To think that a child who has achieved a level 5 and a chidl who has achieved a level 2 should not be in the same maths set at secondary in year 7

[ReallyTired]

My son has just had his first day at secondary. He tells me that that his year has 3 top sets and 3 bottom sets for maths. He is in one of the bottom sets for maths inspite of getting a level 5 in maths. He is very pleased because he is with his friend who wasn't entered for SATS and is working at level 2. I imagine that at least half the children got a level 5 in their maths in their SATs.

I am concerned that the level of differentiation to stretch such a range of ablity will be impossible. I am really surprised that the school has not chosen to have 6 sets for maths or maybe 3 sets. It seems odd to have two levels of maths classes when the school has 180 children in the year.

Sorry about saying that. I just think some times we can get too concerned about teaching in mixed ability groups. Teachers have to manage differentiation and ofsted demand that this is planned for. It wasn't so long ago that children were given a whole year in secondary before being put into sets.

If you feel that the school is not informing parents about what they are doing, that is another question. I have another few years of primary, however I will be asking about how they set the kids at the open day, so that I know how important the Sat results will be.

What about English? Do you have similar concerns for english or other subject?

Calm down, it's his first day. Sets in secondary school generally aren't "set" in the first few weeks or even first half term of school. Schools ignore SATs and will want to discover pupil's ability for themselves. Once everyone as settled in, the sets will be rearranged.

I agree with fraxinus- teachers can differentiate very well and do so in primary fantastically. I cannot understand why secondaries - as posters are suggesting here- feel the need to spend so much time re assessing though when the children are assessed up to their eyeballs throughout primary and especially in Year 6.

Teachers reassess so they have a standard measure of comparison, and their groupings will reflec things like timetable blocking with other subjects. The usefulness of SATs is distorted by how long pupils are taught to the test in primaries.

I teach a different subject and find the schools CAT results matches my observations much better than SATs.

The "sets" may be identified for longer term timetableing, so if the teacer has something like 7;4 they will be having set 4 in the long run rather than now.

Secondaries are a whole different level to primaries, though. SATs marks are often the result of months of "training" to pass them, and obviously aren't necessarily an honest reflection of how good the pupils themselves are.

Day 1 is too soon to get involved, but keep an eye on it.

We used to teach mixed ability maths for the whole of years 7 and 8 and then in 2 broad streams. There's a lot of evidence that mixed ability classes with more open ended tasks is better for everyone.

It's often hard to do this at primary as you don't have specialist staff.

I would be really happy to think that a secondary school weren't just setting from the start as that has so many problems.

When my dd moved to high school last year, they were kept in their register classes. Then they were assessed and streamed from there. Just because of how they were streamed at primary may be different to what the school assess them as when they arrive at high school.

At the start of Y7 my school also teaches mixed ability in maths till half term when we set. I've had kids with a level N in the same class as a kid with a level 6 and no TA. We just do as best we can with differentiation.

The reason we don't set based on the assessments done in primary is because we get kids coming in from various primaries, some who cheat prepare massively for SATs and get overinflated results and some who don't. Some who enter all bright kids for the level 6 paper and some who don't. We do our own assessments.

If its anything like middle school there will be tests again which will determine which sets the children go into.

Why do you know so much about the other child?

Ours have tests next week and they will be set for Maths and separately for PE the week after. They do mixed ability catch-up on where they got to before the holidays, until the week after next...

They have language tests in the week before half term (stops parents taking kids out early for holidays) and set their language groups ready for after half term. That is the only setting we have for Y7...

This is the downstream consequence of the school-gate gossip that SATs are incredibly important and used by school to set. This is reinforced by primary schools to the point that more jaded parents, perhaps working in secondary education, who say "no they aren't, they're a waste of time" are shouted down. The OP has just discovered the truth, which is that few secondary schools pay much, or any, attention of SATs results, and all the scrabbling around with "SATs boosters" was pretty much a waste of everyone's time.

Our local school has always put the children in mixed ability groups until they assess them, put them into sets at half term, then rearranged according to progress until GCSE classes.

In my daughters' year, they decided, as an experiment, not to set the children until y8. The results were better than any one expected. Even the maths teachers that doubted it were surprised.

However, it was much harder for the teachers and impossible to keep up into y8, so they went back to setting after the first half term.

It's very hard for the teachers. We used to set at Christmas and pulled it forward to half term because it was so hard. You really feel like you are neglecting everyone. You can throw the bright kids a bone and they run with it but the lower ability kids just sit there patiently (or not so patiently) waiting for someone to come and help them. I don't feel like I do a good job.

I found out that at dd's new school they will be taught maths in their tutor groups ( mixed ability) for the first month to let everyone settle and to assess for the next stage.

This could be the case with your sons school. That they have mixed ability groups to start off with.