Teaching primary mixed year class

[Todayissunny]

I have an interview for a position teaching English as a foreign language (not UK based) to classes with 2 year groups in one class.
Does anyone have any tips or methods they can recommend for teaching mixed year primary classes.

[ReadWriteDraw]

I did this for two years. Not a problem and I didn’t notice it really except for maths. The Hamilton Trust provide mixed year group planning which was a life saver!

[Todayissunny]

Thanks for your reply. Did you also teach a foreign language with 2 different course levels? What problems did you have with the maths classes? How did you deal with it?

[ReadWriteDraw]

No it was Year 3/4.

Most other subjects are easily differentiated by ability and task rather than being linear in the way that maths is. For successful maths learning you have to have a solid understanding of the underlying concepts before moving on (for example - decomposition before column addition) whereas humanities and English etc you can teach the same topic and just differentiate.

I’m not sure if that makes sense?

I think for maths we would teach turn about days. We would all do a starter together but with differentiated questioning and then one of the year groups in the class would have input while the other year group would do independent work. We tried to keep the same topics - fractions, multiplication etc.

[Todayissunny]

I think foreign language teaching would need to be like the maths. ? Start together and one group would practice previously taught language while the other group would have input. Challenging and a lot more planning needed than for a single year class?

[MrsZola]

White Rose also do mixed age planning for maths.
I found that my bright year 1s often latched onto the year2 stuff which brought their progress up. Equally, my lower ability year 2s benefitted from year 1 input.

[millimat]

Classroom secrets also do mixed age planning.