"He's in top sets for everything"

[isitanywonderthat]

How do people know this? Genuine question, I have 2 dc now in secondary school and I haven't a clue what art they are in for anything. Never have at secondary or primary. Never been given this information and never asked.

How do all the mners with DC in top sets have this information?

Your child has made it to secondary and never said they felt they did well/ok/bad in a class assessment because most got less/same/more than them?

It is not about being interested in how others peoples individual children are doing, it is about being interested in how yours is. Raw numbers mean nothing, it might have been an easy or tough assessment and unless you have something to compare to, and if you don't discuss their results with them, you don't know what subjects your child might need support in, or should focus on a bit more to achieve their potential.

Do you have an evidence base from which you are making this assertion? It flies in the face of everything I've read about setting (and I have a masters in education).

I like the way sets work at my kids’ high school. They take 4 classes and divide them (for English, maths and science) into 5 sets. The “top” set has 30 kids in it, and the progressively “lower” sets have fewer and fewer kids in, down to the “lowest” set which has around 6 kids in. This is so the kids who need more help to grasp and understand and develop the concepts have a lower pupil:teacher ratio. It’s all focussed on getting the kids what they need to progress at the same pace.

I've just never has any interest in how other people's children are doing so no obviously it hasn't come up because why would it?

If you've not been bothered before, what's changed?
If you think you need to know email the school and ask.

My DD knew which sets she was in at high school.

My earlier post was in response to this. Sorry, I thought I had quoted.

We only set for maths at our comprehensive. Our rooms are numbered : E.g., Ma1, Ma2 means maths rooms 1 and 2. It does not refer to a set. Same with all subjects, e.g., En6, Sc4 etc. and year group is split in half , and are X snd Y, so you could be in a class X1. But that has nothing to do with sets. I don’t think many comps set except for Maths and poss English ? Interesting if others do …

We were told which sets the boys were in for each subject (they were in sets for all subjects up to A level). Their school reports also gave their class positions within the set or year group (can't remember which, now!)

My kids school literally calls them Set One, Set Two, Set Three and so on. When did schools start trying to be secretive? High school kids surely don't need to be called the Skittles and the Starbursts just to protect fragile egos?

Our school claim that they don't do sets, but the primary whizz kid is in X1 or XA for everything, along with some other kids who win the awards every year, whereas DD is X5 or XD/E for everything. I'm not stupid , I know that means that she is at the lower end of the 6 classes.

They have two different streams, so maths/english/science, and then the other is humanities/language/arts.

She is predicted to get whatever the C pass is, 4/5, and that is all the school care about, predicted grades.

It really doesn't matter though as long as they are working to the best of their ability. DD went down a maths group in year 8 then back up in Year 9 having worked a bit harder.

DD is off to year 10 now, so dropping several subjects thankfully.

If you aren't bothered and don't need to know, why are you asking?

It's self evident. But if someone wants to know and isn't sure, they can simply ask.

That's it.

It’s not a case of comparing or being interested in how other kids are doing or grilling them. These things just get mentioned in chat about their day, lessons, work, friends, who they sit by in what lesson and general stuff that happens at school that they mention. And then seeing their timetables and conversations with teachers.

The school I currently work at only sets for maths, but it’s a grammar school so not much in the way of mixed ability anyway. (They are all pretty much top set!)

The comprehensive school my DSes went to was big, they had two bands, X and Y with 5 classes in X and 4 in Y per year for timetabling reasons. They has a fast track set for maths in X which used to do maths GCSE in year 10 and FM GCSE in Y11. My DS1 was a bit of a whizz at maths and was in this set and also for science (they did triple rather than double) but in lower sets for humanities (geog, hist and RE set together) and English.

I know mixed ability groups are more in fashion, but tbh, I liked the fact they were set for most things as the work was aimed better at their ability. The very best thing was being set for PE. No more being the last picked for teams by the ‘jocks!’

DC14's school is very up front about it. He has told me that if they underperform they will be moved down.

It is a school in a deprived area but they do an excellent job of supporting kids with SEN and behavioural issues.

He is proper clever and I am very pleased with his progress and schooling so far.

I wish people wouldn't avoid schools with bad Ofsted results.

Our experience is that a bright, hard working child doesn't need to attend an outstanding school to reach his potential.

OK so why do schools have sets then? Because I just remember, even being in a 'top set' I would be finished with my work, bored out of my mind doing nothing while the teacher completley ignored me, the only time I was ever acknowledged by a teacher was to answer a question because they knew I'd have the answer. That would have been even worse in a mixed ability setting. It was frustrating and boring to not be able to read ahead and get on with the work because my peers weren't quite there yet, and on the flip side I'm sure if I was struggling and watching someone else fly ahead it would make me lose confidence. (My DD actually went through this and didn't progress until she was moved away with other children who were struggling and began to realise that she wasn't the only one struggling with the work).

They do work it out for themselves, but that can backfire. DD's friend went home very upset that she'd been moved down a reading group. Her logic was that the top group had always been pretty well defined as "the one she, child B and child C were in". She was no longer in the same group as child B and child C, so she'd obviously been moved down. It turned out that there were two top reading groups that term!

Anyway, secondary - it may well be that only maths is set, at least to start with. Languages and science are the others that are more likely to set in KS3 - often with languages it is made explicit when the upper sets take up an extra language. DD's school never set for humanities, her KS4 languages group was full ability range because of the timetabling block it was in, and English was entirely mixed ability until they created an extra group in year 11.

Beware assuming that En2 on the timetable means they are in set 2 for English. If they are not teaching them in form groups (perhaps because they want to separate out certain kids on behaviour grounds) then they have to call the groups something, but they may still all be mixed ability.

Just a thought… many schools don’t set for subjects other than maths.

How can you possibly cover all the work for the higher papers in a mixed ability group?
from what I’ve read some teachers are sceptical about the evidence of mixed ability classes being best for all children. I struggle to see how it can work for some subjects at gcse level

I’ve been told by teachers that my child has moved from bottom of the set to top of the set and that they’re in the top third etc. It’s a measure of progress and attainment and my child is very aware of who gets the top marks, who answers the questions correctly etc. It’s a motivator for them and whilst I agree competitiveness is not good at the extreme it’s a pretty normal human trait that to someone extent is necessary to be succesful

I always knew what sets my dd was in, a)because she told me and b) because I could see it from her timetable. I also knew what table she was on at primary school. I assume that most other parents knew as well. I never discussed this with other parents though, and would have felt a complete twat boasting about dd being in "top sets" for everything.

In fact, I have only ever heard one parent announcing anything like this. Years ago, dd and I bumped into the mum of one of dd's classmates at primary school, a year or so after they had both started at the same secondary school. We stopped for a chat. She had always been rather full of how amazing her ds was, and proudly told me that her ds was in top sets for everything. I just nodded and smiled, and didn't offer up any comment on how dd was doing. We said our goodbyes and walked off, at which point a scandalised dd felt the need to inform me that her ds was not actually in top sets for anything!

I think it's important for parents to have a good idea of how their kids are doing, and roughly where they sit in comparison to the rest of their cohort. I also think it's important that they keep that information private and avoid boasting to others about how brilliant their offspring are!

But children can work it out themselves. They compare test scores, can see who is better at answering questions, who struggles and so on.

I agree - I moved DS8 from his primary which put all the low achievers on the same table.

He is now at a primary school who have managed to make him feel as though he is progressing and not totally stupid.

Sets do change quite a bit for GCSE options. If there’s only one or two classes taking that option it will more likely be mixed ability.

Evidence that top learners do better in mixed ability classes?

That sounds surprising, do you have any links to the research?

A wide range of evidence points towards mixed ability classes having the best outcomes for ALL learners, not just the supposed 'top'.

How does that work?

I teach National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher (Scottish system) . We don't have tiered papers - in each class I'll have kids who are intuitively very analytical and articulate and are predicted top bands, and I'll have kids who I know will need lots of support to ensure a pass. There has never been a question of teaching different content to different 'abilities'.

To answer why setting is so often done - tradition perhaps? Teachers feel comfortable with it. Cynically, it appeases the parents of the children most likely to end up in the 'top' sets.

Setting has a disproportionately negative impact on particular kinds of learners - time and time again research has shown that black students are more likely to be placed in a lower set, same with students from a background of poverty or deprivation.

This is a TES article on it - there's a whole whack of academic research on the topic too: www.google.com/amp/s/www.tes.com/magazine/archive/exclusive-mixed-ability-classes-more-effective-sets%3famp