3.3.4 Long-Term Effts of Grade Skipping: Spanning 70 Years

In the early 90s schools in Lower Saxony, one of the German states, were asked for the number of grade skippers in the previous 10 years. It was extremely rare: only 0.4% of primary schools, 1% of grammar schools and none of the comprehensive schools had experience with the procedure. Besides questionnaires were sent to parents of grade skippers (103) and from this sample about 20 adolescent grade skippers (aged 13 or older) were interviewed. Based on the positive results, the law concerning grade skipping was changed, and when schools were questioned again ten years later, the number of grade skippers had increased from 311 to 1907.

When schools, parents or the youngsters themselves reported ‘problems’ after skipping, it was not clear whether those problems would persist, disappear or even become worse over time, and why. All those who answered questionnaires or were interviewed probably gave a ‘correct’ answer, but that could be quite different at a later time.

So in 2012 questionnaires were sent to adults who had skipped, 115were returned. The adults had to be at least 25, so that there would be distance to the school years. They were born between 1917 and 1987, therefore there are figures for 70 years. Some did have problems, especially in the 80s, often caused by a negative attitude towards giftedness by some teachers. There were few problems concerning achievement, in fact a third of the children reported lack of challenge again shortly after skipping. A few more boys than girls had social problems. The main reason was not age or size, though, more important for them was being good at sports or not. More girls than boys had friends, but more boys found friends again after skipping. With very few exceptions they finished school with results that permitted studying at a university.

90% of the women and almost 80% of the men wrote they would skip again if circumstances were the same.

In 2018, a 125 million Euro project on giftedness, involving 300 schools in Germany, was started. Although schools are likely to make use of grade skipping and other forms of acceleration – the most effective option for the gifted -, there will be no research on it. The reason: “Enough is known about it already.” This is strange, as some states still have very few grade skippers, others no figures on the numbers at all.

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