Resources
Communicating with families
The department has developed resources to support schools to communicate with families about repeating a year level:
- Repeating a year level information for principals – this is a summary of the policy, guidance and research and can be used to refer to in meetings with families about repeating a year level
- Repeating a year level information for families – this is a summary of the policy, guidance and research and can be provided to families as a part of discussions about repeating a year level
Download information for families in different languages
The repeating a year level information for families is available to download in different languages:
- Acholi
- Acholi
- Amharic
- Amharic
- Arabic
- Arabic
- Assyrian
- Assyrian
- Chaldean
- Chaldean
- Dari
- Dari
- Dinka
- Dinka
- Easy-English
- Easy-English
- Falam
- Falam
- Hakha-Chin
- Hakha-Chin
- Hazaragi
- Hazaragi
- Hindi
- Hindi
- Karen
- Karen
- Khmer
- Khmer
- Korean
- Korean
- Macedonian
- Macedonian
- Nepali
- Nepali
- Nuer
- Nuer
- Oromo
- Oromo
- Persian
- Persian
- Punjabi
- Punjabi
- Samoan
- Samoan
- Simplified-Chinese
- Simplified-Chinese
- Sinhalese
- Sinhalese
- Somali
- Somali
- Swahili
- Swahili
- Tagalog
- Tagalog
- Tigrinya
- Tigrinya
- Tamil
- Tamil
- Tongan
- Tongan
- Traditional-Chinese
- Traditional-Chinese
- Turkish
- Turkish
- Urdu
- Urdu
- Vietnamese
- Vietnamese
- Zomi
- Zomi
Research on repeating a year level
For evidence on repeating a year level, refer to the following research:
Evidence for Learning, Teaching and Learning Toolkit (2021) Repeating a year – Negative impact for very high cost based on limited , The Education Endowment Foundation, accessed 2 October 2025.
Summary of findings of 71 studies:
- Requiring students to repeat a year has a negative impact. Negative effects are rare for educational interventions, so the extent to which students who repeat a year make less progress is striking.
- Where students are not achieving expected outcomes, alternative interventions to provide intensive support may make repeating a school year unnecessary, for example, small group tuition.
- Students who repeat a year are unlikely to catch up with peers of a similar level who move on, even after completing an additional year’s schooling.
- The average impact of a student repeating a year is about 3 months less progress over the course of a year than if the same student had not repeated the year, when compared with similar students.
- Negative effects are disproportionately greater for disadvantaged students, for students from different cultural backgrounds and for students who are relatively young in their year group.
- Negative effects tend to increase with time and repeating more than one year significantly increases the risk of students dropping out of school.
Visible Learning (2018) Hattie Ranking: 252 Influences And Effect Sizes Related To Student , accessed 2 October 2025.
Summary of findings:
- Hattie ranked 252 influences that are related to learning outcomes from very positive effects to very negative effects. Retention (holding students back) is an intervention with a significant negative effect of -0.32.
Peixoto F, Monteiro V, Mata L, Sanches C, Pipa J and Almeida LS (2016) 'To be or not to be retained ... That’s the question!' Retention, self-esteem, self-concept, achievement goals, and , Frontiers in Psychology, 7(1550):1–13.
Summary of findings:
- Repeating a year level has long term negative impacts that remain even when students recover academic achievement and the experience is in the distant past.
- Students who repeat a year can lose confidence in their learning, develop negative attitudes towards school and learning, have low self-esteem, and increased aggressive and disruptive behaviours.
- Year level repetition can increase the risk of not completing school and decrease the likelihood of participation in tertiary education.
Cham H, Hughes JN, West SG and Im MH (2015) Effect of Retention in Elementary Grades on Grade 9 Motivation for Educational , Journal of School Psychology, 53:7–27.
Summary of findings:
- Repeating a year level is an expensive intervention with minimal evidence of benefits to the retained student.
Martin AJ (2011) Holding back and holding behind: Grade retention and students' non-academic and academic , British Educational Research Journal, 37(5):739–763.
Summary of findings:
- Repeating a year level has negative implications for academic motivation, academic engagement, academic self-concept, and general self-esteem.
- Repeating a year level increased student maladaptive motivation and weeks absent from school.
Reviewed 06 October 2025