FYI- Maria posted a thread on looping a few weeks back. The April 2004 edition of NEA Today has an article about a teacher who has looped her students from kindergarten through fifth grade. The article mentions that looping has been a very positive experience for this class of very diverse students. This teacher has several ESL students, gifted students, and learning disabled students. A few websites were also listed for resources on looping at www.ascd.org or http://socdeved.com .

Wow! K-5th looping. That is a long time. Do you guys think this is socially a good idea? Now not only will these children be faced with a new school (middle ) next year but also a new group of children in their classroom, What a change! What do you think?

While keeping the same group of students for two years may be beneficial, I do not think that looping K-5 is a good idea. For me as a teacher it would be difficult to do completely new preps every year. I also do not think I would be able to give one group of students everything they need. I am stronger in some areas, but weaker in other areas. For example, I am not musically gifted, and we do not experience an abundance of musical activities in my class. But I know other teachers place a larger focus on this. I know different teacher stress different things. I think it is good for students to be exposed to different styles and ideas.

I think if you had a good group that looping for a few years might be good. But like in my case this year with major behavior problems, if I had to loop I would be very discouraged.

I love the group of students I have right now, but I'm not sure if I could loop with them for five years. I think it would probably be better for students to experience other teachers and teaching styles. If they are taught in the same manner for several years, then I would think it would be more difficult for them to change teaching styles. Looping for a year or two would be okay with me, but then I would want to move them on to someone else.

I can't imagine the impact that looping for a total of 6 years had on the children. How receptive to another teacher are they going to be after this experience. They will be so use to this teacher's style of teaching it may be hard for them to "figure out" the next teacher and her expectations.

Looping for grades K-5 must have been major for this teacher. This reminds me of how the one-room schools were ran. The students always had the same teacher, but they worked at a different level each year. I wonder what the reasoning was behind looping for so many years. Did the teacher volunteer? I wonder how the majority of the parents felt about this. Are the students going to be attending a middle school that's 6th-8th or an all 6th grade school? Most of the time children this age are ready for change and welcome it. Sometimes, adults have a more difficult time with transitions. We assume that these students will have a difficult time adapting to a new teaching style, but they probably will welcome it.

Thanks Tami for letting us know about the article! I am looking forward to looping with my class next year but I agree that two years will probably be enough for all of us!