to wonder why the school has done this?

[dorset84]

So school has an year intake of 45. Always had one straight class for each year and one mixed class per key stage. Always worked fairly well. Although perhaps some children did feel held back if older one in mixed age class. Occassionally close friends split but fairly rare.
For September they are having all mixed year classes but keeping key stages together. However, it seems they have selected children in a way which vitrually splits all close friends up. Plus there is clearly going to be a real ability mix.
All it seems to have achieved is alot of upset children.
AIBU to wonder why they have done this?

We have this at our school and it works really well. Having three mixed age classes, all of similar abilities means that all children in the key stage have the same opportunities regarding access to the curriculum. This does not happen if, for instance, you have 1 x Yr 1, 1 x Yr 2 and 1 x mixed 1/2.

It also means that the teachers can plan, assess and moderate together.

Yanbu to wonder why.
Could be many reasons. There could be friendship problems and one class may not gel very well or it could be to do with attainment. By mix of abilities do you mean mix in each class or unbalanced classes?

Obviously I don't know much about the ability of the other children in the class. However it would appear to hv a real mixture of abilities.

We had three yr 3/4 classes this year, all with really mixed abilities. They were however 'set' by ability for maths, literacy and science which worked really well.

I think it wouldn't be so bad if setting took place but apparently this isn't going to happen.
I think they are mixing evenly. Ie splitting special needs, lower ability, higher ability and ages between classes although not sure how even it is. Ds's class seems to have more girls than boys from his year and more children from the lower year.

I teach a full range of abilities eg from level 1 writers to level 4 in one class - no setting at all. Just takes careful planning.

They do this as our school. It's a good way of ensuring they get to know people in their school. My dd only knew one child when she moved up this year, and they weren't friends.

YANBU to worry about it but please dont mine are older and a few years they were in mixed age classes and it worked fine DD1 was 1 of the oldest and was usually in with the youngest in the year above, if you are worried about friendship children make friends all the time it is forever changing and they will se their friends at playtime and lunchtime, dont worry

Thank you.