Be honest… would you be ok with your child in a classroom like this?! Apparently common in state sector

[Mrppp]

our daughter is due to start school next September. We learned today that the classes are merged from ages 5 to 9. So 5 and 6 year olds in one class, 7 and 8 in another etc. This means in some instances children with be two years apart, depending when they are born, but in the same class?

surely this is crazy? Development is huge over a year at that age?

Well we’ve chosen to send our kiddo to Montessori which believes mixed classes are really beneficial so I think it’s worked great! Current class has almost 3 to 6.5. Montessori is set up to work with ages like that though and her class has 4 teachers for 24 kids.

in primary I was in several mixed classes and it was fine. For a friend, it made a much needed transition to skipping a grade easier because she just kind of blended into the older kids.

@99victoria

I do not believe small schools with few on roll are viable. The cost is huge and small schools get a small school premium. We have village schools where one is infant and the next village is junior. This works really well. One head and one deputy and more spent on dc.

The idea that in small schools the dc all end up at uni is rather silly - as posted above. No learning difficulties in small schools then?

My kid’s Outstanding primary did this. It was a selling point of the school, and great for relations between the children. They had friends in several years, not just their own.
Also grouping by ability meant that the brighter kids from a younger year could be pushed, and older but more challenged ones helped more easily.

I understand your reason for being concerned and I would probably feel the same IF I hadn’t been in this type of class myself at primary school. I did well academically with no adverse effects, I liked my classmates and it didn’t have any negative impact on me academically or socially, I hope all goes well for you x

My kids had this - it worked really well.

The Montessori school of thought in particular promotes the idea of mixed age learning, which can have a lot of cognitive, developmental,
and social benefits for children of all ages.

Totally normal.

But how is the OP only just finding out?

I think it’s good for kids to have a range of ages learning around them. It’s less competitive and more helpful

I grew up like that, it was really great!

My daughter is in year 1 and our school is like this, so her class is year 1 and 2. So far she is thriving, and we found having year 2 around has encouraged her learning, often she finishes her Y1 work early and wants to do what her Y2 friends are doing, so she’s being challenged instead of being bored! But teacher and TAs are brilliant which of course makes a huge difference. It’s been good socially as well, she made loads of new friends ☺️

My dd is in a school with 2 classes from 4 to 11. She moved from a 6 form entry a couple of years ago and in our case it’s the best thing we did. In terms of class mates I think being able to help others less able than you and be supported by others more able is invaluable. I think the class teacher is fantastic and able to fully differentiate but I must say she is supported by 3 to 4 TAs in a class of no more than 20.

My kids school in not-particularly-rural Canada typically has around 30 kids, or a "class and a half" of each age. Split classes therefore very common. I'm just amazed at how the teachers manage two different lessons simultaneously, but apparently they just take it in their stride. Does not appear to have negatively affected my kids. The school does try to ensure that a particular kid won't be in a split class two years in a row.

I’ve never had a problem with mixed clssses until my DS (y5) raised it. I have 3 DC, y6 DD, y5 DS and y3 DS currently. Always been mixed since y3. DS who raised it, is always of the higher year group with younger, ie, y5 with y4, but DD was always with the higher, if that makes sense? Mixed 3/4 4/5 5/6. So whilst there’s only one year between them, DD has had access to better education. When DS was in y4, he had the 3/4 class, but DD in y5 had 5/6 class. Unfair opportunity to learning.

My DDs just had loads of friends the same age as them. I don't see the advantage of mixed age friends. They just matured together as a group and plenty of friends the same age to choose from. If dc fall out there's more dc around their age. Village schools are a big clique too often. The family ethos is overplayed and sounds great until it's not and DC has few friends.

I live in a small village, there are under 50 children in the school which goes up to about age 12. My kids were always in groups with at least two, and often three year age gaps.

I thought it was great, I much prefered it to the standard model. And I think the research supports that these kinds of mixed age classes have very good results too

My kids went to a private school in the US that deliberately mixed years in order to gain the benefits of mentorship and exposure to advance learning mentioned in the study WearyAuldWumman linked. They had enough for a class for each year but put them into two split classes. The kids didn’t stick in the cohort, they moved up a class every two years, so the first year they’d be the younger age range, the next year they’d be the older ones as the kids the year above them moved on and a new year moved in. The year after they’d move up and become the younger year again.

I think it was harder on the teachers in some ways, though it might have been easier to have more acknowledgement that there would be varied abilities. It did seem to gave kids more access to harder work if they were quick on the uptake and the school was also flexible about kids taking some classes (like maths) with the class above if they’d forged ahead of the curriculum. Socially there was still a fair bit of stratification (especially as they got to the 8/9 age range though seemed to die down after that) but they made several friends in the year above and below and it seemed a bit of a boon for less mature kids. I would say there was less ostracizing of the kids who didn’t quite fit in with their age range so well, though hard to tell as I can only compare with what I heard from friends of their kids’ experience.

My kids primary deliberately mixed the grades - 1/2, 3/4 & 5/6 even though they had enough children to fill single level classes.
I thought it worked great, the younger level looked up to the older, and the older enjoyed leadership roles. Subjects were still streamed across classes, so reading and maths groups were based on ability anyway.

My kids started off at a school with all sorts of fairly hippie ideas, among other things they promoted 2 or 3 year-level classes, sometimes in a double classroom with 2 teachers. They said it created a family environment and kids could be grouped according to ability rather than age. The younguns would benefit from being mentored by the older kids and the older kids would experience being 'leaders'. It was the nearest state school by far, they sold the idea well and there were other parts of the ethos that appealed so we gave it a try.

DS1 flourished. He was old for his year level, large for his age, very bright, so having older peers and more advanced work on offer went very well for him.

DS2 started the following year and it was a disaster. He is a bit cheeky but pretty agreeable, not academic at all. He was immediately drawn to the most rambunctious, naughty 6 and 7 year olds who he saw as cool, and who simultaneously led him astray and bullied him.

The cracks in the school's whole approach really started to show when we tried to tackle it with them and we ended up pulling both kids out. We never quite got DS2 back on track after that awful start.

So in a nutshell, it can work, in some cases it has to because numbers mean there's no other option. But if a school is choosing to do something non traditional as a way to set themselves apart from the mainstream, and attract your more free range type of parents, I'd look into it more deeply if that's not you.

Only going to get more common. Single form entry schools are the ones struggling most with budgets and falling birth rates

I wasn’t happy when it happened with DC. It all seems to have worked out and best of both worlds.

My child was in one of those classes in year 2 and honestly it was the best year , having children of close but not same age is a brilliant way of learning , she progressed so much and had great friendships that she still holds now

I was a pri.ary teacher for 16yrs in a very small village primary school.

I taught early yrs and infants and some years I had Rec/y1/y2, sometimes just rec/y1, we also did Nursery with rec for 2 yrs. It all depended on the numbers for each year group . We might only have 3 kids one year and 10 the next, and classes had to be balanced fairly. Sometimes y2 would be split with those ready moving up and goose notbquite readyvstayinv with me.
We often had people from outside the village choose our school which always receives good/outstanding ofsted reports.
The children get to know their teachers very well, remaining with them for a couple of yrs so the staff really knew where they were at.
It is hard for the teacher having ro differentiate for a few extra levels than in a normal class but I loved it.

Being part of the baby boom generation this was my classroom in the 60s

There were 58 children in my class with only 1 teacher.

It blows my mind that you’ve never heard of composite classes.

Not the case in my kid's school, but I have friends with kids at village schools where that's very normal as classes are so small. I don't think it matters as long as the school gives it some thought (which I'm sure they do)

I live in a rural area ( not an island) and our first schools do this.