Late September 2026: classes started again a couple of weeks ago in every school. The first real tests arrive in three to six weeks, so between mid-October and early November — in Year 1 of high school, typically the first maths test, but also significant figures and conversions in physics, sentence analysis in Italian, first declensions and first translations in Latin or Greek. Right after that, in October-November, come the class councils (the meetings of a class’s teachers) with the letter to families. I am writing this post now, before the grade arrives, because it is beforehand that it is of any use.
A 4 in Year 1 says little about the child, a lot about the jump
Middle school and high school ask for different things: pace, independence, the way what you know is tested. A child who used to get 8 in middle school can get 4 on the first high school maths test without anything serious having happened — it is the jump that is being measured, not the child. In the 2025/26 school year (data from the Ministry of Education, MIM, survey at 3 August 2026), 17.7% of students from Year 1 to Year 4 had their judgement suspended in June (that is, a failed subject to make up over the summer), with the peak not in Year 1 but in Year 2 (19.7%), and maths the most failed subject overall. It is not a figure to be alarmed by: it is proof that the problem is common, spread across the whole first two years, and that it can be recovered — otherwise it would not be called “suspended”, it would be called “held back”.
What really matters is not the number in the school register in mid-October. It is what you do in the three weeks after.
The diagnosis in three parts
Before reacting, the useful question is not “how serious is it” but “what kind of mistake is it”. There are three different cases, and each is tackled differently — confusing them loses weeks.
1. A gap from earlier years
How you recognise it: the mistake is always the same, in different places in the test. They get fractions wrong both in the calculation exercise and inside an equation further on. They get signs wrong with signed numbers wherever they appear. It is not an isolated accident: it is a hole left from middle school that reappears at every opportunity.
What does NOT work: redoing all the exercises of the new chapter hoping the hole will close by itself through repetition. It doesn’t close: the mistake comes back identical in the tenth exercise too.
What works: isolating exactly the gap (fractions? proportions? signs?) and working on it alone, with exercises aimed only at that, for a few concentrated hours — not a generic review of “all the maths of middle school”. A precise gap closes in a few sessions, if it isn’t drowned in everything else.
2. No study method
How you recognise it: at home they say they have studied, they can repeat the rule aloud, but faced with the exercise they freeze or apply the rule mechanically and wrongly. They can’t tell a general rule from a particular example — they have learned the example, not the principle.
What does NOT work: studying more in the same way, that is rereading the book or the notes. Rereading gives the illusion of knowing, because the text is familiar; the test asks you to produce, not to recognise.
What works: changing how they study, not how much. After reading the theory, close the book and do the exercise without looking: that is where you see whether the rule has been understood or only read. For each new rule, make up an example and a counterexample in their own words before moving on.
3. Performance anxiety
How you recognise it: at home the same exercises come out right, in class they don’t. They hand in the test with exercises left blank that, redone at home afterwards, they solve without trouble. They freeze on the very first exercise, and from there lose time on everything else.
What does NOT work: revising the content more. The content, in these cases, is often already there: the problem is how well it holds up under time pressure and assessment, not the knowledge.
What works: practising under the same conditions as the test — same time, same silence, no book — before the test, not after. It is a different kind of training from studying more, and I have written a routine specifically to do it well: practising against the clock.
The evening of the bad grade: what to say and what not to
Three sentences that open the conversation:
- “Shall we look together at where you lost the marks?”
- “Did you get stuck on something in particular, or was it spread across the whole test?”
- “What did you expect to find that then wasn’t there?”
Three sentences that close it, even when said with the best intentions:
- “In my day all you had to do was study” — it doesn’t help to understand the mistake, and it shifts the conversation to a comparison the child can’t win.
- “Don’t worry, it’s normal” — true, but said straight away and nothing more it ends the conversation before you get to the diagnosis: first you look at the test together, then you put it in proportion.
- “You have to try harder” — it doesn’t say what to do differently, only to do more of the same thing that didn’t work.
The meeting with the teacher
It only makes sense if you arrive with a precise question, not with “how is it going?”. Three things to ask:
- “Where exactly does he or she go wrong — on which type of exercise?” Not “are they prepared?”, which is a question answered with a grade, not with useful information.
- To see the marked test together, line by line, not only the final number.
- What will be on the next test, to know whether the time should be invested in closing today’s hole or in chasing the new syllabus.
What the class council letter really says
In October-November, after the first tests, many schools send families a communication about students who are struggling in the first weeks. It is an early warning, not a final judgement: it exists precisely so that you can act while the whole first term is still ahead, not to certify that the year is compromised. The right way to read it is as a reminder with a date, not as a verdict.
A note on learning difficulties (DSA) and certifications
If the mistake is always of the same type, if reading aloud is visibly harder than for classmates, if there is a clear difference between how they answer aloud and how they write — it is worth talking to the school about it, without alarm: these are signals, not diagnoses, and the clinical part is done by those qualified to do it. If, on the other hand, a certification already exists from before, it should be handed in at once, not waiting for December: the PDP (the personalised learning plan for students with DSA) is built in the first part of the year, and the sooner the certification arrives, the sooner the plan is in force for the next test instead of the one after. On how handing it in works and what a well-made PDP must contain, there is a dedicated guide: PDP and PEI: what’s the difference and how to ask the school for a PDP.
A three-week plan, after the bad grade
Not three hours a day: 30-40 minutes, but every day, with a different goal for each phase.
Week 1 — diagnosis. Go through the marked test together, exercise by exercise, and classify each mistake into one of the three categories above. You don’t start practising until it is clear what kind of mistake it is: otherwise you risk training the wrong thing.
Week 2 — targeted work. If it is a gap: exercises only on that specific point, 20-30 minutes a day. If it is method: redo the exercises of the current chapter without looking at the theory while working, checking only at the end. If it is anxiety: one timed simulation in the middle of the week, in realistic conditions.
Week 3 — check and consolidation. A timed paper that reproduces the format of the real test, marked with a cool head the next day (not straight away: marking while still hot hides half the mistakes). If the type of mistake identified in Week 1 no longer shows up, the work has paid off; if it comes back, Week 2 should be repeated on that specific point, not widened to the whole syllabus.
For a broader structure, one that covers the whole term and not just these three weeks, the block-based study plan shows how to build a real plan, with dates and hours.
A tool to see where they stand, before the test
On the site you’ll also find the high school test practice papers: the correct answer is free, the guided solution unlocks with the first lesson. They are for finding out, before the real test, whether the work done at home is holding up — not to replace studying, but to give you data instead of an impression.
A side note: if you are wondering how many failing grades it takes to be held back, that is a question for June, for the final class council — this post is about October, about a single test, which is a completely different thing and much less serious. The picture on the final decision is here: How many failing grades to be held back in high school.
If you would rather have your son or daughter read something directly, the twin post addressed to them (not to you) covers the same subject from their point of view: The first maths test in Year 1 of high school: how to prepare. And for maths in general there is /materie/matematica/.
If the high school is still to be chosen, in the post on the open day calendar I also explain why a choice made in January is not irreversible.
If after the diagnosis you would like to talk it over, the first introductory call is free and lasts half an hour.
