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

[ifigoup]

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?

The thing is, the most popular names are used for less than 1% of babies... so statistically whatever name you chose, they should be the only one in their standard sized primary school year.

It's interesting how frequently used the most popular names feel nowadays, in comparison to how often duplicate names used to pop up when I was in school, although I guess maybe it just feels that was because the duplicate names when I was at school were more 'classic' so everyone expected them to crop up more....like Tom, Ben, Joe, Sophie, Lauren etc. Even these though we only seemed to have a max of 2/3 in our whole year group.

At the moment, it seems like every other child under 10 is called Evie, Ava, Olivia, Arlo, Emilia/Amelia, Isla, Freya, Lucas, Noah...

Maybe it's just more noticeable because they are a bit more distinctive? Or are people using them more frequently than people used Ben, Sophie etc previously?!

I found a photo of my first class the other day at school and I could still name every child. Not that difficult as there were 4 Toms, 3 Charlottes, 3 Hannahs and 2 Harrys. This was from 2002.

@MrsLJ2014

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!!

Jacob? I find myself teaching a lot of Jacobs in year 7 and and 8 this year!

I worked in a class once where two boys were called Blue. Bet their parents didn't predict that!

This has got me thinking back to my school days, - was at school in the 70s. I don't think we had any duplicate names in my class!
Julie
Karen
Suzanne
Elaine
Wendy
Dot
Lynne
Kay
Jackie
Belinda
Linda
Sally
Debbie.
Bearing in mind the amount of names, how come nowadays the 'popular' names are so common, yet the popular ones when I was young weren't? No Sharon or Tracey in my class!

The school year behind me had 13 Sarahs (all girl school with about 120 each year, so more than 10% of the year were called Sarah! Think we had 5 split across classes in our year)

French was streamed by ability, and all 13 were in the one class. Apparently it was mayhem.

There were also two girls with the same incredibly unusual first name in the same class. Think, a recognisable name but I've only ever heard of one other in real life: so basically the equivalent of Persephone M and Persephone J. I always wanted to know what their parents thought when they came home on the first day and told them! It was very much the kind of name that you'd choose if you wanted to avoid the 13 Sarah scenario.

HumbugWhale

*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!!

Jacob? I find myself teaching a lot of Jacobs in year 7 and and 8 this year!*

Jack, year 1!! Still plenty of Jacobs too!