Did your child skip a grade (esp 6th?)

Ruchel

Thu, Jun 21 2018, 5:18 am

Not everyone can pull out or has services for being gifted.
Not everyone has yearbook and graduation (in middle school????)
Not everyone is unhappy they skipped as a whole, or even has social issues, or issues they didn't have before.
My daughter will have her bas mitsva on time. It's actually great for her to see the bas mitsvaos now and get ideas. She was much more bored before and enjoys being big like that. Even in my public school we didn't flaunt periods. I dunno. I feel so different once again.

abound

Thu, Jun 21 2018, 6:12 am

I skipped 3rd grade, I loved and it was pretty seamless for me. From the different people I know who have done this, the biggest issue you will have is emotional maturity. If she is mature enough socially to go up a grade then it is fine. Test it out by having her play with girls in a grade older than she is, maybe put her in a day-camp with the older girls.
I had no issues socially or academically, it was a good move.
If she is not socially and emotionally mature then I would not do it, since boredom academically is a few year thing, but not being socially and emotionally well adjusted has ramifications for a lifetime.
(if you do not put her up then think about getting her good books, projects or things to do that stimulate her after school, this is what my friend did for her daughter who was not mature enough to go up but was way ahead of her class academically)

amother

Firebrick

Thu, Jun 21 2018, 7:45 am

I skipped 4 grade. Socially it was a disaster. I did not gain my footing until I switched schools for high school. (Could be that it had to do with that the girls were nasty and I was in a school with no uniform with no $ for nice clothes so they just made fun of me all the time.
I had the option to skip two of my children. The first I just did early graduation so she graduated school early and started college early.
The second who was definitely mature enough socially I just gave extra enrichment since he was the youngest of his class already and I didnt want him to graduate at 16.

amother

Lilac

Thu, Jun 21 2018, 8:48 pm

I skipped as a child. I was socially unhappy and wished I would be in my own grade in hindsight. I skipped and then unskipped a child of mine. I feel from my experience it's a very bad move socially. I had a friend who has a few very academically advanced children. She works with the school to provide extra enrichment work and it seems to be a challenging but pretty
good solution .

Frenchfry

Thu, Jun 21 2018, 10:50 pm

My son skipped sixth grade. We put him in sixth grade for the last month of fifth grade to"try it out".

We figured that this way, he won't have such a hard time the first day of school, and if worse comes to worse if it's a dismal failure, he would just have gone back to school with his old class the next year.

He was fine, and he did great in seventh this year.

Mon, Jun 25 2018, 1:15 pm

Thanks so much for your feedback, everyone! My daughter is pretty good with older kids, in fact most of her friends in our neighborhood are older than her. I think that she will do ok with that, but am wondering how to catch her up on the "extra" skills that are covered in 6th grade.

I was thinking about speaking to her current teacher but she is a young girl so she probably doesn't have much experience with this. I have a meeting set up with the principal next week to discuss this, so we will see if perhaps she can connect me with some of the older teachers....

amother

Mauve

Mon, Jun 25 2018, 3:30 pm

LO wrote:

My intelligent, socially mature twins skipped 5th. Best move ever. The class they moved into was a very nice bunch.

I’d recommend meeting with the 6th grade teachers and Finding out what they’re missing. Especially in regard to organizational skills, etc.

Hashem_Yaazor

Tue, Jun 26 2018, 9:10 pm

I skipped in the middle of the school year between 4th and 5th. It was fine academically...socially I was not really friends with the girls in my class anyway, I ended up being friendlier with girls in older grades (especially since in high school I ended up in their classes a lot of the time)...but it was good to be over and done with school quicker for me.

I skipped my son into 3rd grade, but it was a new community anyway so he would have had to make more friends. He became more of a follower that year vs the natural leader he was to begin with, but regained his ground quickly. I have no regrets -- he just finished sixth grade, and when he completes work (notice the caveat), it's sometimes good enough to be used to teach others as an example...BUT he always has struggled with time management, and higher expectations in older grades has made it a little difficult, but he's catching up on that. In general he does well, but is still distracted easily. That is personality but it's not as tolerated as one gets older.

One thing I will say (and this won't be the same for girls), is that it will be hard for him to be bar mitzvah in the middle of 8th grade, when a few of his friends will be leaving earlier for yeshiva. He won't have that option, and being in a small school, this may be hard for him to be left as a strong student when many of the stronger students have decided to take early admissions to yeshiva. But I still don't regret it. He belongs in his class and has always had a healthy self-esteem and social savvy to be able to navigate the age gap.