Grade retention or grade repetition is the process of having a student repeat a grade, because last year, the student was failed. Students who repeat a grade are referred as "repeaters". Repeaters can be referred to as having been "held back". Students are not necessarily repeat the grade in the same classroom, but it's the same grade anyway. The alternative to grade retention (for those who have failed) is a policy of social promotion, under the ideological principle that staying with their same-age peers is important. Social promotion is the obligatory promotion of all students, regardless of achievement and absences. Social promotion is somewhat more accepted in countries which use tracking to group students according to academic ability. Regardless of whether a failing student is retained or promoted, academic scholars believe that underperformance must be addressed with intensive remedial help, such as summer school programs. In most countries, grade retention has been banned or strongly discouraged. In Canada and the United States, grade retention can be used in primary education and secondary education. However, with older students, retention is usually restricted to the specific classes that the student failed, so that a student can be, for example, promoted in a math class but retained in a language class. Where it is permitted, grade retention is most common among students in early elementary school. Most schools refuse to retain a student more than once in a single grade, or more than two or three years across all grades. Students with intellectual disabilities are only retained when parents and school officials agree to do so. Children who are relatively young in their age cohort are four times more likely to be retained.

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