Setting for Maths in Year 7

You missed the first bit: how much time have you spent in primaries over the last few years?

they don't receive support when needed, when it would have prevented the gap

Again, ime- in a primary every school day of the year - where children sit in an ability-based way at all, it is exactly so that they can receive the targeted support they need. Also, in every primary of my experience, every spare moment - and many that are not spare - will have small groups or individuals having specific input to prevent a gap opening or fill a gap that is just opening up.

Parents scramble to tutor DC not on the top table on Kumon 3 times a week since year 1

Evidence? In every primary? Really??

fixed ability-based table grouping ... in primaries ..., they cannot access any other teaching and are thus barred from making progress is...far fetched.

They are progressively 'barred', because as early as Reception they don't have the methods they needed, the time they needed, they don't receive support when needed, when it would have prevented the gap, so the gap opens, and soon they start working on lower material, have less time to learn higher material, soon they can't understand some of the explanations because they are just beginning the 'middle' material, which is critical to get the higher concept. It becomes structural, the train has left and is running too fast for them to jump back, even if they are capable, even if they sit in the same room.

When Y2 teaching becomes writing based, if DC with dyslexia or other
problems aren't confident at reading, they are excluded from the whole lesson. Their confidence dies and with it their ability to accelerate and catch up.

The nature of sets in primary is that the pace and methods are serving the top set. It's a runaway train that does not look back. Parents scramble to tutor DC not on the top table on Kumon 3 times a week since year 1, to not get behind. But those without money or with SEN can't help it.

35% fail to get GCSE grade 4

because that's the way the assessment system is set up.

The government could dictate an assessment system whereby the Grade 4 mark was set such that 95% got Grade 4 or above. Or 99%. Or 5%.

Because of the way grade boundaries are set, if teachers teach a child to move out of the bottom 35%, all that happens is the boundary moves up a bit, to maintain that percentage as 35%.

This is NOT the fault of teachers, but the way the qualification system is designed.

Any suggestion of change is met with anger, ridicule and dodging the point.

Cakes, you are dodging the points that we are making: could you reply to my post of 15:21 please? Thanks.

That’s because, cakes, teachers do not simply discard their bottom sets to fester in a corner. They work bloody hard for them.

Teachers work with individuals, not statistics.

The 35% don't fail to get GCSE grade 4 because teachers don't care or try. That's an outrageous thing to say!

They don't get there because of a combination of factors which may include a number of:

• lack of funding for 1-1 support
• lack a parental input at home due to time / ability / interest
• SN / SpLD
• not being academic enough to access the content
• mental health issues
• outside stress issues such as parent being ill
• lack of motivation / effort from themselves

Dermyc,

why would I try
Why would I teach
How would they access
I'm better off

I, I , me, me, me...

This is the problem, the system's and some teachers' near contempt for best interests of 35% of pupils they simply are allowed to discard, to leave behind. They don't need to try, they are better off focussing on the top set, that's the only thing that matters to them.
Any suggestion of change is met with anger, ridicule and dodging the point.

Some children are in secondary modern since Reception, those on the lower 'tables'

Surely the issue with secondary moderns is things like:

• triple science not offered because not enough pupils want to do it to make it viable
• 2 MFL not offered because not enough pupils want to do it to make it viable
• Oxbridge / top uni application support not available or weak because not enough able students to give the staff sufficient experience
• Poverty of aspiration having 'failed' age 10
• Reduced % of well off and interested parents as if they fail grammar they go private instead, meaning that schools are not 'pushed' as much by the parent body's expectations (& don't receive PTA donations either for extras)

None of these have anything to do with flexible table groupings in primary schools.

Some children are in secondary modern since Reception, those on the lower 'tables'

Cakes, how much time have you spent in primaries over the last few years?

Is your daily experience in all of these primaries that children sit in fixed ability tables, absolutely deaf and blind to any teaching going on to the whole class but absolutely limited by who they sit with??

I get that children in secondary 'sets' don't access particular teaching, because it is in a different room. I know that children in secondary moderns can't access some teaching, because it is in a different institution. But i do think the argument that just because a child sits at a particular table, for some of the time (and as I have said before, fixed ability-based table grouping is increasingly uncommon in primaries ime), they cannot access any other teaching and are thus barred from making progress is...far fetched.

The difference isn't how students are taught (in a lot of cases) instead it is students ability to retain and process information.

That difference is relatively small in 'normal' population.
If there are significant differences, it is a child with SEN. For these children, their needs must be met. Currently, especially with cuts, the SEN system is like a fortress that you need to siege and battle for years before getting in. Just a taste here.. In this time DC with SEN suffer, lose confidence, develop anxieties, psychological problems, get behind.

SEN does not equate to low ability at all, they just have specific barriers that need to be addressed.

Poor outcomes are always excused by 'low ability', but genuinely low ability children are just 2%-10% of population, depending where you draw the line. Nobody argues they should have GCSEs grade 9.

Average is 90-109 IQ and starts at 25%-tile.

Within those 35% who don't get good GCSE Eng&Maths, 15% are in below average (80-89) and 10%, i.e. a third, are within average range of ability IQ>=90.

Some like to draw the line at IQ 85, that is 15%-tile, then 20% within the 35% would be within average ability range.

DC with the whole range of good ability from low average IQ>= 80 to very superior IQ>= 130 can have SEN. If the needs were really met timely and properly, these children would progress at broadly the same rate. But yes, they do cascade down to bottom set because of lack of provisions and because some cynical schools equate SEN with low ability.

The bell curve is the same in all countries, yet in other countries get better educational outcomes for 80% or more of their population without sets. It is not the ability, it is the system that is the problem and sets are exactly the instrument that drags down the average and below average children, locks them out of good outcomes.

They can't climb out because they are not taught the same material.
Some children are in secondary modern since Reception, those on the lower 'tables', the parents just don't realise that.

DCs school sets for Maths in Yr7, Maths and Science in Yr8. Never sets in English or other subjects.

However, the smart cookies always seem to be in the same 2 groups whatever the subject.

I’m not in favour of it anymore than I am with the expected grades approach. It’s too much pressure. There are also too many tests and I definitely neither want nor need a termly snapshot grades report. Moreover the setting of tests after the full report in Summer Term is appalling. The scheduling of a test in the final week of the school year, unforgivable.

Traditional comprehensive education never did me any harm and I think we are breeding a nation of kids on the verge of nervous breakdowns.

It would be really interesting to compare the Maths SoW for Y7 for the 4-18 school another poster mentioned, and an 11-18 school with a similar ability cohort. The 4-18 school would, culturally, feel able to rely on 'what had been taught' to a much greater extent from the off in Y7 - it would be interesting to see what they teach and at what pace.

Noble, to clarify:

• The _change_ involved us working our arses off
• Now it has happened, it is no harder work than teaching sets, but that is of course partly because all primary school teachers are trained to teach fully mixed ability classes, including SEN, in all subjects

One other thing to throw into the discussion, because again it has been an experience locally - it seems quite common for secondary schools to pitch Y7 teaching (in many subjects) at too basic a level. This may be because at the very beginning of the year, pupils will seem to 'know nothing' - often a long break after SATs and the overall effort of transition has this effect, and we see a similar effect after the summer holidays in all years in primary. If that happens within a school, it's easy to say 'look guys, you could do this in July, let's put our backs into it', whereas I can see that after transition into secondary the practice may be to say 'they were coached for SATs / they never knew this / the teaching was pitched very low on primary so we need to go back'.

As a result, more able children, and indeed many middle ability pupils too may well get very bored in Y7 if taught in exactly the same mixed ability groupings they experienced - and made great progress in - in primary. That in turn can lead to a feeling from parents that 'sets are necessary because what they are being taught is too basic'

Locally, there's starting to be a bit of a shake-up after various events led to the discovery that much Y7 work was being pitched closer to Y4/Y5 than the work those same students were doing in Y6 in primary - and in many subjects, closed, too-simple tasks were preventing those children from showing what they could truly do. Lots of visits from secondary teachers to primaries and re-writing of SoW.

You could argue that it is the hard work and total re-planning of the curriculum and resources that has resulted in the improvement

Indeed when something is a focus, it tends to improve, especially if it involves people working their arses off.

Unfortunately working your arse off is not sustainable in the long-term.

Setting worked well from year 7 for both of my girls. It was a selective school, so obviously the ability range it covered was much smaller than would be the case in other schools, but even so it still had a wide range of ability for maths.

Older daughter was in set 2 of 5, then dropped to set 3 at GCSE. She was good, but not brilliant, so it was just right for her and she still went on to do well at A level. Younger daughter is dyslexic and found maths difficult. Bottom set was right for her throughout.

I teach in an all through 4-18 school that does setting in Maths like what you described cant.
I would pay a good amount of my own money to see anyone who can teach mixed ability to teach my year 11 top set and make sure all of them make good progress.

The school ds used to go to didn’t set until year 8. However it was a selective school to start off with so it was fine.

Dds school was non selective and I believe her maths education suffered in Year 7 & 8 because she wasn’t set.

(I work, btw, in a primary that was large enough to have sets, and has abandoned them .... with the result that results have hugely improved. What is most interesting is that high performers have continued to excel, while 'upper middle set' and 'upper lower set' pupils have done MUCH better than previously. Yes, as Noble said, this has involved 'working our arses off' BUT it has meant improvement in the experience and performance of pupils... You could argue that it is the hard work and total re-planning of the curriculum and resources that has resulted in the improvement - ie that amount of thought and hard work put into setted Maths would have had the same effect, but it is interesting and, actually, not what most of us predicted )

I think that there is an argument for a reasonable 'halfway house'.

Due to the size of most primaries, setting is relatively uncommon, and with the exception of very extreme outliers, mixed ability teaching (current common practice) with good lesson-by-lesson differentiation is a) what primary teachers are trained to deliver and b) the most likely to deliver solid foundations for all.

As far as possible, primaries should ensure that (again for all except the most extreme outliers), all children possess the basics, absolutely securely: key number bonds, times tables, efficient written methods for 4 operations, place value and what fractions mean. Interventions as well as daily Maths lessons should address any gaps in these.

Then on starting secondary, there could sensibly be a period of predominantly mixed ability teaching. I say 'predominantly' - my picture is of a large number of parallel classes of mixed ability, with one or more groups for those with SEN that affects their maths performance, and perhaps one or more groups at the 'extreme high end'.

My reason for this is that secondaries take children from a large number of different primaries, with different teaching, different approaches to SATs and different intakes. This will mean that children of similar 'raw ability' may well have different SATs results - and will also have retained that knowledge more or less securely. Some schools have daily Maths lessons right to the last week of Y6, some stop teaching entirely immediately SATs are finished, and this will affect the immediate performance of pupils in CATs and in class on arrival at secondary.

I then see the 'diamond' of sets gradually elongating over time - so rather than having a very large number of middle sets that are exactly parallel, there will be several 'layers' of parallel middle sets.

You said it's about training to teach mixed ability, so train

No, I said that if you wanted teachers to teach mixed ability you needed to train them and resource them to do it, not simply inflict it on them. I did not say that this was the way to improve results. You could train all these teachers, have them work their arse off for no net benefit and to the detriment of their workload. What’s the point?

You keep insisting that Finland does better on Pisa because it teaches mixed ability despite the research evidence being weak. Finland has a lot of other things going for it - being a very socially homogenous society is a big one. And your link about Finland suggests that their high achievers are not pushed, and that this is a problem.

It won't happen.
By getting rid of any ability teaching then no parent will do anything educational.
Children will only get educational stimulation for 25 hours a week during term time only.
Consequently, other than a couple of outliers, the rest will be about the same.

Welcome to the new world. It's differentiation but not as we know it. Low expectationsfor everyone!

I still want to know what you do with the fact that some DC will pick up and retain a concept in 20mins and others might need 4hrs total (even if spread out into lots of chunks). What does DC-A do with that 'extra time' ?

Dermymc
I absolutely agree with you.

Choosing how to group students is a complex one. Schools have to make the call with the cohort, subject, curriculum, staff etc they have.

Armchair experts deciding they know it all & know so much they have the solution and the answer to everything, but then changing their mind when asked how it would be implemented by deflecting saying 'yeah but but you wouldn't ask a patient to tell a surgeon how to fix operations would you so nerrr' is somewhat infuriating. For a start, I don't honestly believe the likes of cakes would even begin to tell medical professionals how to do their jobs or that the obvious solution is their non specialist' s opinion.
Non specialist - the thing is medical staff your rates are awful. You honestly think it's ok to have a 35% failure rate on surgery. You should (insert opinion here)
Specialist- not really, but you see there are other medical factors which will tend to affect surgery outcomes, not just the quality of the surgeon
Non specialist - I don't care. You should be sorting all those medical issues. You don't even take responsibility for them bevause it's too easy for you to accept 35% failure rate. This just proves (insert opinion here)
Specialist - but you see there's other factors, so the surgery might be good but...
Non specialist - you're just after an easy life and are happy to let people die to avoid having to change how you do things and accept that (insert opinion here)
Specialist- far from it. Actually there are the following medical variables and the following systemic variables and together the picture is more complex than it is from your armchair
Non specialist - nonsense! 35% of people are being failed by your surgery and I think it's to do with (insert opinion here). I can't believe you're STILL saying it's fine for 35% of people to be let down by your surgery. As if you're saying it's totally ok.
Specialist - I've already there are a number of variables but your opinion is simplistic and doesn't take those into account. Your argument is illogical.
Non specialist - you won't even deal with the problems and are just laughing at me. Why won't you accept (insert opinion here)
Specialist - so... lovely weather we are having here.

Anyone who uses the expression “teach the chapters for grades 5-9” is confused as to what constitutes the teaching of mathematics. No one teaches “chapters” (I hope). What is taught is subject content - facts and skills - which may or may not be supplemented by the use of a text book in which said content is structured in sections.

Ahh yes Maisy, every school must be "above average" we have Mr Gove to thank for that statistical impossibility.

I truly love teaching and the pupils. The system is part broken in terms of funding and retention of staff. However my job would be a million times harder (and not benefit the pupils) if they were mixed ability in Maths.

For reference cakes, my bottom set last year made on average 1.2 grades of progress in year 11. This was unheard of in my school. If those pupils had been in a mixed ability class they would have got lost.