Any teachers here? Do mixed ability classes work?

mmzz, no I wasn't nit picking. That is genuinely what you appeared to be saying! There really is no need for the snide which is interesting comment.

When you say mixed-ability, do you really mean ability or do you really mean achievement? I.e., would your schools actually put a "bright", quick-learning child who, for whatever reason, was missing some chunks of KS2 maths into the top set? Would they start a child who was a slow at grasping new concepts but whose parents did a lot of extra work with them in the bottom set?
An able child who had missed parts of school (for whatever reason, often medical) would tend to be placed in a higher set. Probably not top set as it can dent their confidence when transitioning back to school, but probably a set 2 and then once they were all caught up and settled then move to top set if that was best for them.

Equally, I've taught lots of 'less able' (hate the phrase but you know what i mean) students who do loads of work at home in lower sets.

In terms of social criteria for private abd top sets, I think there's some overlap, but not perhaps as noticeable differences between comprehensive setting and comp vs grammar. Mainly because the impression I get from MN (I'm not in a grammar area so am happy to be corrected if I've got it wrong) is that there's a certain amount of system savvyness to get your child to grammar, lining them up in the right prep, right 11+ tutor, discussion of 11+ prep as a norm with peers etc. Whereas you can be in a top set in a comprehensive without all that (I know I was a top set child and never had a tutor or half the stuff mentioned on here).

Very good questions user. I suspect that in most schools it is achievement, not ability. There are many pupils who end up in top set because they did well in tests due to hard work and consistent effort, which is a good thing but it does not mean they are very good or really enjoy that subject. In the not so clear cut cases, ie the ones could either be placed in bottom of set 1 or top of set 2, it is more difficult to decide. It is up to me, I would always go with ability in these cases.

For your second question, the answer is yes IME. We only need to look at grammar schools, in theory, the top 25% or whatever it is and we can see, on average, all those points apply.

noblegiraffe you are right, that has to be there too. However, from your experience when it is there, would you agree that the levels of class disruption still vary from classroom to classroom, even when its the same 30 students (eg a form in KS3)?

user149799568 not at my DC's comprehensive, mixed-ability, mixed income-range school, but there does seem to be a clustering of DC of professional parents in the top set. Maybe intelligence has an inherited component?

Some parents can afford private tutors, others can't. Some would think to organise them, others wouldn't, even if they could afford them (they see education as the school's responsibility). The DC who I know to have had private tutors tended to be in the middle to bottom sets.

But that's only my knowledge of the DC I am aware of in one school, I'm sure someone else knows of a proper research paper on this.

Piggywaspushed no, that's not what i am saying. What I am saying is that this the thing that 7+ need this more than anything else.

I think you knew that though, and you are just nit-picking. Otherwise you really didn't understand which is interesting.

Late to the discussion but with some questions for the many teachers here:

When you say mixed-ability, do you really mean ability or do you really mean achievement? I.e., would your schools actually put a "bright", quick-learning child who, for whatever reason, was missing some chunks of KS2 maths into the top set? Would they start a child who was a slow at grasping new concepts but whose parents did a lot of extra work with them in the bottom set?

The children who go private have on average:
- richer parents
- more educated parents
- more involved / pro-education parents
- less SEN / behaviour problems

Are these things not also true (on average) for children in top sets?

Disruptive children (and anyone who shares a classroom with a disruptive child) need teachers who have a strong personality and can hopefully inspire them to want to behave and listen.

I disagree with this. What disruptive children need is an effective behaviour management system and an SLT supportive of its teachers. Behaviour in a class should not be reliant on how strong a personality the teacher has, or how inspiring they are. That’s just throwing kids to the lions.

Educational researcher here. Lots had been said. In my experience, mixed ability works for overall performance and can work for lower ability. The high flyers however lose out. Sets work well for the more able.

I moved my own child from a school that changed to mixed ability to a private school with 5 sets in each year, even Reception! It was the right choice for us.

So, you do seem to think that anyone below 7 doesn't need to improve and doesn't need feedback. The expectation on teachers these days is that very child meets (or exceeds) their indicator grades, not that the lower end sit like puddings being taught how to behave or being taught by some patient , kindly helpmeet.

And , once more, the assertion that the most able don't misbehave!

Oh well.

I understand the point you are trying to make but it doesn't chime with what teaching is to me.

yes, agreed, but what makes a good teacher? Something else in this thread that caught my eye was the conflation of deep subject knowledge with good teacher.

Slower learners need someone with amazing amounts of patience and the ability to explain things multiple ways, perhaps multiple times. Also a very high degree of empathy.
Disruptive children (and anyone who shares a classroom with a disruptive child) need teachers who have a strong personality and can hopefully inspire them to want to behave and listen.
Those predicted 7/8/9 just need someone who can teach the concepts and give feedback on the work.
Included in the level 8/9s are the one or two who need a teacher with really strong subject knowledge and a passion for teaching who can and wants to help them develop their gift / talent.
That's not always the same teacher, but they are all good as long as they are doing what they are good at.

mmzz the problem with teaching in any set up, is that it's only as good as the teaching. the issues you describe could have been resolved by the teachers being more aware of the children in their class.

My DS is also "spiky" - he is strong at maths/science and more "average" at English/humanities. Mixed ability suits him in English/humanities because whilst working at his level he feels he has the possibility of still getting a good grade rather than being pigeonholed at lower average set level. he's also very good at some aspects of English/humanities and really poor at others. A child like this will always be in the wrong set in a system that sets!

interestingly in maths(the only subject where his school sets) where he is currently working at a Level 8 and predicted to get 8/9 at GCSE he is actually in Set 3 - and this is not a high achieving school, he is working beyond the level of everyone else in that set. School have worked out that he goes to pieces if put in a high set due as he can't cope with the pressure and it's much better to have him a lower set with a more nurturing teacher (who's assured me that Set 3 will still be taught Level 9 material so this won't hold him back).

... I guess the point of my argument is that I think quality of teaching has more impact than the make up of classes.

Interesting chat with my spiky-profile DS who is currently waiting for his GCSE results.
He is extremely good at maths, top set for nearly everything else, except art, PE and DT where he'd be bottom set, if there had been one.
He said at Primary school, there was always a top table, so even though it was mixed ability, he was barely aware of the differentiated work being done on the other tables. He knew it existed, but it had nothing to do with his experience and so it barely registered.
Then the feeder primary class moved to the same secondary school which had mixed ability non-setting in year 7, except for English and Maths. Suddenly, DS became very conscious of how slowly others learned, including children that he'd been at primary school with. He would have finished the work and any extension work and would sit there waiting, with nothing watching the teacher trying to quietly explain the concept being taught to the least able child in the room who had been in DS's primary class but he'd never been aware before of how slowly she learned things because he'd had other things to get on with.
After year 7, the school gradually set more and more subjects, and each time, DS's experience improved. However, there were still two issues:-

1. The top set (and maybe the bottom set, too?) has the widest spread of abilities, so DS was still finding the pace too slow in maths where he excels, especially when mastery was introduced as it just meant endlessly demonstrating mastery rather than working to achieve it.
2. Art and DT were not set in KS3 and DS would have been bottom set for those. He would have much preferred art and DT to be set so that maybe the projects could have been easier and he wasn't being constantly reminded of how bad at it he is by seeing other people's neat work and then looking down at his wonky, unstable mess.

How many move between schools for 6th form? Quite normal, IME, for there to be quite a lot of movement at that stage, so the students at the end of Year 13 may not be the same ones as finished Year 11.

No, Hopping.

In my experience, the top set kids seem to think that they are God's gift to Earth just because they have a "1" on their timetable.

This attitude will not serve them well in the real world where everyone is on a level playing field and top marks in a Geography test will not automatically entitle them to their first choice career.

the numbers in brackets are confidence intervals. It indicates how certain you can be that the figures are 'valid', and what range they are definitely in.

So, say, if you had 2 pupils only in particular group, 1 with Progress8 of 1, and 1 with 0. The Progress8 for this subgroup might be 0.5 (0-1) [it's more complicated than that, but it illustrates the principle]. So if a school has a Progress8 of 0.5 (-0.2 - 1.01) then you can't have all that much confidence in the 0.5 - the progress 8 is very likely to lie in the range -0.2 to 1.01, but not that likely to be 0.5 exactly. On the other hand, a school where the Progress8 is 0.5 (0.4-0.6) shows that the Progress8 is really quite likely to be around 0.5, because the statistically likely range is only between 0.4 and 0.6.

So in the case of the school you are looking at, progress8 for high attainers is very likely to lie between 0.32 ( pretty good) to 0.76 (very good) - I'd be OK with that, especially for a non-grammar in the presence of a grammar.

That is indeed good Progress8 for a 'non grammar' in a town with grammars. How does the Progress8 for previous high attainers look?

If you want 'what it means in reality', at a very handwaving approximation (because the government have fiddled with it so one grade doesn't = 1 point), it means that in every subject, children at this school get half a GCSE grade higher than they would at a school with the 'average' Progress8. Obviously, you can't GET half a grade, but if someone in the average school with particular SATS levels at the end of KS2 was going to get 77777777, then someone at this school with the same starting point would, on average, get 77778888.

Does that help at all? It will depend a bit on the mix of subjects, as Post says.

The other thing you have to take into consideration in your position is the availability of subjects at GCSE. Round here subjects are being cut if not enough numbers for GCSE due to the budget cuts. I know this is happening in at least one of the Grammars too.

For DS (not at Grammar) , this has backfired badly as Computer Science is now not running for GCSE for the first time. Suspect this isn’t an issue at the local Grammar, sadly we didn’t see this coming. German was ditched before he got there which we were prepared to take in the chin but the loss of Computer Science now means that half of the 4 options he would have originally chosen are now not available. But he doesn’t get 4 options any more, it’s 3 now. Reminds me I need to start. Thread and see if there are any Computer Science teachers who might be able to help us a bit as we want to see if it might be possible for DS to domwith DH’s help and a bit of support from the school.

Interestingly, grammar does not always mean 'better progress by high attainers'. Another of the Gloucester grammars has only 0.11 Progress8 for high attainers, lower than the figure for good comprehensives in the same county.

What may be instructive is looking at the 'prior attainment' percentages for each school.

You start from here

Enter your postcode or location (because you will want to compare your grammar and your non-grammar)

Open the school you are interested in.

On the front page, scroll down to 'Results by Pupil Characteristics' and click on 'Prior attainment'.

This will give you, for 2016-2017 Y11, the number of pupils with low, medium and high prior attainment. Typically, for the grammar, it won't add up to the total number of pupils in the year, because it omits pupils who were at private schools for primary, but it will give you an indication.

Using Gloucester as an example, one of its grammars has 3 middle prior attainers and 100 high prior attainers (and 21 who were at private schools).

One of the 'other' schools has 19 low, 50 middle, 42 high

'High' is Level 5 in old SATs grades, so not outstandingly high, Middle is 4s, Low is