Can we have a heated debate about ability setting in schools?

[pinksquidgy]

New education minister Nicky Morgan was rumoured to be considering making setting by ability a compulsory part of getting an 'outstanding' Ofsted classification. Caused a bit of a storm and now looks like she's rowing back.

When I heard this I thought 'I wish she bloody would'.

I know whole-class teaching/mixed groups are better for children who are struggling (for whatever reason) and I do get that that's important.

But I have two very bright DCs (i know, i know) and I cannot tell you how bloody sick I am of them being given things to colour in while the teacher gives most of her time to those who are at the lower end of the attainment range.

I'm guessing this is a result of the target culture - it seems to result in schools desperately scrabbling to get the 'D' student up to a 'C'. Students who were always going to be a B or an A just get left to stew and it's starting to drive me potty. (I do also realise this is partly a function of bad teaching and poor management - but that, unfortunately, is what our local primary is like.)

Don't clever kids matter too? Would it be so wrong to prioritise them just for once - maybe just for core subjects like numeracy and literacy?

My older DC has just gone up to secondary. EVERY single one of the 'clever' kids he started out with in infants (those who were getting similar SATS scores) has gone into the private sector or free schools, by hook or by crook. He is the ONLY one of his academic peers who has gone into a state comprehensive. This is the flipside of schools failing to look after clever kids: their parents simply opt out of the state system altogether - which is no good for anyone, surely?

I'm deeply committed to the ideal of comprehensive education in my heart (and in my wallet tbh) but once, just once, I'd like someone to think about what might work best for the children at the top end of the attainment range.

please don't kill me

I am a teacher in a state school and have a top set yr10 who are all incredibly self-motivated and challenge themselves alongside me challenging them. There are 32 in the class and we move at rapid pace every lesson. I also have the bottom set of the same yr group (only 10 in the class) and we cover the majority of the same content at a much slower rate. The bottom set benefit from much more teacher input which tbh is vital as they are thoroughly disengaged with education on the whole.

The exam results of the department are excellent (last years' cohort achieved 95% A-C in the yr 10 gcse and A-A in the top sets was also ~95%.)

Totally agree with what afterthought is saying even within a set though. All my questions are carefully leveled at different students and questions that they produce written answers for to demonstrate how much they understand and apply their knowledge are also leveled so that not all students could possibly complete all the questions. There still needs to be differentiation within sets. The key is knowing your students and having high expectations.

I am between two minds about ability setting. DD1 is probably in a middle ability group her primary school. In my experience the lower ability groups get extra support from TAs and the top group are pushed harder while those in the middle are left to plod along. This has left my DD lacking in confidence as she sees her peers striving ahead and receiving extra work and special attention. I have no doubt with a bit of a push many of those plodders in the middle could also do well.
I went to a secondary school where there was no setting and we were all taught and expected to work to the highest level (yes 30 per class) and there were no issues. It was not a school full of academic whizz kids and there were varying abilities within the class when I started but our work was never differentiated. The teachers were excellent and very experienced, there was tough discipline, we were expected to work hard and achieve. Somehow it worked and it's still going strong today. There's something to be said for having higher expectations and not putting young children on a single path of top,middle or lower sets where they get stuck for life.

But for all except the most experienced teachers it takes much more time to prepare for a mixed ability class since you need lesson plans at different levels. Time is a pressurised resource for state school teachers. More efficient to teach in sets.
Helping those who have the most difficulty to understand is always the rate limiting step and I imagine tends to be the priority.

It is an interesting point about how we regard teachers. We think "Well, I couldn't possibly properly differentiate learning for a class of 30 kids, so it must be impossible"

We never think "Well, I couldn't take out an appendix/make a 3 piece suit/lay a fitted carpet so they must be impossible"

I'm a primary teaching assistant so I know how hard teaching can be and how brilliant some teachers are from sitting there and watching their lessons and then helping them with whatever they need me to do.

My question comes from experience, albeit of primary school rather than secondary. I've seen children sat in classes delivered by outstanding teachers who I can see are good at their job becoming disengaged as they listen to others going over things they mastered a year ago. I've seen the children sitting in lessons who simply don't understand some of the concepts being discussed.

And while each child may then go on to do work that is entirely appropriate for them and do it well, there has still been time during that limited lesson time that has not been suitable for all children, and is therefore wasted.

My primary sets for English and maths very early. Tries to recall when...... Definitely by Year2. I thought most primaries did.

I knew about the level 6 in reading being achieved by few. Reminds self to ask whether they are running booster sessions for Y6 this year.

Just thought of a couple of things.

People seem to worry much more about able children having to sit thought something they've done before than about less able ones possibly having to sit through stuff they don't understand.

And in grammar schools, there can be mixed ability classes- level 5 to level 7 for example, and nobody queries that.

The grammar school I use sets for maths, science and languages, but not english. There are extra targeted lessons for those that need extra help in English.

But even if they didn't set, the ability range in an academically selective school would be much less than the ability range in a non selective school.

Personally I think it's equally as bad for a child to sit through half a lesson they don't understand as it is for a child to sit through a half a lesson of teaching things they already know well. The difference is that the child who doesn't understand as much is said to benefit from being in a mixed ability class whereas we know that the higher ability child doesn't benefit from it. And the child with the lower ability is more likely to get the support they need from assistants during the lesson or from targeted support groups, whereas the more able child won't.

A few years ago I was volunteering in dcs primary school and went to help out in year 2 maths. The 30 children were divided into 5 groups of 6 according their ability. On one table were children who had problems adding 2 single numbers together on another table a child wanted to discuss his take on the theory of perfect numbers. The teacher and TA acknowledged that it was very difficult to meet the needs of all the children adequately when they were all in the same class and all needed adult input and attention but had a huge range of abilities.

I know a few primary schools send their very able mathematicians to local secondary schools fortnightly for extra input specialist maths teaching in year 5&6 surely this could be replicated around the country as we are crying out for people with high maths skills. In purely economic terms we neglect our most able dcs at our peril since the top 1% of earners contributes 1/3 of all income tax paid to the treasury.

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2107031/UK-Budget-2012-Top-1-earners-contribute-income-tax.html
If we dont have enough home grown talent we will have to employ foreign nationals whose taxes may not all be paid to the uk. Finally being good at maths has been shown to be directly related to higher earning potential
www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/9918813/Maths-skills-add-2100-to-your-salary.html

Dd's school set for everything apart from art, music, citizenship, drama and IT, DT.

I'm glad they do.

She's in the top set for everything apart from PE which she's in the bottom set for.

So she enjoys PE, she's not always going to be last feeling crap. I would imagine that kids in lower maths sets, etc feel the same. Teaching is aimed at their level so they're not struggling to understand and getting further behind, plus they have a chance to shine. To get top marks in the test, to be the one putting their hand up, etc.

My reservation about setting is that, in practice, it isn't nearly fluid enough. Kids get put in sets that in a months time they don't belong in, but they have to stay put. Meanwhile other sets are covering more advanced material and forging ahead, increasing the gap.

I can completely understand setting in PE. I can't understand not setting in music - apart from anything else, it's the one subject where in any school you are bound to get a massive variety in ability experience and interest.

That's a valid reservation to have cingolimama, and I completely understand that.

When schools set well, it should of course be fluid and children should be moved though sets as and when they need to be, but i can see how then it would be difficult to ensure that all children have covered everything.

With any system there are going to be drawbacks, but I think the drawbacks of not setting outweigh this one.

The gap between the most and the least able is likely to increase with setting, but all children are not the same and they don't have the same ability so I think that's inevitable. And of differentiation is working as well as it's supposed to, then that will happen anyway. What matters is that every child reaches their full potential, whether that be a high level or a low level. If that happens, it shouldn't matter how big the gap is just because we are talking about school children. We don't expect adults to all be the same or have the same abilities, strengths and weaknesses, so nor should we expect it of children.

My reservation about setting is the reason some schools like mixed-ability: setting has a tendency to concentrate disruptive children in low ability classes, not that I want them in any type of class. I fear for what might become of very bright Y7 DD's very best friend who struggles in some areas but is a perfectly delightful child who wants to learn. We, or rather HTs/SLT, must do better with behaviour in some schools.

"And the child with the lower ability is more likely to get the support they need from assistants during the lesson or from targeted support groups, whereas the more able child won't."

So is it never, ever OK to say to a more able child "Yes, I see you get this- there's ten minutes to the end of the lesson, read your book while I just make sure everyone else gets it too?"

Hakluyt, not really no.

If it was a one off it would be fine, same as it's fine for children to watch the odd video at school, or have the odd lesson where they're just colouring in or whatever.

But if a child has finished a task well before the end of the lesson, then they need to be set another task. That's what differentiation is all about.

Even ten minutes at the end of one lesson a week would soon add up to a hell of a lot of lesson time being lost to reading books, which is something that there will be school time allocated to already. Children have time to read when they are at home as well, so during lesson time they should be learning.

So is it never, ever OK to say to a more able child "Yes, I see you get this- there's ten minutes to the end of the lesson, read your book while I just make sure everyone else gets it too?"

I think it is okay to say that as long as it isn't something that is done every single day. If the able child grasps the concepts easily and regularly finishes her work way ahead of the others then the teacher should be making sure that she provides enough work to last the able pupil the entire lesson. If the teacher is regularly saying 'I see you get this now read your book for the last 10 minutes of the lesson' then I would argue that she isn't planning her lessons well enough to cater fully for a mixed ability group.
My son is very able in a particular area of the curriculum. Usually his teacher provides extension work for him so he can complete more complex tasks when he has finished the routine work. On the occasions where he also finishes the extension work she either has a mountain of other stuff ready to give to him or she encourages him to help others until she has a minute to sort something else. The task of helping others is actually quite beneficial to my son because he needs to show full understanding in order to explain effectively to others (and she does listen to his explanations as she is a great multitasker) The teacher isn't ignoring my son she is actually stretching him sideways. Her method is much better than regularly saying 'just read for the last 10 minutes'.

For most able children it would n't just be 10 minutes but a lot longer. Self directed learning is very useful but can be a bit lonely and does n't help discursive skills.

Hak So is it never, ever OK to say to a more able child "Yes, I see you get this- there's ten minutes to the end of the lesson, read your book while I just make sure everyone else gets it too?"

Never. It happens all the time but it's wrong.

Getting children to explain concepts they understand to other children can be a very useful thing to do. It's actually really interesting listening to children trying to explain how they did something that they have been doing for the last twenty minutes and why they did it that way, because explaining it can often be a lot more difficult that doing it.

It's no good getting a child to do that to help another child if an adult can't hear it though. The teacher needs to be able to hear the explanation to be able to identify where there might not be full understanding and to support the explanation if needs be. It's also no good getting one child to help another without any adult support because often, being able to do a task doesn't mean you can identify why someone else can't do a task.

When there is such a big ability range in one class, we are asking the impossible of teachers if we truly believe they should be able to give the absolute best to every child.

Sometimes getting a kid to explain something to another kid is brilliant. Sometimes it's a disaster - last year DD2 (youngest in the year) was continually asked to 'help' one of the oldest girls in the year (working a full 3 levels below her in maths - L3 compared to L6) by their teacher. The older girl had already displayed huge antipathy to DD2 when the year began (they rejigged all the classes so that instead of an age split (which had meant they had never been in the same class their entire school year) there was supposed to be an equal balance of ages in each class. The older girl had apparently always been under the impression that Dd2 (Who had always been in a split class with the oldest kids from the year below) was in the year below. When she found DD2 in her class and on the top table she was extremely put out. When DD2 kept being told to 'help' her this exacerbated matters and the older girl started bullying her in class and outside (in the playground). DD2 was deeply unhappy, the teacher did nothing. On their last day of school, the older girl and her bully cronies were all in tears. Dd2 and her youngest in the year mates thought this was hilarious - they were all so happy to be leaving. Their theory was that the bullies were crying because they knew their time of supremacy was coming to an end. Would those girls have bullied DD2 and her bright friends had they not been humiliated by having them 'help' them in class? Maybe, maybe not. We'll never know. What we do know is that those girls were facilitated in their behaviour by the school.

10 minutes at the end of the lesson is a tip of an iceberg. What were they doing for the rest of the lesson before they got to that point?

DD has only just started Y7 so it's too early too judge, but for several years at (single-form in-class ability grouped) primary the answer was often: wasting her time doing something well beneath her competency.

Woowooowl: yes the teacher uses this method partly to assess that DS understands what he has done as well as being able to actually do it (which is the easy bit). I know she listens to DS when he is explaining to others and doesn't just allow him to carry on explaining inaccurately. I know this because she has commented at parents evening that 'he could do A,B and C very quickly but he couldn't explain to others why this method works or why it is important not to miss any steps'. She has worked on developing his full understanding and using these methods he now has a much better understanding rather than just having good ability to arrive at the correct answers consistently.
It is a small class without any significant behavioural problems and that probably helps enormously. I would rather she use this technique than tell DS to go and read a book because he has finished. Previous school saw my son doing lots of reading after finishing his work.
She is a fab teacher and I will be very sad when my DS leaves his school to move to high school.

I think it would be useful to have an optional additional year at reception level. Many of issues with such varying abilities in primary are down to the fact that not all children have had enough time to master basic skills in writing, reading and maths so are always trailing behind. The lack of these basic skills holds them back from the start. An additional year pre year 1 would give those children more time to master these crucial skills so that they had a solid foundation for learning going forward. At the same time those ready to move straight from reception to year 1 could do so in a class with a more even ability level.