Setting for Maths in Year 7

Leaving Boaler aside, I've been ploughing through lots of academic papers on this subject, and I've yet to find one that argues the case for setting. At best the benefits appear to be negligible for pupils in set 1 maths.

@AnnaFiveTowns I did the same essay on Jo Boaler on my PGCE and thought the same as you. It was experience in teaching that made me change my mind entirely, and since then I’ve found reason to be suspicious of her studies and claims.

There is in depth criticism of one of her studies here - www.nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Articles/v8n1.pdf - suspicion is she isn’t entirely honest in her analysis.

Here’s a dissection of her claim that ‘mistakes grow your brain’ gregashman.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/can-jo-boaler-grow-your-brain/

Or you could have a look at the unsupported twaddle she spouts on twitter: twitter.com/joboaler/status/1038539906505756674?s=21
And there’s lots more where that came from.

So don’t put too much weight on Boaler when it comes to discussing setting in maths.

Boaler, J (2008) Promoting relational equality and high mathematics achievement through an innovative mixed ability approach

Boaler, J and Brown, M (2000)
Student's experiences of ability grouping - disaffection, polarisation and construction of failure

doodledott
It can work in subjects like English becausr the nature of the subject is different, though often schools will have a nurture group for those who require maths/English intervention so the very bottom end isn't in the mix.

E.g. If I teach Shakepseare in Y7 then it's also a text that can be studied to GCSE, A Level and degree level. With an able child they can be stretched further. It's also possible to have a couple of weaker students developing inference whilst others are doing analysis on the same text.

In maths it's a case of speed of progression through topics and fundamentally different topics at times which is why it doesn't work.

Mixed ability in English doesn't work if a child's/parent's idea of extension means 'give my child a different worksheet, find ways for them to race through class work to reinforce how smart they are and point out that they are doing the clever kid work', but if by extension you mean meaningful stretch and challenge, being asked to consider texts at a higher level, given prompts for a basic essay question that are more advanced and then it's absolutely possible.

There are pros and cons to both mixed ability and setting in English. Both can work well. Both depend on the quality of the teacher.

I'm doing my pgce at the moment and am currently writing an essay on the issue of setting.

The evidence is a study by Boaler (and others) which looked specifically at setting in maths classes; the conclusion was that for the vast majority of pupils, even those in top set, setting had negative implications. The exceptions were the small handful of pupils who were at the very top of set 1 - setting seemed to work in their favour.

From a teacher's persepctive, they like sets, because they believe that they can teach the whole class, as a whole, so, they assume, there is less need for differentiation.

I'm in bed now but when I get up I'll put the full title and authors of the study up. It's worth a read and it's certainly made me rethink the whole setting issue.

DD's school had one "superset" for Maths in Year 7 from the start and then the rest were mixed. I think they then set completely at the end of the first term. I thought this was a good system - the top Maths students got to race away but no-one had the discouragement of being in the bottom set in the first term.

If you want to know the reason that the school may be blundering into mixed ability teaching, it’s probably because the Education Endowment Foundation Teacher Toolkit says that the evidence is negative for setting based on the studies that they’ve reviewed: educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/evidence-summaries/teaching-learning-toolkit/setting-or-streaming/ This toolkit is supposed to be a handy look-up table for evidence for headteachers.

However, there is plenty of suspicion that they’ve botched their analysis: teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/2018/03/03/why-is-the-eef-getting-it-so-wrong-about-ability-grouping/ and they’ve been picked up on maths errors. I would strongly suspect that the studies that they are looking at are just not able to be synthesised in the way they are attempting due to comparing apples and pears. In addition, the studies themselves are probably not great quality.

A great summary of how this specifically affects maths teaching is here: markmccourt.blogspot.com/2018/01/mixed-ability-vs-setting.html

I also seem to remember that the evidence for setting is positive for high ability but negative for low ability, and the EEF decided only to publish the negative figure for interests of social justice because low ability groups tend to contain more disadvantaged students.

I'd be fuming. It's not better in maths and actually, arguably, isn't any good in English either.

My DS school sets for Maths in Year 8. He seemed to spend Year 7 going over what he had already done and has only really just learned anything new in Year 8.

He is very bright at Maths though. He was bored last year and enjoying it more now he is in top set and being stretched.

Having taught year 7 maths in the past (not my specialty subject) I can absolutely guarantee that this will not be at all advantageous to a higher ability yr7

I believe maths is one of the few subjects where setting is largely accepted to be beneficial across the board (but I'm open to be corrected).

Mixed works well in other subjects with a skilled teacher. I've never heard it be good for maths.

This is not going to benefit your child. If teachers have to basically teach it without training it’s not going to work either. It’s worth bringing it up with the school.

It’s not better for your high ability child and if it has been dumped on teachers without training in how to effectively teach mixed ability, it’s not going to be great for the teachers either.