Yes! Poor performance is self-reinforcing. I was such a bad student in kindergarten and first grade that I might have flunked out of first grade if that's possible.

I entered a new school for second grade and almost overnight went from a below-average student to nearly straight A's.

Part of it was that classes were much smaller. But the school also gave tests before you enrolled that showed that I was clearly a better student that you'd guess from my dismal grades. So I think the teachers had higher expectations for me.