Mixed ability teaching vs sets

I guess it depends if the children can move from set to set easily? I prefer mixed ability as research has shown that lower achieving children seem to rise to the level of the higher achieving children, and the higher achieving children carry on achieving anyway. I think children of any ability has something to add in group discussions, and can force others to reevaluate their viewpoints and strengths. It depends if you just want your kids to do well in exams.

My kids senior schools did mixed ability for one term in Y7 then they were set.

I fail to see how you can teach SEN and near Mensa level kids in the one class

PastSellByDate - I should clarify that I think children should be set once the teachers have had a chance to form an opinion of their work ethic and ability. Then setting should be fluid, not set in stone.

I think this addresses a couple of the pros you list for mixed ability setting. I can't see why doing this would take more than 6-8 weeks though. So, why not put DC in sets just before the first half term holiday in year 7?

Oh, dear, there's my old thread named and shamed. I didn't say I thought asking for extra work was weird, I said it would be seen as maybe weird, maybe swotty by the other kids and possibly even the teacher.

Actually in the case of the English I was unable to see the teacher at parents' evening as she wasn't there, but I asked the school to get her to ring me and since our conversation dd has noticed an improvement.

But as PastSellByDate notes, it has to be a constant struggle to get it into dd's head that at this school she will need to push herself and do her best, not just better than other people in the class. I mentioned French, where the expectations are spectacularly low, so it's no good dd thinking, "Oh, I'm top of the class therefore I am doing well," when if she were plonked down in, say, Tiffin School she would have a rude shock.

That's very true Brenda re. language evening classes - though I think it is again an issue of how they're taught. I gave up on a class for the same reason, as it was just progressing ridiculously slowly. The teacher taught to the pace of the slowest student - particularly frustrating in a programme that ran 4 hours per week and was meant to be relatively intensive.

I'm sure that it could have been more diversified, though, particularly in that instance where all students are there of their own choice.

Hi var123

DD1 (Y7) mixed ability all classes - about half her form group are in each class other half different forms, often including old primary school friends.

GOOD POINTS:
clean slate - no decisions made yet on ability of any pupil (although they'll have primary record/ KS2 SATs and in house CAT testing from visit day)

meeting lots of new people

with some old friends (so feeling more secure - helped a lot in first weeks)

given teachers a chance to get to know kids/ good & bad points

given DD1 a chance to learn new system and settle in

giving DD1 a lot of confidence (she's doing really well and getting praise)
knows that working hard now will mean she's placed in top sets later

BAD POINTS:
hasn't escaped mouthy friends from old primary school (often disruptive)

can find class pace a bit slow

can be asked to explain method a lot/ called on by teacher a lot

often finishes work in class so has no homework (school assigns homework frequently as finishing work started in class)

Our view is that settling in right now was more important. I get the impression that the school is closely tracking all the kids - not just in terms of results on tests (SATs/ CATs/ class tests/ class performance) but also in terms of attitude/ effort.

The school is entirely mixed ability Y7/ partly Y8 (MFL/ Sciences are set) and then gradually through Year 9 pupils are placed in sets.

I think in general although I'd like DD1 doing a bit more work - I am over the moon that she's so happily settled in school. The lack of homework (because of the homework policy of finishing work started in class) does mean she has plenty of time for her sports interests - which is a good thing.

They get very good results at GCSE/ A-Level - very stable team of teachers, minor staff changes as people retire - HT/ Deputy HT quite young - so in general I do feel I can trust that this is about letting every child start fresh/ no preconceptions/ no limits - and see where they go with that freedom.

So so far so good - as far as we're concenred. But I will say that what we're doing at home is pushing DD1 not to do the bare minimum on homeworks (we have a lot of school support with that) - I know others have posted (BrendaBlackhead for example www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/a2204126-mixed-ability-for-English-just-why) that asking to do extra/ doing something inventive just isn't done (I think her words were 'would be deeply weird') at their school. And I think that really is a shame.

So like anything - I suppose it depends on the school and how they handle things.

I think mixed ability teaching works best for those who respond well to being challenged by trying to outperform students who are more typically able.

It doesn't really do the most able many favours, unless they need to work on their patience.

I don't think it does the least able much good either as they can find some of the teaching over their heads and they can begin to feel hopeless.

Ds1 is both incredibly able in some subjects and scrapping along the bottom in others. He's bored and frustrated listening to inane questions 10 times an hour in the subjects he finds easy. Whereas in the subjects he cannot do even averagely well in, he's so down on himself about his lack of ability and the low quality of his work compared to the others, that he gets quite distressed about it, and sometimes almost depressed over it.

Going to read the thread now to find why people think its a good idea to mix abilities into one class!

sadly scope to and 'will' to are not the same thing. also communication and management (and classroom teachers influence over senior management) are very different between a small primary and a big secondary with say 1500 pupils and ten subject departments.

Just a parent - but as Bonsoir has suggested - I do think there is scope for little minor changes to improve dynamics in a class:

DD1 has most of her classes with same half of her form group (they split forms in half and mix them in classes - in this way friends from old primary are likely to have at least 1 or 2 classes together each week). She says several changes were made after Christmas.

Seating was rearranged - chatty/ mouthy people were separated. Trouble makers moved right up to the front of the class. She was moved right to the back of the class. In another class she was with a very chatty girl and ended up being a bit too chatty herself. They were separated after Christmas.

In one class 3-4 kids (including DD1) were suddenly asked to leave that class and join another class meeting at the same time - 3-4 pupils from that class were moved to her old class. DD1 says that all the kids that were causing problems were separated out amongst the 5 classes.

I think this worked because this class meets in the same block of time for all 5 forms of Y7 - so they can easily rejig the balance.

I admit this would be much more difficult if you only have say one lower ability class for maths that meets at a specific time - you have to teach whoever is assigned to that group.

We also are definitely at a Leafy secondary - and it's clear the kinds of problems elsewhere are more extreme (in area we fled from to avoid for secondary options) and I suspect probably harder to manage.

Setting worked well for ds. Ds was always strong in Maths/Science and being set meant that the lessons moved at a faster pace and they were able to extend into other areas of the subject.

Ds was weak at English/Humanities and lacked confidence in these subjects. He would compare himself unfavourably to others. In year 7 he was in set 3 out of 4, setting increased his confidence and he made lots of progress. In year 8 he was moved up to set 2 and in now in year 9 he is in set 1. I don't think ds would have made the same level of progress if he had been mixed with the higher level ability kids from day 1.

I go to an evening class in a language. It has given me some insight into mixed ability teaching!

Some of the students (all ages) are absolutely useless. We all started at point zero and whereas some of the class are shooting along, others are completely flummoxed by everything... and as for grammar... It is frustrating for everyone and now the teacher has just divided the class in two and tries to teach us simultaneously.

I asked dd about her French at school and she says it's terrible as if they do anything beyond labelling worksheets with vocabulary there are kids whining that they don't "get it". Dd said they did "er" verbs and there was a storm of protest so that was it. No "ir" or "re" verbs ever appeared! There are many, many threads on MN about language teaching in schools and I am now just teaching dd at home.

That just seems like a stupid approach to me. What has ability in math got to do with ability is languages? I assume they have set it up that way in order for easier timetabling. I was top set math and bottom French, and I needed all of the extra help offered! Science I can understand, music again I'd expect little correlation.

Still better than in my dh's school which assigned every child into a stream and even limited subject choices (ie A stream took Latin, C stream had computing). I went to the sixth form of a school that streamed and attitudes were pretty intrenched by then. The 'A' stream boys thought they were incredibly superior (they were extremely privileged anyway) and some of them behaved appallingly as a result. In fact my experience of bad classroom management comes from this time, with children who thought that they were the social and academic superior of their teachers and did whatever the hell they felt like (paper airplanes, explosions in science etc).

My DD's school sets for Maths from year 7 and then sets for MFL, science and music based on their maths ability. So top set for maths, also means top set foo these other other subjects. Works for my DD as these are her strongest subjects - but I know that some of her friends are struggling in top set MFL, whilst finding the maths easy.

For English, geography and history there is no setting in year 7 but then set from year 8.

No setting for all the other subjects.

I think that the school gets this balance about right. Certainly based on current levels and KS3 targets, my DD is doing equally well in those she is set in and those she isn't.

fare not fair sorry!

hijk fair play to you btw that you are still teaching.

i had a brief dip back in last year and i just found the level of abuse and aggression i was expected to put up with and deal with 'professionally' in the classroom was.... just more than i deemed worth a salary iyswim. hopefully your school is better than that one but it seemed like ever other ks4 class had at least 3 or 4 extremely volatile abusive/aggressive students in that all staff knew were like that and reassured me it wasn't me and that was standard fair and they were in and out of internal exclusions on a weekly basis. to me that just seemed unworkable conditions for any standard of good mental health and dignity or sense of actually 'teaching'.

i'd had a good 6 years out of the classroom but hadn't expected things to have gotten that much worse given i was working in what was considered a problem school prior to leaving the profession last time.

I guess the answer depends on the ability and personality of your child. Personally, for my children, I agree with the poster who said sets in everything and as soon as possible.

DD1 is extremely able and didn't want to help the others who didn't pick things up as quickly (as a teacher suggested). She just wanted to learn things faster, and DD2 is much the same. However, my bright but super kind and patient niece, loved mixed sets and did very well in them.

their share of the work would be a start

a social worker, for a kid under the care of one, would be on site dealing with them rather than occasionally bothering to communicate with the school. a group of kids all suffering with behaviour issues stemming from domestic violence in the home could be having workshops with a youth worker trained in helping them process that and cope with the feelings and behaviour it's known to trigger in young people. kids who are kicking off suddenly in year nine and just being treated as separate incidents could have an early intervention with someone who has the skills and time to talk to them and look into what is really going on and put together a plan to try and stop it just cementing into the rest of the school life rather than dealing with the cause of the issue and diverting it's path. etc.

kids whose literacy levels were holding them back could be having intensive support classes with top literacy support workers in a full classroom rather than a minimum wage support worker sitting next to them in class chewing gum (sorry i know there are great support workers out there but it's hit and miss and getting 20kids at once with someone shit hot at what they do would be better). kids with delayed social skills from say autistic spectrum disorders could have twice weekly full classroom sessions with someone really good at assisting that rather than parents lottery luck on trying to get extra support via a gp or wherever at expensive one on one rates.

it just make sense in all directions whether it's economic, ethical or resource management etc. even down to use of building and land space.

I do agree with you, but I also don't really believe that there is necessarily all that much a "specialist" can do anyway, in many cases.

sorry - it just seems like common sense to me.

it's ridiculous that teachers are expected to be all of these things and that are 4mx4m classroom is considered the site to deal with all of these things on a 30 to 1 ratio. it is crazy that all the specialist earning vaster wages are sited off somewhere where there are no kids and they see them one on one whilst teachers, at a lower wage and with less specialist qualifications, deal with it all on mass.

if they're determined to make schools the site of dealing with everyone, no matter how complex and volatile their needs and the site of managing all of societies ills then school needs to be the place where all of the specialists and resources are sited too.

yes, this is what I mean by wanting to set according to behaviour as well as achievement.

I do despair at the sheer number of problems that schools are expected to deal with. We are supposed to be educating children. Parents are supposed to do the parenting.

you can if you have more than one set up on site i suppose - re: a central school for those able to be in a mainstream classroom set up and another facility for those who aren't staffed by specialists trained to deal with that and fluidity between the two with the objective always being to get people back into the mainstream classroom. schools need to change imo if they are continue being 'inclusive'. the specialists, pscyhologists, social workers, occupational therapists, cahms, youth workers etc don't need to be reached via referral somewhere out there they need to be on site in the place where kids are and where they are most needed - not in little offices somewhere away from where the lives of children and young people are actually going on.

60-70 is about an average, I have worked in schools where the number is far higher, and you could confidently expect 15 or more in each class. Yes it does tell you something, it tells you the standard of behaviour the parents have brought their children up to. There is NOTHING a school can do in the face of such numbers. There is very little a school can do anyway, children find behaving badly a lot of fun, and there are no sanctions we can apply.

60-70 pupils whose behaviour is not fit for the classroom tells us something though doesn't it? and how many children's education is that disrupted on a daily basis? so do we just suck it up and keep going? if three of those children are in your class do you just accept a large chunk of your education is going to be lost to being stuck a passive witness, stuck in your chair sat being an audience for them?

Here we get a little card through the post mid-July telling us which form DD will be in for the next academic year.

Quite a lot of state schools pin a list outside the front door on the first morning of term.