Setting for Maths in Year 7

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Finding out that ds had a low processing speed was instrumental in him gaining the help he needed to achieve. Both at school and in everyday life.

Alexander, I liked 'centipede'!

Oops auto correct. Should read centile.

cantkeepawayforever
I never thought saying:
Issues with outcomes of norm referenced qualifications are not the fault of sets.
There are pros and cons of sets
There are pros and cons of mixed ability
A system could improve, as all systems can
Schools make decisions on how to group based on lots of variables
Lots of variables influence pupil outcomes
Comparing totally different systems by cherry picking and ignoring variables doesn't make sense
Blanket assertions that sets cause x y z are nonsense

would be cause such a stir.

I’m finding your comments quite offensive now.

Speed of information processing and working memory are two of the basic tests on an Ed Psych report. Scores below a certain centipede trigger things like extra time in exams.

How do you think I know my two kids processing speeds? From their Ed Psych reports. In fact it’s IQ that often isn’t reported.

Or do you think that having an SpLd must mean a child is “thick”.

One article about Shanghai and PISA from a reasonably reputable source

Namenic,

The Shanghai school system is very highly socially selective due to local laws about who can attend school in the city - so, like selective schools and private schools in this country, setting is less critical because those who might form the 'lower sets' are simply not in the school.

Cakes - quite a few of the Asians have sets: Singapore, Hong Kong has selective secondary school entry, I think South Korea has streaming. I believe Shanghai does not have sets.

Also - People say children are hothoused for 11+ or test for setting but not for GCSEs. No one asks people how much tutoring people had for GCSEs. Does it matter how quickly someone learnt it? A lot of basic maths is practice, grit and perseverance.

they give the weaker kids who haven’t got a topic an additional lesson that the higher ability students don’t get.

AND all children, of pretty much every ability, will have many hours of after-school coaching /cramming [so their results are as much to do with their out of school learning as the education system]

AND the schools teach a very, very narrow curriculum. Do you think it would be acceptable for your child to only have lessons in Maths, English and Science every day of their school lives?

If processing speed is so important, why nobody measures it?

Except they do. See the attached from JCQ about access arrangements. Low processing speeds can be used as evidence for a need for extra time in exams.

CAT tests are actually used to set, along with SATs.

Some schools do, some don’t. CATs are timed so processing speed will come into it.

the French and the Finns, the Asians, and the whole world also have a range of abilities. Yet, they educate bigger proportion of their population to better outcomes without sets.

I know very little about the French or Finnish methods of teaching maths, I’ve explained how they do it in Shanghai, they give the weaker kids who haven’t got a topic an additional lesson that the higher ability students don’t get. In England we cannot timetable double the amount of maths for weaker kids who need more time to grasp a concept, so they have to go slower instead.

Maisy,

Ditto.

I have said earlier in the thread that i am not absolutely sure that fine-grained Maths sets from day 1 of Year 7 are necessary or desirable, especially since the vast majority of pupils will have been taught in mixed ability groupings in primary. But that qualified measure of support for non-setting has been completely eroded by cake's inability to engage with any of the nuances of the argument - or even any of the facts.

Ups, Cakes did it! She is the source of all problems with education. Problem solved.
Except nobody said that.

cantkeepawayforever
Very well put.

But as we back to playing the victim and yet more claims that nobody is engaging with the issues I can't honestly see there being much point.

Nuanced understanding of a complex issue never tends to be the forte of non specialists on discussion boards.

(The stupid thing is, as I've said all along, I can see positives and negatives of setting and mixed ability depending on context. Even as someone who thinks there can be issues with setting, Cakes makes very little sense. It's hardly the sign of a coherent argument when you've got people who may sympathise with some parts of your stance saying your argument makes no sense.)

(Pisa, btw, can't count - the variability in cohorts entered, pupils excluded from the test - many countries exclude very high percentages for 'special needs', other countries include almost all children in their results - different curricula followed vs text paper style etc make it a useless comparator for this purpose)

so equal percentage of Brits and of the French should be able to attain equivalent level of knowledge / qualifications

What evidence do you have that they don't?

You cannot compare norm referenced and non norm referenced qualifications.

So the fact that x percent of French students reach the standard that THEY call a pass and y % of British students reach the standard called 'Level 4' are two separate, and entirely incomparable, pieces of data - before we even being to introduce further differences in e.g. staying down a year etc.

If you can show me that, given EXACTLY THE SAME TEST PAPER, after being taught EXACTLY THE SAME CURRICULUM, sat by CHILDREN AT EXACTLY THE SAME AGE French students achieve better, then that is worth talking about.

Until then, you are comparing apples with pears and pretending that you are comparing apples with apples.

Ups, Cakes did it! She is the source of all problems with education. Problem solved.

The word "thick" is so unpalatable, it puts the moose on the table. Let's switch to some obscure euphemism. We don't think they are stupid, we think they have low processing speed.

If processing speed is so important, why nobody measures it? Even
in cognitive assessments for children with SEN, low processing speed is rarely measured. The assessments done by EPs always involve some sort of IQ measure like Wechsler WISC, but it does not even have a part for processing speed as such.

CAT tests are actually used to set, along with SATs. CAT tests don't measure processing speed either because it is beside the point, but is conveniently obscure so helpful to dodge the argument.

Noble, the French and the Finns, the Asians, and the whole world also have a range of abilities. Yet, they educate bigger proportion of their population to better outcomes without sets. Do you agree with the statement:
"No bigger fraction of Brits have low ability, than the fraction of the French (etc) who have low ability, so equal percentage of Brits and of the French should be able to attain equivalent level of knowledge / qualifications"

Why don't you engage with this argument?

I think setting maths at secondary is necessary.
But i do think something goes wrong at primary level whether that is
Starting too young
Having 12m age gap combined with the above.
Not making children pass that year to continue

If 1/3 people dont pass gcse maths then 1/3 children have a parent that didnt pass. And is it more likely certain ones have 2 parents who havent passed. In comparison to various combinations of parents who both have alevel, degree in science/maths or are teachers.

Certainly it seems parents put the bulk of the 1-2-1 time in for reading. Having 'engaged' parents who can help with maths probably makes a huge difference.
The summer born statistics do show that children who are behind at the start will find it hard to work their way up and are never truly equal even by gcse or alevel.
There truly is a huge difference between children in how quickly they pick things up. Some kids could do phonics check before school others by end of yr r and other may never pass probably.
As others have said a combination between retention and processing speed.
Diet (less veg/fish etc) could actually mean some countries kids are 'brighter'. But also in a situation where 80% passed to a level then that is that many more confident parents even grandparents to help with homework.
Also factors like behaviour and inclusion of sen will be different in different countries.
I agree a different functional test (think this may already exist) so those who cant pass can show they can do the basics.

I really disagree with calling primary sets ability groups. As already said summer borns are at a huge disadvantage and i reject that they should be thought of as lower ability. Plus the children who are hothoused. Doesnt mean they will be the most accurate.

Possibly an improvement will be seen with more fluidity SB children starting. Especially as more prem/struggling toddlers' parents are likely to delay.

I completely see the issue that some kids just get a bit behind and then cant catch up.
Personally imo things like the secrecy of book bands and primary setting makes all this hidden so parents cant see that their dc needs more help. I think luckily reading can catch up. My own dc (who is extremely bright, above average iq) managed not to meet yr 1 maths expectations! the teacher couldnt see that dd was im sure getting bored with the Q or answering wrong on purpose (she does this often at home and with technology will enjoy pressing the wrong answers, sigh). But that teachers opinion has now carried on to yr 2 and i dont know whether they set or not ...
Policies of no homework mean you may not even see how the dc is doing until parents evenings.

I also completely disagree with sats being used for gcse targets (like 5 years away). Again disadvantages the youngest also i dont think you can say from that age how they will cope with the much harder work (though the sats do seem pretty hard so that may make it more accurate).

mcsbrent.co.uk/mathagogy-is-this-the-best-we-can-do-part-7-the-spacing-effect/

Really interesting innovative techniques there for pupils who find maths hard. But trying the same work for kids who already have a solid understanding would not be a good use of time.

My son certainly isn't thick (and is actually in top set maths now). But he has a speed of information processing speed of on the 24th percentils as opposed to my daughter who is on the 88th percentile and his working memory is 52nd percentile whereas hers is 82nd percentile.

He lost his confidence in maths when he was at his previous school and he was in a set that worked at too fast a pace for him. Luckily a change of school meant that confidence loss was not permanent.

No one apart from cakes has said bottom sets are thick.

But it is certainly true that students in lower sets tend to have slower processing speeds and lower retention levels than those in top sets. It’s not always true, but it does change how they need to be taught.

Ignoring that is like saying everyone has to run races in the same time.

The bottom set aren't thick!

Mayve the junior schools wrote them off
Maybe they didn't get much intereaction with their parents because they don't have maths language skills or even thought to help them achieve
Maybe they aren't as mature as the other kids
Maybe they have medical conditions they prevent them from attending schools
Maybe they go home to care for a parent or get beaten for failing at some slight issue?

You can't just decide people are thick because of one exam result

Maybe we should all get out of the mindset of kids at the bottom being ‘thick’ (I know Cakes u’re probably quite flustered as lots of ppl disagreeing with u) or worth less. Just because they aren’t good at maths doesn’t mean they can’t succeed in life or even in maths! But because the gap is already so huge by Y7 it becomes impossible to teach everyone together with the current level of resourcing (Even cakes made the comment about some selective schools Being ok with not setting because all the kids are of similar ability).

I disagree with cakes in general but there is a valid point in there and there is some new ‘mastery’ approach - supposedly taken from Singapore (but it is confusing as they definitely do setting and streaming there). Some people have interpreted this as the whole class not moving on until everyone gets the concept - i think what is supposed to happen is there are 3 different level of ‘hardness’ around 1 concept and the kids do up to the level they are able. There is a discussion in the gifted and talented thread.
Also see places like michaela school where they encourage rote learning for the core knowledge base (along with draconian discipline) - would probably work with basic arithmetic...

Why are we so obsessed with kids taking GCSEs at 16? 2 or 4 years later is nothing in the whole scheme of things. Take functional skills maths and then ‘watered down’ foundation paper and then GCSE. If they don’t manage it at 18 then there are lots of further education colleges that do night school. I’m sure someone could make a Free MOOC (online learning) for gcse too! I think kids probably need some role model adults who took GCSEs or qualifications late and made a success of their lives.

35% fail
because that is how the exams are designed.

You cannot compare performance within norm-referenced and non-norm referenced systems - the absolute standard of any or all of the 35% the exam is designed to give lower than a 4 to may be higher, lower or the same as the absolute standard of those 'passing' in other countries.

because gaps were allowed to open and not bridged, because basics were not properly retained

Given that primary schools don’t tend to set, at least early on, how do you explain the gaps and lack of retention?

Do you agree with the statement “some children are better at retaining information than others”?

They are not going to use sets if they don’t actually work.
35% fail, so sets actually don't work for the children concerned. You need to stay in contact with facts. There is no need for opinion and speculations. In those bottom 35%, 10% have low ability, 15% are low average and 10% are average in ability. So if those average kids fail, sets don't work for them, ok?