Mixed ability or streamed for an able child?

All other things being equal: Streamed.

Do they stay streamed / unstreamed all through?

My school started with everyone in mixed ability and by (what was then third year) year 9 the only things not steamed were RE, home economics, art and needlework.

Where will she be happy?

B.

Mixed ability classes were awful.

Large, loud and because I was plodding along as average ability inspite of high intelligence, no one spotted my dyslexia or ADD.

Truly grim school record with no A levels or polytechnic or university applications.

Sorry posted too soon. School B for it's established set up, facilities and streaming.

From what you've posted, school B.

To work really well, mixed ability classes need teachers to be better skilled than when they have a streamed class. My (not large, not UK) secondary school was largely streamed, but syllabus rearrangements to give us more subject choice in the middle years meant that we went to effectively unstreamed classes for things like History, Geography and French. We had utterly brilliant history teachers who continued to do brilliant things that engaged both ends of the class. In other subjects it was more variable.

In terms of the cohort I think it is legitimate to think in terms of your children "finding their tribe" - if you have a group where you comfortably belong, it is much easier to develop the confidence and social skills to mix with a wider range of people. I didn't "find my tribe" until I was at university so this has been part of my thinking with my own children. Hasn't entirely worked with my daughter I suspect (but she does have an academic peer group to challenge her, just not mixing socially with most of the girls). My son has just moved schools and is looking so confident and comfortable in his new environment I'm a little bit jealous :)

So on your estimations at the moment I'd probably say school B - but if you still have the opportunity, try to find out more about school A, talk to the head or other teachers, get more of a feel for the environment. I could imagine that they might create one top and one lower class for some subjects eventually even if they were otherwise mostly unstreamed, for example. Good luck with the process.

If it's bigger they might be able to offer more subjects and there'll be a bigger pool of kids to make friends from

I'd pick school B because of it being well established, excellent facilities, fab head. Streamed for most subjects.

From what I’ve read on here, the research show mixed ability works better for most children, but not for the top 10% or so. I was certainly put off a school that doesn’t stream for maths where the maths teacher at the open morning explained that my dd would enjoy explaining things to the rest of the class - what a way to single out a child and set them up for bullying.