"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?

Aren’t all kids bright? In some capacity? I can’t think I’ve ever met a child who is universally dull.

They may or may not find maths harder than other kids do but that doesn’t mean they’re dull in comparison.

So essentially in set classes most research has found that students streamed into top sets make the same amount of academic progress as in mixed ability, but those streamed into lower sets are disproportionately disadvantaged and make less progress.

This article which comments on the subject mentions that having sets benefits higher ability pupils.

That contradicts the claim made above that all pupils benefit from mixed ability teaching.

I know that with a great many teachers being left-wing that they simply don’t care about the better pupils, but we can’t put their politics ahead of the facts.

No links, just assertions?

That TES article very much suggests it down to the standard of teaching and allocation of resources rather than setting in itself being the issue.

Not all subjects are setted...

The kids know, we talk to our children & the teachers also tell us. DSs secondary isn't the best at communication but they do tell us this at parents evening & on feedback. Was very clear this year as they were making gcse choices and only top sets can do certain subject combinations.

Most schools dont have top sets anymore, not ones they advertise anyway.

You don't know what children tell their parents at home. The parents who grill their kids at pickup about who misbehaved that day I guess can't control themselves for that new daily information. You're not going to hear them ask "what table did you sit on today" because they already know, and their child's ability doesn't change on a daily basis.

The relevant snippets trickle out at home, often to delay bedtime I've found!

There are some that are pretty dumb.

Mostly at secondary though it's intentionally dumb, for some reason it's still a thing to be seen as cool = stupid

At primary school the maths settings were hilarious. The bottom set was circle and the highest set was hexagon. My 7 year old worked out that the more sides the shape had in the name of your table the higher the set you were in.

I can't pull up links to academic journals just now - I'm on my phone whilst looking after three kids and a puppy. Happy to update later when they're in bed.

Strenuously object to the PP who said left-wing teachers not caring about 'brightest' (maybe not the exact word, but similar was used) kids. I care just as much about those who will achieve straight As and go off to an academic uni. I've just seen the detrimental effect of setting in my teaching context, and observed the differences in attainment and self-belief when we stopped teaching kids like they were 'lower' set.

Ours are set for maths, English, science and PE.

I know what sets they are/were at secondary because it's come up in conversation with the child or with the teacher-albeit with the science one because they were furious at being in that set because they wanted to be in a lower set and do double rather than triple. 🤣 They definitely loved being in the lower PE sets because they felt it was far more fun.

I do know of a school that went to lengths to keep it secret, which in my friend's case came with a huge shock. She'd thought all along her dc (and dc thought this too) was top set. It came as a shock when they came to GCSE predictions and the teacher predicted C when she'd been expecting an A/A*. The school was very anti telling any sort of level and enquiries tended to be met with "they're doing very well" or "they're at the right level for them". So that wasn't the only issue (nor was it the only subject they had a nasty surprise, but that was the hardest I think).

I did some very basic research about how children felt about setting (in maths), and I came up with something which I didn't expect. I did it with a mixture of interviews and questionnaires.
The lower the set on average the happier they were about setting. They said they felt happier being able to ask questions, and say they didn't understand because they didn't have the top ones saying "I've finished" while they were still struggling with question one. They felt they did better because they had something to aim for rather than feeling they'd never catch up with the top, and they felt less rushed. A number said something like "now I'm with people like me I feel I can do maths".
The top set was generally fairly indifferent (a couple of complaints about not being able to coast!).
I think I only had one child in a lower set who said he really hated setting, and when we talked he said it was because his dad had got upset with him and told him he wasn't trying hard enough, which is a parent issue not a set issue.
Surprised me at the time because I was expecting the top sets to love it and the bottom to hate it.

And actually that reminds me of one of the bottom sets I dealt with. They were a group of about 10, mostly lads who were very disengaged with schooling and if I put it "challenging". One of the lads in the group had Down's Syndrome, and when I was talking to them (I did some in groups) this lad said he liked being in that set because he learnt new things and "would I like to see how he drew a circle".
The other lads stopped what they were doing and said "go on miss" and "he's really good!"
So I asked him to show me and he solemnly got out a 10p coin and drew round it. The whole set erupted in (sincere) whoops and cheers. One of them proudly told me how he'd shown him how to do that, and another showed how he "wasn't as good. Am I, miss?"
I think about that group. They'll be approaching their 40s now, and I hope they have all been successful. It was a very rough area and it will have been very easy for them to have been drawn into the wrong side, but that little episode showed how wonderful they were.

It shouldn't matter what set you are in, until GCSE the content should be largely the same, the pace of the lesson might be slower if needed but challenge should come through differentiated questioning, tasks and application.

For example I teach science so if we are learning to calculate speed I'll go through it on the board and write a worked example. Then students can pick a worksheet to practise.

In my yellow tray I'll have the easier worksheets, the questions will use simpler language and the student can write on the sheet, inputting the correct numbers into the preset out equation, the scaffolding will decrease as they work through the sheet.

In my green tray I'll have trickier questions, less scaffolding but lots of questions to attempt. With the language getting more complex as they work through the sheet.

In my blue tray I'll have some similar questions as the green tray but as they work through the sheet they'll have to rearrange the equation as well and will be expected to write it out in their book.

If the students find it too hard or easy they can switch worksheets if necessary.

I'll go to those with the yellow sheet first to check understanding along with PP and EAL and then the blue sheet people and show them how to rearrange the equation if not sure, then the green tray people and live mark their answers to boost confidence.

DS1s primary had sets for maths when he was there. 4 class intake but with some really challenging demographics and it worked quite well. It enabled them to give extra help to those who needed it and also stretch those who wanted it. It made the classes less disruptive than the general classes as there were definitely some kids who got bored & disruptive because they couldn't do stuff or because they finished early.
DS2s primary school isn't set and the classes do seem to struggle a little more with the top & bottom who could do with a bit more assistance/structure.

There has never been a question of teaching different content to different 'abilities'.

But they do teach differently based on the ability of the class for some subjects. ds has personally seen advantages and disadvantages from set classes for maths.

For his NAT5 Maths he was in top set and they flew through the content, leaving plenty of time to revise and it also let their class pick up an extra NAT5 App of Maths. This would not have been possible with mixed ability classes.

Very long story short, school cocked up and he was incorrectly put into the 2nd (and bottom) set for Higher maths. He was frustrated and demotivated his class were slower to cover content in class, the teacher would give out work and optional work that he would complete and then stare into space because the teacher didn't have more for him to do and was busy with the other students who needed support. It meant he had to do much more independently at home to keep his grade up as there was not the time the top set had before exams for going over previous topics in class. It definitely put him at a disadvantage for Higher.

At our school their report says what grades they are working towards for each subject. For some subjects they are in sets, in other subjects they are in mixed ability groups. The kids know themselves which set they are in but if they/I didn't know I would ask.

@Singleandproud but if the children pick their own worksheets sometimes what happens is the less confident or those who misjudge their ability consistently pick the wrong one? Or they want to blend in with the crowd etc.

I agree setting for PE is a huge step forward. Being with the sporty kids was humiliating and totally turned me off sport! The teachers always focused on the high ability, we all knew what ability we had. It’s so much more comfortable learning with people of similar ability.

Back in the 70s when I first started teaching maths in a London school. the deputy/heads of department got the top sets and the totally inexperienced me got the bottom set. Teachers were moved up as a reward. Self fulfilling prophecy. And that’s why setting doesn’t work.

At DC secondary school, classes are set according to their potential grade: 9-6, 9-8, 7-5 etc.. They have CATs before they start and these determine what sets they go into in Year 7 (obviously this can change over the year).

@BungleandGeorge not really, you know your class. I'll watch who picks which sheet if they pick the one that's too easy or hard I'll give them a few minutes to give it a go and when I go around and check their work I'll tell them to go get the more appropriate one or will handwrite a couple of questions into their book. Or if they finish really fast they'll try the next level up. They soon realise I won't let them take the easy way out. Or instead of letting them pick I'll physically hand out the appropriate worksheet.

The kids can tell pretty quickly where they are based on who is in there classes. They know who is academically strong and who isn't.

In ours, triple vs combined science is determined by teachers at the end of year 9 generally. You have to be predicted to do very well in all the sciences to be put into the triple science classes.

My have known for years what sets they are in.
Only one language teacher has discussed it but only because she was talking about the top set perhaps taking an exam a year earlier.

Yeah as others have said, kids do notice! Even in primary if they call the tables by names and don't tell the children which is the "top set" the kids know that Oak work independently and do "chilli challenges" and Pine have an extra TA and get to play with Lego a lot (or whatever)

Again with the 'grill' instead of 'ask' 😂