Any teachers here? Do mixed ability classes work?

“...will receive a diet of different experiences.”. also barf. What is wrong with “...will receive different experiences”?

We call this “crapspeak”!

Oh don’t be silly piggy it matters not one jot what the “educational landscape” (barf!) was like, if pupils mess about and disrupt others. We’re talking about mixed ability vs sets, not beating children. 🙄

It does matter because the educational landscape was entirely different 30+ years ago. Perhaps we should bring back the cane because 40 years ago they had it and those that weren't caned thought it was marvellous?

Yes, but I offered my experience as a teacher of teaching both systems at the same time in two different subjects now. I'd swap any of my setted groups for the mixed ability classes I teach in my other subject.

My DS also thinks setting is better. Doesn't mean he is right!

It's all about the school, the quality of teaching and its systems. It is very rare to fins a comp with completely setted classes in every subject so usually students will receive a diet of different experiences.

It doesn’t matter whether it was 30 years ago or 30 minutes ago if “the kids that wanted to knuckle down were constantly interrupted by those for whom the content was too much, and they messed around constantly...”.

The 80s is 30 years ago !!

That's why I offered my year 11 DS's experience of being in set classes, and mixed ability classes at primary and secondary school.

He thinks setting is better too, even when it would've meant he'd have been in the bottom set.

The 80s is 30 years ago !!

@mmzz There are lots of students who don't understand the concept of multiplying. Even some who struggle with number bonds. Teachers have to be armed with very many different strategies to try and tap into the needs of each student. Necessarily this takes time and for maths especially means it's next to impossible to teach mixed ability effectively. The lowest ability will always lose out and the top ability invariably too.

I'm not a teacher, but had experience of a mixed ability experiment in the 80s in secondary school. It lasted all of a term. The kids that wanted to knuckle down were constantly interrupted by those for whom the content was too much, and they messed around constantly. I remember it being awful, sorry.

Didn't work for me as student or as a teacher. I got noticeably better results in the subjects that were setted than those that were mixed ability.
The teacher just didn't have time (this was in O Level days) to teach the fine detail which was needed then to secure the top grades.
In my experience of current teaching, the high ability students go to extra 'study clubs' which are run in lunch times and which enable them to pick up these extra grades. In theory the study clubs are open to all but in practice it's only the motivated ones who attend.

Other things I would expect someone who understood multiplication to be able to do, for example, would be to describe the true value of an exchanged digit in a written calculation, to spot and explain concept errors (rather than arithmetical slips) in a calculation, to say whether an estimate was going to be larger or smaller than the calculated answer. If someone cannot do that, what is it that they don't understand? What needs teaching (very probably not the arithmetical method again)? Where is their misconception?

I suppose the point am making, does it take more pedagogical skill and understanding to teach those who see obviously that that 3x16 is 6x8, or those who don't?

As to the example of times tables that noble gives, that's an obvious consequence of 'drilling for memory' rather than 'teaching understanding' - ie what times tables really mean, and how you can work them out through e.g. repeated addition, how you can represent them through arrays etc etc etc. It's why teaching the less able is a very, very skilled job which needs deep knowledge and understanding as well as 'sympathy and patience', because just doing it again and again exactly the same way as has failed in the past is never going to improve matters...

Sorry, x-posted. the obvious splitting of a calculation into factors as outlined above would again indicate an understanding of multiplication, not just the ability to 'turn the handle and get the result'.

Ah, do you see 'understanding multiplication' as simply being 'able to perform the common arithmetical algorithm to get the right answer?'

I can see why the example wouldn't work if that is the case. I would see someone who understood multiplication to be able to, for example, solve missing digit problems in multiplication (and division, because the skill of multiplication is required to solve the problem using the inverse) calculations, solve multi-step problems in context such as missing sides in compound area questions, be able to approximate, be able to select effective methods based on the numbers involved etc etc etc - and I teach 9 and 10 year olds.

I can't give GCSE examples, because that's not who I teach. Learning to read would have been my other obvious example - for the 80-odd % of children who will learn to read whatever method and whatever pedagogy is used, then a fairly superficial knowledge of 'what we actually need to do to teach reading', and plenty of time for practice, is all that is required. For those children who need explicit, in-depth, precise teaching of reading, for example the real introcacies of how phonics works in English both for decoding and encoding, MUCH more subject knowledge is needed.

Just because the vast majority of people DO learn to read eventually (my grandfather was 14), doesn't mean that teaching it effectively to very young children is trivial, by the way...

noblegiraffe I don't want to derail but how does it get to that stage?!

Also, I mentioned patience previously and may i just say how much I admire you facing trying to teach DC doing GCSE who arrive in your class like that and not just giving up and finding a new career?! That right there is the reason I wouldn't want to be a teacher.

You mean people who are older than 10? Are you saying that there are adults who don't get that 2 x 6 = 12 means 2 sets of 6 and that you can break the 6 into 2 sets of 3 , so another way to work out how many you have is 2x2x3 or 4x3?

I would say my 19 & 13yos don't really 'get' this. I mean, they understand it, but would never think to use it, and may not remember they know it unless reminded. They would never think for example that to do say 3x16 they could actually do 6x8.

mmzz I’ve taught GCSE students who struggle to add on their fingers (e.g. get 7+4 wrong), and lots who see times tables as a series of facts to memorise who give up when they can’t remember a particular answer.

Piggywaspushed yes, I suppose it is when i think about it.

Noble I am surprised at that! You mean people who are older than 10? Are you saying that there are adults who don't get that 2 x 6 = 12 means 2 sets of 6 and that you can break the 6 into 2 sets of 3 , so another way to work out how many you have is 2x2x3 or 4x3?

Or does "understanding multiplication" imply something a bit deeper than that, because that's all i know it to be?

Mixed ability works when your distribution of ability is limited. It's a disaster for DC like my DD who is exceptional at languages (professional testing put her in the 97.5th percentile). It works well for those who are average and slightly below. I've heard from parents who have DC who are well below average that it's a disaster for those DC too.

To give you an idea, DD is completing work 3 grades above her current grade and is racing through her current grade work and will probably be 4 grade levels above her peers by the end of the next academic year. This isn't a boast. She has a diagnosis of ASD, ADD, anxiety and oppositional defiance. She is an extremely challenging child to teach and as a parent I would be very upset if my child was in class with an average child. DD takes a lot of time away from other DC which is why as a responsible parent we have pushed for pull-out for DD.

But English is a (predominantly) skills based subject as it goes...

Everyone eventually understands multiplication inside out and back to front

They really don’t.

Teaching a child at grade 1 or 2 GCSE English to access exactly the same texts in GCSE Lit as a grade 7-9 student requires not just patience but enormous pedagogical skill and knowledge. The brighter student has the abilities to read and access study guides to support learning. Nothing other than the teacher, and/or a skilled parent or specialised tutor will enable the very weakest to progress.

Good enough example?

I'm having trouble imagining that, cantkeepawayforever. Everyone eventually understands multiplication inside out and back to front so i can't see why you'd especially need a "good" teacher for it, rather than just a patient teacher.
Could you give an example from one of the GCSE Arts/ Humanities / sciences subject i.e. not maths where it is learning a skill, please?

Just clarifying - I am not stating that good subject knowledge and understanding isn't required to teach the able. Just that good, in some ways deeper though perhaps less wide, subject knowledge and understanding is ALSO needed to teach the less able.

mmzz,

Tbh, I would say that someone teaching those who find a subject difficult actually needs really, really strong subject knowledge - at least as much, though slightly different from, those teaching those who are potentially very able in the subject.

Say you are teaching a child to multiply. An able child can be taught it quite superficially, and will almost certainly grasp it and be able to do the algorithm quickly, as well as acquiring and recalling the key facts without difficulty. Yes, their teacher then needs a factual knowledge of 'the next steps' - and of the breadth of the area of 'the maths world' that this new skill opens up to them.

However, a child who struggles needs a teacher who knows about multiplication in great depth, who understands all the ways it can be represented and all the misconceptions that are possible, as well as different ways to teach and recall all the underlying facts, to be able to teach multiplication, and the understanding of multiplication, successfully.

So teaching the 8s / 9s of this world may does not call upon the really deep subject knowledge that teaching those much lower down the ability scale needs.

It is a common misconception that better teachers with better subject knowledge are needed to teach higher sets, and thus parents tend to accord them higher status - in the same way that Year 6 teachers in primary are often thought of by parents as cleverer and of higher status than those who teach Reception.