How are class assignments made for new primary starters? Duplicate names

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Primary school teachers/leaders: what are the factors that go into deciding which children go into which classes in a multi-form entry situation?

My child is in a large city primary school with five foundation/entry-level classes. In my child’s one class there are three children called Isla and three called Phoebe.

Maybe I’m biased because I have an uncommon name myself and have always liked it that way, but if I were in charge of this school, all things being equal I’d have done my best to put children with duplicate names into different classes, so they weren’t condemned to a lifetime of being Isla L. and Phoebe J.

But I expect other factors are at stake!! What are they?

They'll look at:

Boy/girl split
Which term the birthday is in
Having a range of ability to the extent they know anything beforehand ie not all the SEN children in the same class
Splitting up which pre-schools/nurseries the children have come from
If there's a really obvious social difference in the catchment, balancing that out ie not everyone from the high-rise estate in one and from the leafy large houses in another
Twins divided according to school practice/parental request
Any specific issues which mean children shouldn't be in the same class

.......... and then probably fair game after that.........but that does you might end up with duplicate names in a class.

When I was at school every single girl in my class had the 1st or 2nd name Louise. I suspect not random

We had five Sams in my Secondary school class. And two boys with very similar first names (same initial) and same last name. It did cause confusion...

I've come to the conclusion what might seem obvious to parents isn't as straightforward to schools.

My Daughter, 18, still refers to all the Lily’s in her with a letter suffix at the end.

In my secondary school form there were 3 girls with the same name and 3 boys with the same name.

One of the boys and one of the girls (who had the common names) were twins. There was nobody else in the year group with either name, other than those 6.

Two form entry: one class had an Olly, Polly, Dolly and a couple of Mollies as well as the usual Isabelle/Isobel/Isabel/Isobella/Ysabella. Other class: no duplicates or rhyming names.

At ours I requested my daughter not be in the same class as a little boy who goes to her nursery and has a history of hitting her.

They also tried to put two or three kids from each nursery ( who get along) together in each class

I was one of 3 with my name in my class. I was always known by my first name and first letter of my last name. I think it’s one of the reasons I have my DC more unusual names

There were loads of people in my class with my name it wad a pita and why my kids have less common names.

My DS has loads of Sophia's and Emily's in his year so they are all 'Sophia Surname' or 'Emily Surname'. For DD's year it is all Olivia and Ava

As pp said suffix at the end or called surnames although that's more prevalent with boys for some reason. I'm nicknamed my surname at work there are three of us with the same name.

Names are at the bottom of the list after balancing by sex, age, ability, SEN, social information from nurseries, any parental requests.

Making 5 classes is a big job, so once all sorted by other factors even if they did notice class A has 3 Islas, not sure anyone would want to start rearranging things!

I once taught a class with 5 Matthews and 3 Thomases. They thought I was psychic as I could just say "Matthew and Thomas stop talking please" and had a pretty solid chance of hitting on the culprit!

Isla A and Phoebe A are at nursery together and are a good combination.
Phoebe A, Isla B and Isla C have older siblings are in the same class and the school uses this information to create younger classes.
Phoebe B and Isla B live next door to each other and Phoebe B hasn't been to nursery so her parents identified Isla B as the other child going that Phoebe knows.
Phoebe C's home language is French as is Luca's so the school is putting them in the same class. Luca is at the same nursery as Isla A and Phoebe A....

There are any number of factors that determine how children are allocated to classes!

Maybe there are also Phoebes and Islas in the other classes too :) They are both such common names now.

In my year group of 120 at secondary school there were two boys with the exact same name, as in first middle and surname all the same. They ended up being known as Tom Jones Blue and Tom Jones Green for which house they were in, I'd dread to think what would have happened if they;d both been in the same house.

In DDs year group of 45 (2 form entry) there's 5 Isabelle/Isabel/Isobel/Isabellas, 4 Elizabeth/Elisabeths, and a set of twins called Dotty and Dolly. It can get very confusing, especially when the two classes spend time together.

One crazy Mum at DS’ school is insistent all the naughty boys are in one class and that it’s based on intel from their previous nurseries. She’s talking nonsense

According to DS’ teacher, they try to split the birthdays, previous nurseries, known SEN/medical needs, twin preferences. There’s a big feeder nursery for the school so try to not put 10 per class from that nursery rather than all 20 in the same class.

Our primary school is two form entry. One class is the oldest 30 children in the year, the other class is the youngest 30 children in the year.

They stay in these classes until the autumn vs summer born divide becomes less important and are mixed up in year 5. The mixing up is alternating alphabetical.

How many Phoebe's are in the class has zero impact on how the class is split out. Likewise boy/girl ratios. You can work out with decent accuracy which children your child gets to 'keep' moving into year 5.

If it was that important for Isla not to be “condemned” to being known as Isla B her parents wouldn’t have chosen such a popular name for her. Ok, occasionally you might get two Penelopes or Elowens or Esmereldas, but most of the time it’s very obviously popular names like Isla and Olivia and Phoebe and Evie. I don’t think it’s anything school ought to consider.

I'm a secondary teacher and often wonder this! Taught a year 7 class one year where nearly every single first name on the register began with E and there were multiple Eleanors, Emilys, Ethans and Elliots. I wondered if E names had been trending the year they were all born and looked at some other y7 class lists- nope, total mix of names and the multiples in my class didn't seem to feature at all. It did feel deliberate and was very confusing!

Two form entry split mainly by age (older in one class younger in the other) but they also consider boy/girl ratios, sen, twin preference etc. I don’t think they’d even look at their names really.

I did once veto a set of class lists where the three Percival Zs had all been put in the same set. All three had behaviour issues anyway and would have been a toxic combination anyway... plus policy was names on the board and constantly writing out their names in full (long surnames too!) would have been a PITA. One stayed put, one went up, one went down.

DS's class have 3 multiple names, plus 2/3s of the girls have phoetically simmilar names, mainly around 4-5 letters and lots of vowels. One class intake, so it's just what occured that year. Out of the 11 boys, 2 share an unusual name.

There were 4 Davids in my form at school.
I once had another Gertrude Y in my class and we both managed the year unscathed

I once taught a class were 20% of the children had the same name. I've taught a class that is 20 boys and 6 girls. I've taught a class where over half the class is sen or behaviour whereas our parallel class had one sen child.

Parents use names like Isla and Flynn thinking they're very original, because they're not Emma and Tom like they knew at school, but they're top ten names and there are already thousands and thousands of uses per year to get to the top ten.

If you want a 'truly unique' name you need to look under position 75, at least. Barely a few hundred uses a year, sometimes just double figures.

"Evie" might be 'new' to the new 2018 mum but it's old hat to anyone who's been in a playground since 2014 - already well taken off!

The 'old lady' trend of the 2010s means every primary school is Ava, Lily, Oliver and Olivia. Thankfully they're beautiful names, and they're not lumbered with being called Candy or Kylie or Rocky, but they are as well-used as Sharon and Jason were in their day.

As a teacher myself, it took me a long, long time to name my own child so he would not be known as Name / Initial of surname. There is no one in his whole school with the name and no, its not a made up name!!

In my current year group, 2 form entry, the other class has 4 boys with the same J name whilst I have none! Last year they had 4 girls with the same I name!!