INTRODUCTION
SOUND GRADE PLACEMENT DECISIONS FOR STUDENTS:
A Principal’s Support Document:
Neither age-appropriate placement nor repeating a grade is successful in and of itself in assisting a struggling student. Effective intervention is required to assist a student in closing the achievement gap and succeeding in school.
This resource is intended as a tool to:
- assist principals in making grade placement decisions for students who struggle to acquire the skills and knowledge needed
to be successful academically. - create an action plan to assist students in closing achievement gaps.
Contents
The guide contains the following components:
- Introduction, contents and elementary context
- A research summary on retention and age-appropriate placement
- A principal’s guideline to assist in process considerations
- A principal’s timeline to assist in process considerations
- Case Studies to illustrate process
- Secondary school implications
- A parent information brochure to help parents understand the process
- A teacher information brochure to inform their instructional practice
- Intervention strategies
- Appendices
Each component can be used separately and is designed to inform the practice of principals as they plan for success for all students.
CONTEXT: Elementary
PROVINCIAL ELEMENTARY REPORT CARD
The Ontario provincial report card requires teachers to indicate one of the following:
- progressing well to promotion
- progressing with some difficulty toward promotion
- promotion is at risk (grade retention is a possibility).
SCHOOL BOARD POLICY
School board policies vary throughout the province.
Some boards have a policy that all students be placed in age-
appropriate placements. Students from other boards are placed
in the age-appropriate grade even if they had been previously retained.
Some boards have a policy that student retention is permissable only in the primary division.
Many boards leave the decision to the local school in consultation with staff and parents to determine if retention is beneficial to the student.
PARENT REQUESTS
Some parents may insist, despite the educator’s advice, that their child will:
• benefit from retention.
• benefit from promotion.
EDUCATOR REQUESTS
When parents disagree with the advice of the educator, they may be asked to put their request in writing. These requests are
often included in the student's OSR.
RESEARCH ON RETENTION
The research demonstrates that neither retaining struggling students in the same grade nor promoting them despite their learning gaps is an adequate response to the problem of low achievement.
Grade retention does not result in lasting learning gains and retained students are more likely to develop negative school attitudes
and eventually drop out.
Similarly social promotion does not acknowledge the problem of low achievement and when students are passed along to their next grade, there is no assurance that the remediation they needed is provided.