Smart children suffer in mixed ability classes.

[SusieQTip]

My daughter goes to oversubscribed secondary school which has quite a defined streaming system and recently this has caused furore going into the second year.

Within the one year there are five tiers grouped according to ability in key subjects and there is a lot of difference between what a student in the bottom group studies compared to one in the top tier. For example the top group might read A Midsummer Night's Dream in the class and go and see a traditional performance while the bottom set would watch it video and then go out to the forest and have work groups about the material.

A number of mothers of children in the lower tiers have really started kicking off about wanting everyone to be taught in groups of mixed abilities. Apparently the current system is unfair, elitist and ends up with their children being written off at a early age.

Am I being unreasonable to think that any change would end up being highly detrimental to children in the higher groups? I admit that my daughter is in the top group, but I still think that the more able children would be the only ones to suffer.

But she will be an exception. Almost nobody is among the best mathematicians, historians, geographers, singers, dancers, artists, actors, musicians, linguists and so on in their school.

Most people who are exceptional at a few things are not exceptional at everything.

The fact that your child is in the exceptional group for everything doesn't mean it is meeting the needs of other children.

Which is why most schools set rather than stream.

Susie did you mean setting in your OP rather than streaming ?

Perhaps as I said English is not my native language. In the school children are placed in a class according to level and ability and then stay in that class for all subjects.

Perhaps I should mention that this is a school in Latvia and not in the United Kingdom.

dreamingofsun not really how it works steaming is dermined by three factors at my childs school behaviour, test results and genral abilty in class

Because although a child may test well their behaviour may. Make teaching them very hard

My nephew is very bright indeed but because of his poor beaviour no one will know as he spends most of his time outside the heads office

Or like my son who dose not test well but is ranked in the 10th well behaved in his year group always can answer the questions in class, always has his homework done

Behaviour plays a big part also in how much you learn

Ilovedaintynuts i agree 100% its usually the middle children who misss out oh and those who have not been raised very well like my nephew

Yes, it is very unfair then.

Somebody might be very good at English and Drama, but not be allowed to go and see the play because their Maths ability has kept them in a lower stream.

If you are having a debate between parents in that school between mixed ability and streaming, a solution more people might agree on would be that children were placed in ability groups based on their ability in a particular subject. So a child might be in set 1 for English, set 3 for Maths and set 5 for dance, rather than stream 1 for everything or stream 5 for everything.

In the school I attended in the early 90s the lowest sets were taught very badly indeed, they concentrated on the top sets where gaining 5 A*-Cs was considered feasible. Everyone else was babysat rather than provided with genuine opportunities for progression

I would be surprised if Ofsed were to let schools get away with this these days, but I have heard teacher friends from the same secondary school department jokingly banter about who gets "the lovely top set going into y9"

I think resources should be evenly spread or better yet concentrated on the kids with the highest level on need so your example about theatre trip v forrest walk if a real example would need to be equality impact assessed IMHO

Right in my childs school the children are streamed for each and every subject

For instance he is in the foundation bottom set for PE (sadly he is not very good at pe )but the advanced middle set for secince

They have sets with in sets so with in top , middle or bottom set you will be in advanced,intermidate or foundation

And he will have the chance to move up or down at 2 seprate points in the year

Its looking like next year he will move up in IT and down in history gurr
So their is always a chance you can move up or down

birdofthenorth at my childs school in year 7 the lowest sets have heads of department teaching them to try to raise their standred hence my child having the head of pe this year

Yanbu.

It's like asking the fastest sprinter at my school to tie her ankles together to give me a fighting chance.

Yep my Dcs school sound like Mrbojangles one

DS has been in top sets for most stuff throughout - his behaviour is great, he works hard and is clever

DD on the other hand is in top sets for some things and bottomish for others because her behaviour is erratic, she doesnt work hard enough and this doesnt compensate for her being clever too

OP dont know much about Latvian education system

YANBU.

Every child deserves to be educated to the best of their abilities.

I've never met a child who was very good at every single thing the school taught. Even the most academically stellar students generally come unstuck on at least one out of art, technology, music and sport.

And yes, if streaming is not carefully done it can end up as just writing off the less able children. (And I've heard plenty of anecdotal evidence from Eastern European colleauges that Eastern European schools can be pretty bad at this. Just anecdotes, but still...)

And finally, yes, streaming without plenty of opponrtunities to move up and down is very bad, because there are loads of reasons why a capable child might temporarily do badly (late developer, parents divorcing, testosterone surge and accompanying bad behaviour). It's really crap if, once they've gone down, they have no chance to move up later.

Horse racing. There is some handicapping to create a decent race. Added weight etc.
We are not horses. But I am torn reading this debate. All children deserve a chance. And, for obvious reasons, some teachers favour brighter children.

I dont think they will ever have 50 per cent from Council Estates at Eton.
But it may have made Dave Cameron a more compassionate Prime Minister.

I wouldn't like that system at all. High ability in music and art often doesn't correlate with high ability in maths and english. Under that system children who have strong artistic ability but aren't great at maths wouldn't get a chance to excel. And maths and science ability don't always come with a talent for language.

I'd imagine there are children at that school who aren't being given the opportunities in areas they gifted in because they aren't all rounders. I'd imagine many adult biochemists weren't hot on Shakespeare, many critically acclaimed sculptors weren't great at quadratic equations and many award winning authors struggled with wave theory.

pattercakes thats also down to parental attauide towards education,

Pattercakes, I agree that we need to give brighter children a chance, by teaching them at an appropriate level.

But as a society, we also need to teach children who are exceptional at drama, sport, music and so on at an appropriate level, because we need people who are good at those things, regardless of whether or not they are mediocre at maths.

If the OP came on and announced that the 'core subjects' people are being streamed on were singing, acting and PE, I doubt many people would say it was fine for a child to be placed in the lowest stream and taught in a low ability maths group because they had been deemed low ability due to having a poor singing voice and not being able to run very fast.

Ben Whishaw, I believe, was not particularly clever at school but was an exceptional actor from a young age, and was recently Richard II in the BBC Shakespeare season. At the OP's school, he wouldn't have even be going to see the Shakespeare play because he would be in the lower stream.

gettingeasier - i am one of those mothers kicking off that their child is in the wrong set. And no its not because I didn't focus on them, its because my child was distracted by the girl sitting next to him through every lesson and the teacher did nothing about it. And in the previous year a teacher was off sick, so they had 8 cover teachers.

so now my child has to be doing lower level work, more slowly. That means he learns less and it makes it harder for him to go up a set.

streaming is ok, but ability should be taken into account and not just results - but saying this to my son't school is like banging your head against a wall

When I was at school we were streamed so even though I was absolutely rubbish at PE (think unable to throw a ball, do a handstand, etc without injuring someone) I was still in the top set.

I have taught mixed ability groups though and it is truly awful. I don't feel I am doing anybody justice when I have all abilities in the same group. It is possible that some subjects lend themselves more easily to mixed ability teaching but I think everyone benefits from being setted in most academic subjects.

That's a very clever approach MrBoJangles

Mrbojangles. Yes parental attitide is very important.

I hated school until we were put in sets. I was also bullied for working hard and trying to excell, so I learned to be mediocre to avoid being picked on. One we were put in sets school became a lot more interesting. Unfortunately I still continued on my mediocre path.

Here in the states for the most part, secondary schooling has sets but they are based not only on teacher recommendation but also student/family requests. My son decided to drop down a set in English and History so he could focus more on science and math. They often only have two (or sometimes three) options though, so there isn't much of a gradient, more a jump. The harder class isn't just harder, it also involves a big jump in the amount of home study expected (which I'm not a fan of).

Perhaps I should mention that this is a school in Latvia and not in the United Kingdom.

Nice bit of drip-feeding there.

Get everyone thinking about having another stick to beat Britain with, and then eventually mention it's somewhere else instead.

You could get a job at the Daily Mail with skills like that.

Setting is the way to go. I was in the top stream at school and boy did I struggle with music, sport, art and drama. It was much better in year 10 and 11 when things changed to sets for maths/english/languages/science/pe and then mixed ability for options, for me business studies, history, geography, which worked just fine with mixed ability. I actually enjoyed pe once I was in the bottom set.