Different aged siblings in the same class at Junior school?

[PersonIrresponsible]

My sibling is exactly two years older than I, yet, we were supposedly in the same class when in Junior school. Yy

Was this ever an official policy in early/mid 1980s. Or is there a reason for it ?

I remember having year 5/6 mixed classes when I was in juniors - a handful of year 5s in the year 6 class, presumably due to class size issues.

Small size year groups in a small school. Montessori setting (intentional mixed ages). One of you put up a year and one put down a year to meet individual needs.

Many small schools have mixed age classes, then and now.

I went to a small primary school, 100 children and 4 classes to cover reception and the 6 year groups, so we were mixed years the whole way through. One of my best friends was August born and her sister September born 2 years prior so only one school year apart and often in the same class. I assume you were two school years apart though? That may have been a bit of a stretch even at my small school.

I too was in a mixed year 5 and 6 in primary.

another mixed primary here - year 3/4 mixed and years 5/6

Often when there are unequal numbers in, say, y3 and 4 the school will make one class mixed.

Also in the 80s, in London, there were some schools that did 'vertical grouping' with all the age groups in a class. This was before the National Curriculum which would gave made it more difficult to work this way.

My (English) primary school taught everyone in the same class for English and Maths. We followed workbooks at our own pace, but did tables and spelling out loud together.

I remember combined classes of up to four year groups. It was a smallish school though.

I know you are probably in England but this is still the case in Ireland. Children can start from age 4 but don’t HAVE to start until age 6. My dd started at exactly 4.5 and there was another girl in her class who turned 6 in the sept they started. They are in the same year group and when they start secondary school my dd will be age 12.5 and she will turn 14 that month.

I taught a year one class containing siblings, one born in September the other the following July. The parents refused to have one in the available parallel class.

Our local primary school had 45 dc in the school when my ds was there, it is just 2 classes.They are now down to less than 30.

Yes many of the kids are in different year but same class as their siblings.

I was in a mixed age class for a while - each year group had too many children to be a class, but not enough children to need two classes. So the youngest from year 3 and the oldest from year 2 went into a class together.

Yes, vertical grouping was still around when I started teaching in 1989. Was supposed to foster a sense of learning from older children. I never experienced it myself but other schools used it.

Mine go to a tiny school and my 4 year old is in the same class as my 7 year old as reception, year 1 and year 2 are combined. In fact, out of the 7 that went into reception, only 2 don't have siblings in the same class! Its caused a few issues so they move year 2 into the year 3/4 class for the morning so they get a break but overall, it works ok!

I know two brothers, would be 12 &14 now in Yr 8 and 9. They were in the same class in Yr3/4. Actually a bigger age gap them my two, who are two school years apart.

Why do you say supposedly, do you not remember junior school? (I'm assuming this means up to age 11?)

I went to a very small village primary school with just 2 classes. So there were 3 year groups in one class and 4 year groups in the other. So I was in the same class as my sister who was 3 years older than me.

I experienced it on supply.

Surely this is very common in small schools. When I started primary school in the mid 1960s there were only 3 classes, so each one had a fairly wide age range.

My children were in a much bigger school but still had mixed year classes at primary because there were not enough children each year to fill two classes.

Village primary schools still do this if they're small/undersubscribed. Often KS1 will be one class and KS2 will be another, but I've also seen where they spread the extra year group through the whole school by moving 5 or 6 pupils down from each class to the year below, to make room. That was how they did it in my primary, where we only had 6 classrooms for the 7 years of primary (inc. reception).
Vertical tutor groups still exist now in some secondaries.

composite (mixed age) classes were common in small schools (and still are).

My great grandfather's old school is still a small one, has survived with only two classes for seven years, so there could be siblings in the same class.

I saw a wonderful documentary about a French school with one class a couple of years ago.

My primary school had mixed year groups ,i dont know wether they worked it out on age or ability ,but throughout the school ,some years you coukld be with kids a year older and sometimes some kids were a year younger

Yes happened in my primary. Also happened with dd1 class. Year 5 and 6 were mixed

small school