I was at an open day for our catchment secondary this week and was surprised to find out that they have just moved to a system where there is no setting at all for any subject in any year. Has anyone had experience of this? Does it work, especially for the brightest?
The teacher who is leading this at the school said that the research showed that only the top 10% benefitted from setting and that removing setting was neutral for the middle band and beneficial for the bottom half. They also talked about the benefits for self-esteem, behaviour and teacher expectations. Assuming this is all correct (I've not yet looked it up in detail) then I can completely see why a comprehensive school (which this is) would want to do this for the benefit of everyone. The difficulty is that we're pretty sure that DD is well within the top 10% for the core academic subjects. Whilst I appreciate that things can change at secondary, her primary have made it very clear that they consider her to be exceptionally able. My own schooling was very heavily set, with sets for almost everything and quite finely graded with 12 levels for maths. This meant that we progressed very fast and I've always thought that helped me go from my very average comp to a 1st at Cambridge. I'm pretty concerned that she'll be disadvantaged if she goes to this school. I asked the teacher about the top students and they essentially said that there were issues for the top group and they appreciated our concerns.
Does anyone have any experience of this? At the moment we are feeling that it would be the wrong decision for her.
Thanks!
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Secondary School that doesn't set: any experience?
445 replies
Tomatillo · 05/10/2017 22:29
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