Everything in real life has real life consequences, hell of a wake-up call. I'd hardly call high school performance - let alone middle school performance - anything more than trivial. Honestly, at least in America, the first three years of high school just simply don't mean much when considering future progress in universities if you're heading that path, and even if you do, community college transfers to universities are a very viable option if you're just looking to get by in life, which most people are. Performance in high school, and especially middle school, aren't pivotal at all except for the final year of high school and standardized testing (ACT/SAT).