Establishing links with students that help improve both the student-teacher relationship and the teaching-learning process takes time and for many teachers a single school year falls short. For this reason, if they have the opportunity, they choose to repeat teaching for another year with the same group of students. “When a teacher spends more time with the same students, he is able to form a mental idea about the needs, qualities and limitations of each of them in order to focus more clearly on his pedagogical function. And, in the same way, the minors adapt to the management of the classroom and the teaching style of the teacher”, according to a study carried out by the Annenberg Brown University in which they analyze the positive consequences of repeating with the same group of students. This is the case of Beatriz Mazcuñán, a primary school teacher at CEIP Montroy (Valencia) who has taught the same group of students for two years in a row on numerous occasions. She affirms that by knowing them beforehand, it is not necessary to go through that period of ‘adaptation’ that involves starting with a new group. “There are already some created routines and picking up the pace at the beginning of the course is faster,” she says.
Higher academic performance
One of the benefits that the study of the American university highlights is the improvement of the results and academic performance of the students. “Most students achieve better scores in the evaluation tests that are carried out by the same teacher in the second school years,” they say.
The behavior of the minors is also another factor that can be determined by the knowledge or not of the group by the teacher, as indicated by Brown University. “When a new teacher arrives in the classroom, he does not know how to behave of his new students who, in addition, tend to be especially active during the first days of the course”, they highlight. However, when there is already prior knowledge between teacher and student, the behavior of the latter is usually calmer or the teacher is able to manage the group more easily. In this way, in the study they emphasize that fewer disciplinary sanctions are recorded in this type of class in Secondary courses.
Curricular adaptation
Another benefit that comes from knowing the group of students is that the teacher knows first hand what the needs of each of them are, they highlight in the report. “During the development of the first course, the teacher has the opportunity to learn about the way in which their students work and is able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each one of them to know how to reinforce them”, they clarify. For his part, Mazcuñán affirms that at the beginning of the second year he already knows what the starting point of his students is and how to help them improve. “I draw up reinforcement plans for the students who need it and I know their strengths and needs, I know what content we have worked on and what we haven’t, what I prioritized the previous year and what I should focus on during the next one,” he explains. In addition, this teacher also highlights how this situation also affects the relationship with families, because communication channels have already been established. “Parents know how the teacher works and when they can turn to him to raise any type of doubt,” explains Mazcuñán.