Setting in State Upper Schools

[diabolo]

My DS is at a Prep at the moment, streamed for Maths and English, lots of differentiated work in other subjects. Very happy with that.

We've got 3 very good state upper schools in our town and I'm visiting them over the next few weeks. One of them streams in most subjects - fine. The others only have sets in Maths.

I work in a state middle school and know that my school sends many children on to those Upper Schools at age 13 at NC Level 7 in many subjects, but there are also some on Level 3 or 4 (and a few below that) in the same year group.

If lessons (English particularly) aren't streamed by ability, how can you possibly teach a class the same lesson when there are maybe 4 or 5 NC Levels difference between certain children? How can a 13 year old child at Level 3 in English access Shakespeare for instance? The same questions apply for History / Geog / Languages etc.

I intend to ask these questions at the Open Evenings, but would appreciate any thoughts from teachers and interested parents who have had to deal with the same concerns.

[IndigoBell]

Yes, a child at level 3 can access Shakespeare. Of course they can.

They won't write about it at the same level as a level 7 child, and they may have trouble reading it. But they can still understand it and discuss it and learn about it.

[cory]

If you think about it, Shakespeare wrote precisely so that people with different abilities and different education would all get something out of his plays: the aristocracy as well as the groundlings. It's the same with ancient Greek theatre: it is designed to be very democratic in its appeal because it had to be.