Form Groups in Secondary School

We mix all ours up into form groups. It's fairly random other than making sure theres a mixed ability range.

Children with additional needs will usually get placed into a group where school think the tutor is the 'right' person to meet the needs e.g. I've often had boys with ASD in my groups and more challenging behaviour whereas a colleague tends to get girls with a lot of SEMH issues.

Some schools ive worked in they stay the same y7-11 ans others have a y7-9 group and then they get shuffled in y10/11. I like either.
Generally theres not much moving because otherwise you get endless requests tk move groups every time some friendahip spat happens. We get all kinds of calls asking for form groups, teaching groups, seating plans etc to all be modified based on who did/didnt say something on snapchat or whatever. Moves beyond asking staff to keep separate are rare and only happen if there is a real and serious need.

When DD moved to secondary school they grouped the two forms by location - presumably on the basis that children who lived close to each other would meet when travelling etc.

That worked well.

My DC were asked to name a friend they'd like to be with in their Y7 form class. With DD, both the primary school and I wrote requesting two girls that she didn't want to be with due to previous bullying issues.

There have been form group changes each year but they're supposed to stay in the same class from Y10-Y13 as they've been arranged alphabetically. However i understand that changes are considered.

I imagine it depends very much on the school.
DS's school has vertical tutor groups so they have 3 or 4 children from each of Y7-Y11. They seem to have tried to pick children who didn't know each other in each year group (different schools). They stick in the same group all the way through (losing the Y11s and gaining new Y7s).