Mixed ability teaching vs sets

Racist really
I am talking about my experiences working for a major Finnish employer, I have no idea what the Chinese or Singaporians are like to work for/with.

reallytired.....just look at the TIMMS results. I used to bemoan UK scores on PISA tests. We should also look at TIMMS performance. UK youngsters are more functionally literate and numerate than cohorts of the previous few generations.

Btw, i have spent a fortune on books from SG, Australia, South Korea, India, Canada and the USA. SG are good at Maths, I will grant you that. What about the English books. They are nothing but very good drill down versions of the First Aid in English. I can pm you my titles. In fact, I have fairly frequent conversations with the authors of many of the books my dc use.

Show me some evidence that Singaporians, Chinese or Finns are worse at problem solving. By evidence I don't mean anecdotes. Unless you can show me, strong evidence like PISA results, it is racist to say that these countries are weak a problem solving.

Portico clearly you are using different singapore math books to me. The books I have used have plenty of real life examples.

Reallytired, they used SATs as well, but the cats showed he had the intelligence to cope with a top set. DS school look at the overall picture, which include CATS. The sets are not rigid and they do move around, ie I got ds moved down a class for MFL and my dd was regularly moved in maths. She performs better at top of class 2 than bottom of class 1.

But I cant see any benefit of mixed ability for him. He was a benefit to the rest of the class because he opened up conversations, same for history etc from what the teachers told me.

He did take a btech engineering for year 11 and his teacher was pleased because he would "pull" the rest of the class up.

Their education system. Sorry for typos I type too quickly.

ReallyTired. I am not being racist. I use such books and daily talk to friends in Singapore. There education system is set up for bookish tests. It is not sep up for out of the box thinking. I have compared our system to their having used both sets of books, in Eng and Maths since Nursery school to theend of Primary School!

www.oecd.org/education/PISA-2012-PS-results-eng-JAPAN.pdf

England came 9th in problem solving skills. We were beaten by loads of Asian countries and Finland.

Rather than being racist, we should look at what these countries are doing with their educational policy. Most high achieving countries use mix ablity teaching. (Along side special schools)

Singapore maths books are not rote learning. There is plenty of problem solving. In the early years they have a lot of practical learning.

Saying that Finns or Singaporians cannot problem solve is plain racist. There is no evidence that these countries are weak at problem solving.

Bruffin, do you think it would have harmed your child to have been in a mixed ablity set for English? If a dyslexic child cannot write well then they need help regardless of intelligence. Attainment in a subject should dictate which set a child is put in. Does it make sense to put a level 6 child who has bombed out in their CATS in the bottom set due to nerves?

People want the best for their children. It is nice having your child in top sets. However mistakes with rigid setting can have significant consequences. I feel it's better for teachers to meet the children and give everyone a chance.

There is no substitute for professional judgement.

I don't agree with setting children on the basis a CATS test.

Worked brilliantly for DS who has high CAT scores but dyslexic. He was put in top sets despite scraping a level 4 for English. His English teacher said he was in the right set because of his comprehension skills.

The Finnish education system is seriously over rated. I worked for the biggest Finnish employer for 6 years and found them unable to multitask or think out of the box. Excellent at their own very narrow fields but that was it, given anything to do that was out of the norm and it would be panic stations.

I'd say the problem with setting in maths is that it can be a substitute for differentiation within a class (just looking at dd's experience plus comments I've heard from other parents). I guess if you have a wider level of prior achievement, teachers have no option but to differentiate. Should imagine it's a lot of work, though!

I have long been a detractor of hope Eng and Maths is taught in this country. For 8 years I have used Singaporean books on my children. Singaporeans are rote learners and great at the PISA tests. UK is much, much hIgher on the TIMMS tests where problem solving is concerned. South Korea, India, Hong Kong, Shanghaii are all rote learners who cannot think out of the box. Here, we just need a smaller emphasis on rote on arithmetic, tabes and grammar. Everything else is fine. Ps, far eastern countries do better because of an out of school hours tutor culture, and they value education a lot more there. Take away the tuition, the kids there would not score so highly in the PISA tests.

There is research that shows that mixed ability teaching in Maths, if done correctly can boost the results of all pupils.
Lots of other countries do not set, and expect all pupils to achieve highly. they tend to be countries towards the top of international tests.

(Of course there are some reservations about this, as some even in those countries wouldn't be in main stream schools.)

All the high achieving countries like Finland, Korea or singapore do not have ablity setting. My son's secondary school is mostly mixed ablity in year 7 and has excellent results. Now that my son is in year 8 he is settled for maths, science, MFL and mixed ablity for everything else.

I think that mixed ablity teaching works if all the children can read. I don't think it works to have a child on the p scales (children with severe learning difficulties who are below level 1 national curriculum) with a child who is level 7.

I don't agree with setting children on the basis a CATS test. That seems to be to be the eleven plus. I feel children should be set according to their ablity in a particular subject.

In an ideal world all classes should be settled. You wouldn't want your clever kids slowed down in a mixed ability class. In reality there are not enough teachers, and it's is not practical to set all subjects. I would set Eng, Maths, Sciences and Languages.

DCs school set for everything from day one, based on CATs (july schools transfer day) and SATs and primary school advice. It worked well for my dcs except maybe MFL for ds who is dyslexic. There was high expectations but that was soon sorted once we spoke to SEN.

Setting. All day everyday.

In as many subjects as possible. And early...

Y7 set for some subjects after first half term at DS school but humanities, arts etc are mixed and it works fine. The setting is reviewed every half term. I do agree with setting for maths as long as each group is getting the support it needs, but notice where subjects aren't set, this doesn't seem to cause any issues at all, including in history and geography.

Not sure it's always supportive at the bottom.

In fact I'm absolutely sure it's not good for most.

There are so many reasons for pupils to not achieve at school. Many (Most?) of the bottom set pupils don't have academic problems, they have other problems.

Setting is lovely if you're in the top, supportive if you're at the bottom and a potential nightmare in the middle.

I'd rather mixed ability, and definitely over setting from day 1. It takes time to get to know pupils and their true abilities. There is often a big change in who is "achieving highly" between primary and secondary. It can be because different schools spoon feed/fiddle results/whatever, it can be that some pupils blossom with harder concepts but in others the gaps are exposed, or...

OP - what are your DSs predicted SATs grades? Because it does make a difference to the question.

In my DDs KS3 science class some of the class have foundation textbooks and some have higher.

But they both have the same topics in them.

And the teacher actually asked DD which book she wanted, as she was borderline. DD chose the higher textbook.

Maybe if it had been set she wouldn't have had that option.