Is this the norm in secondary school? Will it likely change come GCSEs?

English does not have two or more levels.

The only subject my ds’ school sets them for now is PE, ds is in the bottom set and he absolutely loves it. He’s gone from being a child who hated PE in primary school (because all the sporty kids got frustrated with him, shouted at him and refused to pass the ball) to a child who actively looks forward to PE days and joins in with great enthusiasm (if not talent!!) he’s also made most of his new friends through bottom set PE too.
The other subjects are all mixed ability throughout although after learning exclusively in their tutor group in year 7, they then got put in “learning groups” in year 8 which I suspect incorporate a degree of grouping by ability although this hasn’t been explicitly stated.

My DC2 is at a fully mixed ability comp (no local state selective schools). IIRC there is no setting in Y7. Y8 and 9 have sets for maths and PE. Y10 and 11 have those set plus science and MFL - so PE aside they set for the subjects that have different tiers of exam papers. My elder DC went through the same school and we had no concerns about higher achievers being held back in mixed ability classes.

It has been that way for years certainly when my children were at school and they are both now almost 40.
Setting for every subject is divisive and unnecessary. Teachers are able to differentiate their content in the classroom

There are some arguments in favour of mixed ability classes, but 'cementing social skills' for the more able students certainly isn't one of them! Unless they are setted for absolutely everything including their tutor group, they are already going to be 'cementing their social skills' (by which I assume you mean having to integrate with kids less able than themselves?). Besides, there are plenty of social skills necessary within a setted group anyway.

I'm not a governor, but I have been a secondary school teacher for 30 years in a wide variety of schools. It's easy to say that a school's success is simply down to the quality of teaching. In reality, pretty much all schools have a mixture of great teachers, good teachers, ok teachers and not very good teachers (and possibly one or two awful ones). An over-subscribed school may well attract a higher proportion of good teachers. Not all schools can do that, due to their area and demographic. Not all can recruit enough teachers full stop. So saying 'Mixed ability is totally fine - you just have to have great teachers' is a bit unrealistic imo.

My dc was streamed for maths only year 7, I think meant to be streamed for English as well year 8 but they didn’t have enough teachers or something so English and science streaming kicked in during year 9. No streaming for the other subjects.

Often there's a reason to set in some subjects (maths, English, science, languages etc) that have two or more levels of paper at GCSE. The syllabus is different so the students taking higher level can't be with students taking foundation level. They need to learn different stuff. But many subjects don't have different levels at GCSE and won't be set.

It’s normal in KS3 at my DCs school.

They only set for maths (4 sets x2) and PE (2 sets across the year).

In KS4 they also set for science (top set and the rest mixed) and languages (lower and higher paper).

In our school, all students start out in mixed-ability classes but then from halfway in Year 7, they are set for Maths and then from Year 8 onwards, they are set for Science and also set for P.E.

Whilst there are exceptions, almost all schools will set for maths and science (they are the two traditionally big set subjects). A small minority of schools may set for English and languages as well and a small minority may even set all of their subjects. Some schools even just have one high-achieving top set and then every other class is mixed-ability with the remaining students.

Agree with other posters saying mixed-ability benefits average and below-average attaining students but not high-achieving students. High-attainers do need their own stream where the pace is faster and the challenge more rigorous so they are not held back. And then you always get the issue of compounded behavioural issues by a critical mass of students in the lower sets which is sad for the lovely kids of low-ability who struggle but are well behaved and respectful.

That doesn't sounds like a genuine mixed ability class - it sounds like you were an outlier in a class of mostly average or below average children - was it a small school in an area with a less academic demographic? In a genuine mixed ability class you would expect to see a more graduated spectrum of abilities, and there would have been more able children at your level.

Mine were put in sets for Maths and English in year 7 which continued to GCSE. Mixed ability for GCSE can become problematic but it depends on how it is dealt with. In History my child was achieving incredibly high marks and there were some children who were a 2 or 3. The work was differentiated to accommodate all abilities and it worked well.

However, in French they just had a disrupted classroom environment. The cohort were all forced to take a MFL and as they had only been taught one language from year 7 then that was the language you had to take. WIth humanities they had a choice of 3 subjects.

Although Ds didn't enjoy MFL, probably because it was hard to learn in that class, he was a hard worker and worked on it outside school with Duolingo specifically for GCSE and watched a lot of youtube videos. He understood that his learning had to take place outside of the classroom and that included me getting help via MNetters.

Overall the school were really hot on behaviour so this was unusual. It does depend on the subjects they take too, Ds took statistics, no one who doesn't love maths is taking statistics and that usually means a higher maths set where there is much less messing around. School also set levels for being able to choose some subjects.

Yep I’m calling bs, I’m afraid. I was bullied, belittled, jeered at ostracised and made to feel like a total freak in some of my non-setted classes - simply because I was smashing out top marks and understood everything. Pretty quickly I retreated into total silence - partly to avoid being jeered and partly because I was so bored waiting for half the class to catch up. It was utter painful being “the super-smart one” amongst a class of people who were struggling at C grade or below. My GCSE folders were just full of page after page of doodles in a desperate attempt to stay awake.

Maybe if the quality of teaching is amazing across the board you get a slightly better outcome. But that’s rarely the case in state school. In Y7 and Y8 my DD’s school had a mixed bag of teachers - in fact my dd didn’t have a dedicated teacher for history (original teacher had a divorce and disappeared due to stress before October half term). And no IT teacher in y7 or y8 - there were not enough so they got a science teacher to try and teach them. And no teacher for geography by halfway through y8, and the Spanish teacher was off for a term and they had non-MFL substitutes.

And then of course there are the teachers who just are not very good at their jobs.

Setting makes life easier for teachers and provides a slightly better chance for students of all abilities to progress at their own pace.

DC's school only set for maths other than have a top science set in combined and triple science when they started doing GCSE (other science groups were still mixed ability).

I was dubious about the lack of sets when they started there but actually there ae a lot of positives from being taught in a mixed ability class, particularly if you have a "spiky profile" child and the school's results are virtually the same as the local secondary which has a similar intake but sets in everything.

Ex teacher

Not politically correct but when we setted in maths there were two bottom sets in parallel - one for kids who usually had SN and worked very hard but really struggled academically and one for kids who had no SN but couldn’t behave.

both were very small and had a TA.

our top sets were very big to compensate for this but behaviour in top sets is generally good and it wasn’t too much of a problem.

Dd goes to state comprehensive. They have sets for Math, English and PE from y7. Then sets are added for sciences, MFL, geography and history the following year.

You really can’t effectively teach lower ability kids alongside higher ability for long. My dd was accidentally bottom-setted in French in Y9 as they muddled her up with a girl with a very similar name. At first she refused to complain (or let me) because she said she’d just get re-setted at half term. But within 4 weeks she was begging me to contact her teacher - she was losing her mind with boredom and she said “it’s not fair on anyone because I’m replying to all the questions in class in full French sentences, and they are sitting in silence as they still haven’t figured out what the verb is. They won’t learn anything while I’m in their classroom.”

"cements social skills for the others" ie the well behaved kids are used to monitor the behaviour of the not so well behaved. My DD was 1 of those ie high attainer + well behaved girl used to manage the learning and behaviour of lower attaining boys. Not good for her at all.

my son’s school sets for PE half way through the first year, way before they do for any other subject. It enables the sporty kids to learn with the other sporty kids and the others to not be put off by the sportier kids. Makes perfect sense but not really sure why this doesn’t apply to all subjects.

Usually sets are for Maths, English, Science and sometimes MFL.

They don’t tend to have them for everything in my experience. But my experience is obviously limited to my own children’s schools and what friends have told me re theirs.

Mixed ability teaching benefits all students but differently. It raises standards for low to mid attainers and cements social skills for the others.
I know that I will be shot down for this statement but the big standard comp at which I am a governor only sets in Maths, gets fantastic results and is 10x oversubscribed. It is down to the quality of teaching.

I'm not an expert in education but I have talked to a lot of teachers about this. I understand it as this: you can have classes of mixed ability, which means you might get a few kids in each class who disrupt because they are not able to engage for whatever reason. It's somewhat unfair on the kids who want to learn in the top sets.

Or you can split by set, and you end up with one or more classes that are basically unteachable due to the volume of kids who can't engage, which is hugely unfair on the struggling kids who want to learn and are in the bottom sets.

I imagine that Mumsnet is not representative of parents of kids who benefit from not setting.

Lots of schools don't stream at all in years 7-9. From what I can make out, it is because the lower ability pupils are badly behaved, and they couldn't cope with them being all together.

Even in years 10-11 setting is limited. This is difficult because of higher ability pupils being in class with those who cannot read.

It depends on the school, but the information should be readily available. Around me it's a wide range from most subjects set from the beginning to no setting even through GCSE. All the different iterations have positives and negatives.

DD inYr10 is only set for Maths, science and English. In yr7 and 8 it was only Marhs (but they had Science, IT Nd French /Spanish in their Maths set) and then English in Yr9 which was also their class for humanities).

At GCSE none of the options have Sets, its just timetabling.

Ours sets in maths from year 7, in english and science from year 9. Everything else is taught together (but classes are small, so no issue).
They don’t set in PE, but the kids who choose it for GCSE are taught separately (and they tend to be the higher ability ones).

Our local school doesnt set for any subjects until year 10 and then only maths and science. I think from looking at previous years progress 8 scores that this does benefit previous low and medium attainers but not the previous high attainers.