For the majority of students, the ninth grade is a difficult one and is specifically tough for students that are at risk. Students are not at a comfortable stage of adolescence in the ninth grade. They are less structured and often lured into getting involved in bad behavior with the upper-class at high school where they are the youngest ones. Later on they will look for methods to show their maturity instead of their position in the class.
For students who from the beginning of high school have either discipline, attendance or some academic problem, they will be at a higher risk to drop out of school.
Help students by applying various practices and policies
- This can be done by improving the communication between high school and the early years of schooling that involves planning of curriculum, efforts of counseling, and visits among middle, elementary and personnel of high school.
- Postponing extremely demanding courses will help ninth grade students to opt for more pleasurable courses and courses in which they can perform better. Difficult courses can make them frustrated and they will give up easily. This policy will make sure that the members of the upper-class will have a challenging and full course load.
Decrease student isolation
The strategy of decreasing isolation of the high school will also help the ninth grade students. The school can be broken down into stable and small units to increase the individual attention from the staff. Examples of this policy involve:
- Expand the role of the homeroom/advisory teacher to increase their role as a personal and mentor guide.
- Elongate the class periods to fifty minutes or more to restrict the moving of students from class to class.
- Create groups of students who stay together for various classes and can provide support to each other easily.
- Create mini-schools and alternative schools that provide unmotivated students personalized attention and compensatory programs.
- Sensitize the teachers to the difficulty of the students so that teachers can offer help. Assign teachers with more experience to this grade instead of new ones.
- Provide special programs to familiarize middle students to the ninth grade. This will help to make the passage smoother.
- Allow the students to learn at their own pace during their earlier grades.
- Make a student of middle school shadow a student of high school to explain the high school schedule.
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