Primary School class split

[Mummaearth]

AIBU - My son currently attends a small primary school and is currently in a year 3/4 class. Have been spoken to by the head and told they are restructuring the classes and his new class will be going Y4/5/6 from September. However, due to numbers, a couple of the children will have to move to the Y2/3 class which they will call a Y2/3/4 class but the majority of the class will be Y2 & Y3 and there will only be about 3 Y4 children in that class. They have told me he is one of the ones to stay in that class with the younger year groups as he struggles, which he does because he is dyslexic!

AIBU to think that this is a horrendous move that will destroy any self esteem he still has or am I just being an overprotective Mama bear whoe doesn't want her son hurt?

There are restrictions on pupils to the space available so it’s not as easy as just stick the three pupils in the other class is space and facilities don’t allow that.

Ideally a couple more pupils would be in the same class as them so nearer half the year but again that may not be possible with the space available

Overlap by 2 years, 2/3/4 and 3/4/5/6 and spread the impact then, less of a stigma of being one of 8 across year 3 and 4 put up with year 5/6 then one of 3 in year 4 kept down with year 2/3. The current plan unfairly impacts upon 3 children.

@Likeacompleteunknown - I do get it and when I say kick up a stink I don't mean get angry and aggressive but to be insistent on a solution that won't disadvantage 3 children, or even one child. I picked up from the OP that the Head is trying to spin it as advantageous to her child, when it's really lazy just a desperate solution. In this situation too, I think being too reasonable will lead to her concerns being dismissed.

Another Scottish parent here.
DS2 was in composite classes throughout primary, but limited to 25 which made you feel more comfortable about it. Also it was split by age, which was perfect for DS2 as he was youngest in his year (Feb birthday and not deferred), but in a class with more of his age peers ('year' below often had children who had deferred and were sometimes older).

Ds1 started at a tiny school with only 26 pupils in whole school. That was the only time we had more than 2 years to a class. For him it was a disaster as he was in a P1/2/3 class with the only other P1s being 2 girls who were 10 months older than him and already able to read and write. He got an inferiority complex from day 1 and barely learnt anything in P1. When we moved to area with larger school he was so far behind they recommended he redo P1 and he never looked back.

My dds attended a primary with mixed year groups. Whenever the year groups were split, both dds were always in with the older group, so not been in this situation exactly. When they had two whole year groups together y3/4 and y5/6 it never did either of them any harm being the older ones with younger kids. In fact I do believe it makes them more confident.

I think if there were more kids from his year in the class, say 7 or 8, it would be fine, it would probably even do him some good, but to be one of only 3.... I agree it singles those kids out too much and isolated them form their peers.

Fight it. I taught in a school like this once. The head told me to teach the oldest kids on the curriculum for the year below because they had sen. I refused to do it because they have a right to be taught the appropriate content for their year, differentiated for their individual needs. It was an attempt by the school to unofficially hold them back a year and was not in their best interests. There is no maximum class size when you leave key stage one, so all year fours and fives can go in the same class.

Other factors aside, I will just point out that by Year 6, there is a 7 year range of ability/attainment within a class.
I just throw that into the mix for your consideration.

I'd be changing schools.

Our school has 4 classrooms and has mixed yr classes, with usually one year group split across two classes. This has always been done on the needs of the child. A few years ago the split was changed to birthdays to save upsetting (parents) children’s self esteem...it didn’t work and after 2 or 3 years they went back to doing it on needs. I haven’t seen a single case in which being taught with younger kids didn’t benefit the children involved. It has always helped them and they grow in confidence and reach the levels expected of them.

Don’t write it off, OP. Find out more about the reasoning behind it and don’t take it personally. Teachers are trained to teach any age group they are placed with, any decent teacher can be trusted to make it work and the ks leaders and ht will be making sure it goes smoothly.

And it is always possible that it isn’t physically possible to fit all the yr 4/5/6 children and their desks and chairs and all the other stuff in to one room.

IME you just have to make use of the corridor in that case. You do need to pick the children that can be trusted to work sensibly though.

This type of thing really annoys me. Dyslexia is not a reason to give a child education at a 'lower ' level. They still need age appropriate education even if their reading and writing isn't there. Their understanding and analysis will be. So all this is going to do is make him lose confidence.

IME you just have to make use of the corridor in that case.

Eh? What corridor? How? Surely that depends entirely on the layout of the school and anyway, I'm pretty sure there wold be some questions to answer if children were being educated (unsupervised) outside the classroom, long-term.

If the kids can't fit you can change the location of the classes. Also, usually you can fit them. I've taught thirty six in a room designed for far fewer as there was simply no choice. You get quite savvy with the table arrangement.

My questions would also be how do they plan to address the science curriculum (this is specified by year in the national curriculum and so the three children stuck behind will miss a year of science content) and will the teacher will be starting from the curriculum for the appropriate year and differentiating for any elements they can't access or do they plan to simply teach them as if they were a year below? I'd also question the suggestion that it will help their confidence, if such a suggestion has been made, by asking what's likely to happen to their improved confidence when they rejoin their chronological peers the year after having missed out on all their shared class experiences and learning.

It is possible to differentiate for three year groups (I've done it), but are they actually planning to do this or are they just writing the kids off by putting them in a lower class?

No worries and I would never 'kick up a stink' and for the record I'm a full time teacher myself so I get it! Happy to report that year group is being split equally in half. So much better news 😁

An equal split is MUCH better news. Excellent.