in its entirety, ” growls Mrs. Morel of the autonomous Federation of teachers (FAE).

Best option

Last year, 365 students have passed the 5th year in secondary school so that they had doubled a year during their primary. It is a statistical relatively stable over the past five years, according to figures obtained by the Newspaper from the Commission scolaire de Montréal (CSDM).

About two-thirds of these students are placed in a special education classes at the secondary level, where they have more services than in a class of regular elementary, explains Gérald Gauthier of the educational services of the CSDM.

According to him, the school often makes this choice, because it is the best option for the student. “I am so not [the argument of] the race to the bottom. It is the opposite, ” Mr. Gauthier. If they are exposed to the learning levels of their age, they catch on certain things. There are beautiful victories, ” he said.

This is the case of Blaise Guigma, 14 years old, who has managed to catch up by jumping its 6th year successful and now well in a regular classroom (see another text).

Since the school reform of the early 2000s, the repetition of a year is less and less applied. The act provides that a child cannot intensify more than once in the course of his primary.

“We don’t have the choice, it is the ministry which we ask it. But from experience, I can say that it’s paying off, ” says Mr. Gauthier. Studies show that repetition has its limits (see another text).

Leveling

But for teacher unions, it is, indeed, leveling by the bottom. Mrs. Morel said to hear regularly about cases of youth promoted to the next level so that the teacher had recommended that they repeat.

This tendency to enter to secondary school young people who have not the knowledge acquired in the primary risk to increase, considers the FAE.

In its policy of educational success, the minister of Education has, in fact, registered as a target of reducing to 10 % the proportion of pupils entering at 13 years at the secondary level by 2030.

A student who has never doubled y will become 11 or 12 years, depending on her month of birth. Last year, 11 % of students were 13 years old or older when entering high school. “The number of students repeating grades should depend on the needs and non-target statistics,” said Mrs. Morel.

– With Daphnée Dion-Viens, Le Journal de Québec

Some catching-up

Of the students who were late compared to their peers in elementary school can sometimes catch up in secondary school when given the right tools.

“Success stories like this, there are more and more “, said Karine Paquette, assistant director of the école Sophie-Barat.

A native of Tunisia, Blaise Guigma arrived at Quebec at the age of 7 years. His mother tongue being Arabic, it has been placed in a reception class for a year before joining the regular.

Too big

Towards the end of the primary, being larger than the other began to bother him. “I wasn’t with people my age. It was less obvious to me to make friends “, he says.

“When the school proposed that he skip the 6th year, we said : wow! It responded to a need, ” says his father Athanasius Guigma.

Blaise is joined the secondary school in a class of school adaptation. “When he arrived, he was very closed, says Ms. Paquette. Then, he has learned to name his needs to go get help. It is like a butterfly out of its cocoon “.

Sophie-Barat high school prides itself also be a program of adaptation to school is effective and enables most pupils to catch up and to return to the regular.

For Blaise, this journey has been the right one. At the end of the year, he has passed the examinations of secondary 1 students. “I was proud of myself. I saw that I had potential, ” said the teen, who would like to get to the university.

He returned to the regular the past year and begins his 3rd high school this year, as any student of his age. It has today an average of about 75 %, in the average of the group.

Case-by-case basis

According to Nathalie Trépanier, a professor at the University of Montreal, the decision to skip a student must meet the case-by-case basis. With help, a young person who double at the beginning of primary school can really catch up, ” she said.

“If we just do double, it does no good. What is important, what are the interventions and accommodations that you will put in place “, she explains. For example, a student with dyslexia could have access to a voice synthesizer that reads the instructions.