Mixed year classes

[Sparklypurpleunicornsaremyfav]

Sorry wasn't sure where to post...
We have just been informed by dd's school that due to them not having enough money and staff leaving etc that they are mixing years to reduce the number of classes. Infants are staying the same as is Yr 3. Yr5 is being split into 3 classes, 1 mixed with Yr 4, 1 just Yr 5 and 1 mixed with Yr 6 (should have said there are already 2 classes for each Yr) my dd going into Yr 5 is thankfully going into the class that is just Yr 5 but as they've mixed the classes she's upset that some of her friends are going to be in a different class to her. However my dd going into Yr 6 is in the class mixed with Yr 5. I'm really angry as are the majority of parents, I have not yet spoken to a single parent who is happy with this change. They have sprung it on us on Friday with no warning. I'm worried that dd and friends won't be getting the standard of education previous years have had and the other yr6 group which is just the one year will get. How does 1 teacher teach 2 different age groups, will they get the attention they need for their final year??? The school can't or won't give us any answers. Has anyone else been in this position or know how it will work??
Sorry its been long and rambling but I and other are really angry and worried!

DS has just been through three years mixed, years 4&5 completely mixed for two years and then he did year 6 with three year 5’s which was a disaster for him.

As long as the school 'manage' the teaching of the children properly then it should be fine, generally it is when the management and/or teachers don't do their jobs properly that things go wrong.

From a personal perspective ds1 & ds2 started school in a school with an intake of up to 42, therefore they generally had a full class and a mixed class for every year without any problems. This always made a full year 6 class and a mixed year 5/6 class and they managed.

After we moved to a different part of the country the school all four boys would eventually go to had about 56 children in the whole school. When we joined there was a YR/1/2 class, a Y3/4 class and a Y5/6 class. Within the Y5/6 class one year the teacher had about 12 children but 7 different ability groups! That was not an easy year for her and she could have done with some of the children being in with the year 4s and some of the more able year 4s in with her.

It was dependent on how many children left and how big the intake for reception was for which years went together. Two years running the intake was bigger than the outgoing so ended up with a YR/1 class, a Y2/3/some of 4 class and a Y5/6/rest of yr 4 class. It worked.

Personally I would prefer classes mixed by ability rather than age, taking into account maturity where possible, but children grow and learn at such different rates that there would be a lot of changing around so it would not be feasible for most schools.

As for when you were all told, it is possible the head knew a lot of parents would be (possibly incorrectly) unhappy with the news so announced it as late as possible in case it caused problems within the school day. Announcing with a month to go could have caused unrest that would affect the children for their last 4 weeks at school, announcing with one week to go meant unrest for that week. Could be many other reasons though, they might have been trying to afford more staff and were waiting until it was confirmed exactly how many teachers they had before telling everyone.

In these circumstances it is best to not jump to any conclusions, hopefully the staff have the best interests of the children at heart and have made the right decision at a difficult time.

DS1 and DD have summer birthdays and so when they were in mixed year groups were always in the group mixed with the year below. In my opinion it made them lazy because they wanted to do the easier work and didn't progress at all in those years in fact DS1 actually went backwards one year. DS2 has a winter birthday and ended up with older children, he gravitated to them and did their work. It worked for him but it didn't work for my other two who were with younger children.

There is other stuff as well eg when the news broke the official headteacher was nowhere to be seen, she left it to the interim head who only found out about it just before we did, they've no money for staff but they can afford to buy into an expensive education format, they've said the classes aren't based on ability but haven't said how they've chosen them etc think it's a combination of things but we'll just have to see how things go, who knows it could be the best thing ever

It can also be a good way of encouraging friendships outside of the immediate year group.

Ds school is mixed classes throughout other than reception. It works really well and the school handle things well to make it work for the best for pupils.

When I was at primary school there were only 56 children in the entire school. We had TWO classes, class 1 had Reception, yr1 and yr2, class 2 had yrs3/4/5/6. It worked just fine!

Surely the interim head is there because the head isn’t available? I’ve not known a school appoint anyone as an acting head when the official head is around.

It's mixed classes at my ds's school too, there are 75 in reception, so 3 classes which are then split into 2 year 1 classes and one Y1/2 class. As far as I know classes are jiggled about every year. I think it's a positive thing (not that they need to do it financially obviously, but in terms of the kids)that they make different friends etc. We have an interim head at the moment too and she had the same stance as the previous head, they said that the final decision on classes was theirs and final. They also released the classes quite late and there were some upset parents who felt that their dc hadn't been put with their best friend, I think the kids handle it better than the parents!!

This has been around for a long time - my classes were mixed in the early 90s. I hated it as I thought we were being held back for the younger ones.
My little brother (15yrs younger than me) was put into mixed classes and my dad threw a huge fit about it and stormed down to the school with other parents demanding to know why. I informed him that this also happened to me - and he didn't know because in the 90s they never bothered to inform the parents.
It certainly didn't harm my brother's education but I do feel it harmed mine as I was bored stiff going over the same stuff.

My dds have always been in mixed year classes. Y5 & 6 at their school was the two whole years mixed, not just the few most able y5s which is what I’m assuming is happening at your dds school.

They’ve both been absolutely fine with the mixed classes. Both did well in their SATs and had a really enjoyable y6. I found it gave the confidence to be the older more experienced year group. Their teacher was very good a differentiating work and I don’t feel that it had a negative affect on either of them academically.

So please don’t worry. The school will want their results to be good, so your dd will still be taught the y6 curriculum and work at her pace. If they’ve split by ability then the y5s that have gone up will most likely not be behind the rest of the class and they won’t have to change the way they are working to suit them at all. I know this was the case when my dd2 was one of 5 y2s in the y3&4 class, they were put up due to class sizes. The y2s were working at a higher lever than many of the y3s.

DD is at a school with mixed classes only; we're in NZ so there are 8 yrs of primary school. New entrants, 1 and 2; 3/4; 5/6; 7/8. The mixed classes aren't the issue - but the massive classes are! There are only 4 classes in the whole school, if that makes sense, and she was in a class of 75 one year (with 3 teachers). Noisy, chaotic, and completely bonkers. 'Modern learning environment' don't you know.
Cheaper to build schools with fewer walls...

My mum taught in a school like this, she said she always felt sorry for the younger year mixed with the older year, for example year 1/2 as the year ones were having to try and catch up with the year 2s and couldn't really have the more relaxed pace and curriculum of year 1 most of the time. If your daughter is going in the older group though next year I shouldn't worry about her they won't "dumb it down" for year 5s in the class for want of a better expression!

Sounds like it is something the parents will have to get used to as each year will be different. E.g. next year presumably there will be two y6 classes and a composite 3/4, 4, 4/5.

Thanks everyone, feeling more reassured over it. The reason the official headteacher wasn't there although it was absolutely promised she would be is that a year or two ago the school became an academy and is in a trust with two very much smaller schools, our headteacher is the CEO of the trust so she's not in school these days hence our deputy ht being the interim ht. Although in my opinion the person in charge of the trust should have been at the meeting and taking charge of the situation, many of the poor teachers Inc interim head were nearly in tears which isn't fair on them

I was in mixed classes in primary when I went to school over 19 years ago, it was a small rural school and my DD is in mixed classes. It is reception, yr1 and yr2 in one class, then yr3 and 4 in another then yr5 and 6 in the third class. It works really well.

My son was in a composite class from P4 upwards and it did him the world of good, he went from being the youngest to one of the older ones and pulled his socks up to set a good example. Even within year groups there are significant differences in ability which teachers have to deal with. The difference with a split year class is numbers are restricted to 25, compared to 33 (Scotland, don't know what it is in your area) so roughly quarter less pupils for teacher to deal with and meet the individual needs for.

We aren’t in the UK, but in NZ composite classes are pretty common. DD has had composite classes for Year 1/2 (when she was Y2) and 2/3 (when she was year 3). They work pretty well.

She is in a straight Y4 class now and there is a lot of cross-syndicate teaching that happens with Y4/5/6 joining together for project work and maths.

I've never heard of this and had no idea it was a thing. Aren't there different things for Year 4 to learn in history that Year 3 wouldn't for example, so how does that work?

many of the poor teachers Inc interim head were nearly in tears which isn't fair on them

I can well imagine you will having some staff departures soon then!

My ds was in mixed year classes for all except reception. Very small school but it worked well. They had a wider set of friends, the younger ones wanted to catch up with the older ones and generally it made a better mix.
Ds has just left primary with “greater depth” SATS results so he hasn’t fallen behind.

I think class size and quality of teacher is more important.

Mixed classes here due to a 45/year intake. We were apprehensive but it’s fine. Reception has 2 small classes, then KS1 is Y1, Y1/2, Y2, same approach repeated for LKS2 and UKS2. Dd1 has just finished doing year 1 as part of the mixed class and it’s been great. Really stretching for her, Reading has come on leaps and bounds, her friendship group has expanded and be teacher has been wonderful. The year group identities are still maintained (eg for trips and sports days they participate as year groups not class groups), and the classes all have names not numbers so it doesn’t appear hierarchical. They work together in the KS groups lots too, eg all 3 classes in KS1 will have the same topic at the same time, so it’s cohesive. They have a good balance.

We regularly have composite classes here in rural Scotland and it's never been a problem. One important thing to remember is that it is very unlikely that all children in one year group will be at the same level academically, so teachers are already used to teaching to different academic levels within the same class.

2 of my kids will be in composite classes this year: one a P3 in a P3/4 and one a P5 in a P4/5. The staff have emphasised that the classes haven't been allocated on academic ability - my P5 is scarily bright and needs a good challenge - but she's going to have the same teacher as last year and she's already said that she's looking forward to challenging my child (small school - we see the staff regularly).

So they have reduced the number of KS2 classes (and hence number of teachers) by 1 via this route?

2x Y3
1x Y4, 1x Y4/5
1xY5
1x Y5/6 1x Y6

I would sound a note of caution. Almost all the other posters are describing schools with a stable, established mixed age group class format, with teachers who are used to teaching this way and thus in-school experience about how best to manage it.

Suddenly creating mixed-year classes within a school that has never run them is a VERY different situation.

Equally, a situation where e.g. all Y4s are in the same class as all Y3s (as happens in many small schools) is different from a setup in which some Y5s are with Y4s and some are with Y6s.

Ideally, every year 5 should have the same experience and curriculum - in terms of topics, books read in English, subject coverage, trips, visitors etc. Schools with established mixed classes have longer term planning that ensures this, for example with a multiple-year planning cycle which means that every child covers e.g. the Romans once and once only, but some will do it in Y4 and some in Y3.

This is absolutely ESSENTIAL so that the Y5s in with Y6 don't repeat topics in Y6, and the Y5s in Y4 don't miss any material that they would have been taught in the pure Y5 class, so they are ALL fully prepared for Y6 with no gaps.

With a last-minute decision like this, when are the 5 teachers affected (the three 'pure' Y4,5 and 6 teachers and the two with mixed year group classes) going to sit down and align their curricula and practice, so that all Y6s have the same experience / topics, all Y4s have the same experience / topics and, critically, all Y5s have the same experience / topics?

IME established, mixed classes in which every child of the two or more year groups affected is included in the mix, with an established rolling coverage of topics and teachers who are experienced in teaching this way work very well. Those where only some pupils are in a mixed class, with inexperienced teachers, work much less well. Adding in the timing, no established plans for rolling topics, and no in-house experience of working this way seems to me to be a recipe for a disaster for this particular year group and the staff. I anticipate that staff turnover and absence this year will be VERY high.

@cantkeepawayforever you've just said pretty much everything that worries and yes that's how they've done the classes

Sorry to add a note of gloom to a generally optimistic thread - but all the positive posts are from people who seem to have experienced stable, established mixed-age class setups, not the scrambled, new, 'affecting only 1 year group for the first time ever' version that your school is facing.