Any teachers here? Do mixed ability classes work?

OK, so the disdavantage to the top 2% is said to be minuscule... and is often counteracted - despite what you might think - by extra provision and enrichment for those students. If they really are super duper bright a normal top set will hold them back to some extent, let's face it. But I am more than sure they will find their way in life, unlike the bottom 2% who are said to be disadvantaged by ability setting. Have to be honest, i care more about them.

There are approximately 7% of kids that are private school educated (including mine). Oxbridge is really struggling to ensure that 50% of the kids are from state schools. Do you see the disparity? Do you ever wonder why that is?
Literacy gap starting from age 3
Reading culture at home
Not having illiterate parents
Early educational experience

Having parents with a good income who can fund a range of extra curriculars
Not being in a situation where home have to choose between heating or food
Not dealing with the trappings of poverty
Having nutritious meals so you can grow and thrive (I drove past a local comp at tje end of the day about 10 miles from my school. Their children were tiny compared to ours.)
Having parents who do your spellings and times tables
School funding
School buildings and facilities
Smaller class sizes
The expectation that staff offer intervention all the time because parents as customers
Parents who have the means to fund tutors
Social selection within private schools
Probably almost no PP children
Probably lower numbers of children with complex SEND needs
Massively narrow cohort where children only socialise with people who are like them and are in classes with other children who have had the same push for education as them
Parents who plant the seed that it's not just university that matters, but the right universities
Parents who discuss aspirations and careers vs 'i didn't need GCSEs and di just fine'
Parents who support the school instead of buying deliberately non uniform items and backing the child to kick off in school
A social network to get volunteering and work experience

We could go on.

Educational inequality is complex. A state comprehensive like mine gets similar outcomes as local independents but we do it without their selection. Even then, we may struggle if we had the social issues linked to another school's catchment.

Okay, you are miffed

There are approximately 7% of kids that are private school educated (including mine). Oxbridge is really struggling to ensure that 50% of the kids are from state schools. Do you see the disparity? Do you ever wonder why that is?

It might just be that state schools are lagging behind private schools in terms of supporting and enabling bright kids to achieve. Might be something to do with mixed ability classes. I can't say. But my bright kids are fine because I took control (ie paid). I would much prefer not to have paid. But I didn't trust the state system and the statistics bear me out. I think the state system needs to look very hard at the G&T kids and how they are provided for.

Why should there be a disadvantage in terms of outcome where a child moves from a double-offering school to a school which teaches A-level from an assumption of triple? If there were no disadvantage in the double then this could not arise.
My high performing 6th form offers A level and teaches from double. We offer double and triple at GCSE.

The disadvantage of doing double then transfering to a college who assume triple is to do with how the 6th form OPTS to teach their A Level.

Many able students go on to do well in science having 'only' done double. We actually recommend only doing triple if you love all 3 sciences. If you adore biology and want biology A level but aren't fussed on Physics then we advise to do double and enjoy a range at GCSE.

Somehow our lowly state comprehensive gets outstanding results and still sends lots of students to prestigious universities to do sciences. It's terrible I tell you. We mustn't be able to cater for bright students at all.

Okay, say it's the top 2%. What if your kid happens to be in that top 2% (I realise that means the top 40% of parents might be complaining) but still, what if your kid does happen to be in the top 2%? As a parent are you going to stand back and watch him/her be disadvantaged?

Pretty sure, flawed as the research might be, it's top 2%, not 10 %...

Thank you for your response cant but I am afraid I am still not clear.

I think what you are saying is that schools start by assuming that kids who have done the double as opposed to the triple will be behind and therefore cater for it

So what you are saying in effect is that doing the double confers a disadvantage to kids doing the triple.

Sixth form is highly pressurised for G&T science/maths bods. They will be off doing maths olympiads and what have you. They don't need to make up ground because their school couldn't be arsed teaching the triple. Because there is so much more out there than the school can teach. They have to be reaching beyond the school in order to get to Oxbridge really and TBH being handicapped by doing the double (so they have to make up ground) cannot be helping them at all. It's a positive disadvantage.

(Possibly worth pointing out that even in the old GCSE, the 'extra' for triple wasn't by any means an 'equal third' - double was more than 2/3 of the syllabus, so the extra that needs to be covered when teaching A-level from the starting point of double is not actually that great. Even smaller with the new GCSE.)

Theseare,

Apologies if I wasn't clear.

Double offering school: knows everyone will have done double, so starts teaching A-level at exactly the point that the double syllabus leaves off. A bit more content to cover, but planned in over 5.5 terms, all fine.

Triple offering school: knows everyone will have done triple, starts A level from end of triple curriculum. A bit less content to cover.

Candidate transferring between the two: gap in knowledge which the triple-offering school won't fill, because they start teaching from a different point. Fine if the pupil is self-motivated enough to study the extra content in the summer holiday and understand it, but less good than if they were at the double-offering school who start teaching A-level from exactly the point that they have reached.

I taught mixed ability English classes up to GCSE a few years ago. We had kids who could barely speak a word of English in with kids who were capable of A*s. I thought that was far too wide a range - it meant we couldn't teach challenging enough texts for the bright ones and we couldn't focus enough on basic language stuff for the EAL ones.

I went to a school that set all academic subjects separately - eg i was top set for English, set 4 (of 6) for science, set 2 for maths - and that worked quite well for most of us. You could move up and down between sets depending on your work and exam results, but there was a wide enough range within each set to challenge the brightest and pull up the less bright.

That's interesting cant but I'd like to see the sample sizes in order to understand the validity of the observation you have made. Because what you have just stated is not logical. Why should there be a disadvantage in terms of outcome where a child moves from a double-offering school to a school which teaches A-level from an assumption of triple? If there were no disadvantage in the double then this could not arise.

Maybe there is a difference in terms of the ability of the kids in the study?

Interesting what you say about the intake to your college but again this might be distorted in terms of the subjects studied. DS has an offer from Cambridge to read natural sciences and AFAIK most kids in his entry cohort did the triple.

It is definitely worth cross-checking curriculum coverage between new double GCSE, old triple GCSE, triple iGCSE (still used by some private schools) from different boards. It's less clear cut than you might think.

Theseare,

I did do some research on this, looking at destinations and A-level results for schools which only offer double, and schools with similar cohorts which offer both double and triple.

Contrary to my expectations (I as looking for data to support a particular campaign), double award-only schools had statistically identical A-level results to double / triple schools - ie A level taught from the basis of double within the sachool which only taught double had no impact on final results (and this will be even more the case now double is so much expanded) vs A level taught from the basis of triple in schools where that was the norm.

What IS a disadvantage is where a child moves from a double-offering school to a school which teaches A-level from an assumption of triple.

I equally rang my old Oxbridge college - who said that pretty much exactly half their scientists / medics / engineers did double at GCSE.

I was surprised. It wasn't the data I wanted at the time, but I put it out there for information...

The more of this thread that I am reading the more I am convinced I made the right decision

Dear oh lord are there really state schools out there that only do the double award for sciences? Does that really happen? Do you have any idea how much disadvantage you've built in for G&T science kids?

(As I say, DC's comprehensive don't set for options subjects at all - beyond a minor adjustment which sees most doing 2 languages in a particular group because of the timetable blocks - and get excellent results, possibly because of the motivation that comes from having chosen a subject. That might support a previous poster's thought that some of the advantages iof setting are due to motivation / engagement - and thus may not be needed in subjects which students actively choose.)

cantkeepawayforever

Personally, I would say the 'right' thing to do here is to do what is fair and seems to offer the best outcomes for more students: mixed ability. At least everyone is in the same boat - same chance of a strong or weak teacher, same chance of their learning being disrupted by the less engaged, same loss of time when the teacher needs to support the least able.

But if, say, the school has enough children doing a particular language for GCSE to do 3 sets, is it right for the school to set them?

If only the top 10% will really benefit, then that is 9 students - 21 in the 'top' set and the other 60 don't.

The pace of learning even in the top set is likely to be too slow for the very brightest, who will do 2 or 3 languages, and those 9 can't be put in a set of their own. So the 10% dobn't really get much benefit, and 60-81 get a disbenefit.

What is right for the school to do?

It might be different in Maths, where the top 10% of a cohort of 300 is 30, a single set, but for GCSE options subjects?

Some comprehensive schools cannot maintain the 1:2:1 ability ratio due to intake

cantkeepawayforever

I'm not sure, to be honest. Personally, I would say not. I think the very brightest students will always be disadvantaged by the lack of pace associated with learning with children who simply have less cognitive 'power' - they take longer to grasp concepts. This will lead, inevitably, to a slower pace of learning than the brightest could cope with.

But I could be wrong.

Setting is better. One problem can be less able students with good social skills who can control the class dynamics. Another can be that as the work progresses, disruptive pupils can make it harder for the teacher. They work well in the early secondary years in certain subjects in my experience, but setting is needed after that.

From a parental perspective, surely it depends if you think you have bright kids or not ....

The previous posts indicate that all but the top 10% benefit

I wouldn't have (and didn't) stick my kids in a mixed ability class. They are bright kids. They would have got bored and fed up and demotivated. It doesn't take much to turn even a G&T child off education. I absolutely was not going to do that and it was the primary reason why I did not send my children to be state educated.

The thing is, in a comprehensive system, what i believe should happen is that what works for 90% should drive your overall policy, and then the possible disadvantage for the 10% should be what the school strives its utmost to mitigate.

I suppose my question is this: is the disadvantage to the 10% 'inevitable'? Or is it avoidable in the best mixed ability teaching - is there school to school variation even with cohorts of matched ability, so could the school system learn to make what works for the 90% work for 95%? 98%?

and if i was in charge of the setting strategy i'd split boys and girls in the bottom group, so have a boys class and a girls class.

steppemum

I know research has been done. It is, at least in part, how I formed an opinion.

Most research has been done in other countries which is an issue as school systems are different.