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Original poster

Should I be worried?

58 replies

ReinettePompadour · 23/07/2017 19:21

I've had a letter sent home from DD's and DS's high school and from September they are going to stop setting students and move to mixed ability classes in all subjects previously set by ability (English/Maths/Science/Geography/History).

The reasons that have been stated are that it gives lower attaining pupils access to the same curriculum as high achieving and will encourage them to do better/aim higher/be inspired by high achieving students in their class etc It also states there is little/no evidence that mixed classes do worse at GCSE than streamed classes.

I'm already suspicious of the schools intentions after they announced they were going to offer 8 GCSEs to only the top 10% highest achieving students and anyone considered below that 10%/middle/low would be offered GCSE's in only English/Maths/Science and BTECs instead for the remaining options.

A school Governor has mentioned there are no specialist staff available to teach English/Maths/Science and this way by mixing the classes they can give every student the benefit of a specialist teacher but the downside side is the larger class sizes that will now be created (up to 40 students I believe).

Is this something I should be worried about? I have already been looking for alternative schools due to the GCSE reductions but we are stuck on school waiting lists with no movement this year as it is.

Do mixed classes achieve the same number of passes at GCSE? Does setting improves grades? Will high ability students now be forgotten/ignored? Should I be worried about this because I am ?

OP posts:
coragreta · 23/07/2017 20:05

I'm English by the way. Maths may be trickier.

noblegiraffe · 23/07/2017 20:05

A blogger does a brief review of the evidence for mixed ability teaching in maths here:

teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/2015/11/29/why-i-am-against-mixed-ability-part-2/

coragreta · 23/07/2017 20:04

We have mixed ability and it works great. High achievers attain just as high and middle and low do better.
However the 40students in a class would worry me. We have a max of 28 and that seems big to me.

noblegiraffe · 23/07/2017 20:00

As a maths teacher, I would quit and find another school rather than work in one that taught mixed ability maths. I definitely wouldn't choose to send my child to one.

It is, I understand, possible to teach maths mixed ability, and indeed some maths educators I respect actually prefer it, however they admit that it requires a huge amount of specialist training and a very different way of working to your normal classroom. I really doubt that the teachers in your school would be getting this training.

The evidence for mixed ability maths teaching is contentious, when I researched it for my PGCE, Jo Boaler was a prominent figure arguing in favour. She has, I believe, been accused of making up her results because she has never released them and since then has done some exceptionally dubious work in the realms of maths and neuroscience.

Maths works differently to other subjects, it is hierarchical, you cannot access the more difficult work if you don't understand the easier work, so giving lower attaining pupils access to higher levels of work before they're ready will not motivate them, it will confuse them.

That they are combining this new approach with larger class sizes is alarming.

Original poster
ReinettePompadour · 23/07/2017 19:50

Mooncupdotcom that reference would be good.

I cant find anything positive online anywhere. And obviously personal experience of this wasn't great.

I'm happy to read anything that will reassure me that my top 10% performing student will continue to receive appropriate work and that it wont be dumbed down to accommodate the other students.

OP posts:
Mooncupdotcom · 23/07/2017 19:47

I'm an English teacher and would be pleased with this. Mixed ability leads to much better dynamics and more challenging texts in English. At a recent conference we had a big session on sets or not and very very few schools persist with it. Haven't got a reference to hand but evidence was convincing.

Original poster
ReinettePompadour · 23/07/2017 19:41

potatoscowls this was also my experience back in the 80s. Hence me worrying about this Sad

OP posts:
potatoscowls · 23/07/2017 19:34

Id love to assuage your concerns - and i speak only from personal experience - but in "mixed" classes the more studious kids are used as unpaid teaching assistants for the lower-attaining/poorly behaved ones. I was always put in a group with the most poorly behaved students and ended up doing the work myself.
Like I say though, this is just my experience, not a broadly applicable fact.