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

there is no evidence that mixed ability groups help low ability students

There is, or at least there's evidence (summarised here: educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/toolkit/ability-grouping/) that
ability grouping appears to benefit higher attaining pupils and be detrimental to the learning of mid-range and lower attaining learners.

Not saying that means we should do what's right for low attainers and damn the higher attainers, but neither should we blindly do the opposite.

Oh I didn't look at the uniform bryte. This stuff is so insidious isn't it.

I've got to raise a pipsqueak of disagreement about the 'do it at home then' responses. I'm a single parent and I work FT in a pretty demanding job. I do my best to make sure they're reading something interesting, and I'm always up for conversations about politics/history/things I actually know about to try to ensure that they're getting a reasonably broad view of things. But I've got neither the time nor the expertise to provide structured extension tasks at home, especially in topics like maths and science, which I haven't taken any interest in since O Levels way back in the mists of time. And I bet I'm not the only parent who, for whatever reason, would struggle to do that for my DC.

BTW I completely agree that set-in-stone streaming resulting in pupils thinking they can't move up or down sounds awful.

OP the point is your child doesn't actually need extra work or extra help. They need to relax and so do you.

They should be able to relax at home.

Isn't school the place kids are supposed to be challenged? I'm also not sure your average parent is best qualified to set the best challenging tasks for their dc.

Don't all kids deserve to be pushed to reach their full potential and surely all are equally deserving of time and resources?

Ha maybe. As I said earlier, looking at the secondary's OFSTED it may well be that it all turns out fine.

It is difficult to convey, though, how dispiriting it can be when your DCs are just at a truly mediocre school. I know there are brilliant state primaries, and I know there are failing schools that get turned around by great heads and SMTs. But when your kid is at the school that's been OKish since the dawn of time, and teachers come and go on an annual basis, and heads come and go not much less frequently, and each new head that turns up seems defeated and knackered and frankly a bit thick... it's really deadening.

And I wasn't being obnoxious. I am aware that the Mumsnet received wisdom is that being very bright is just as much a special need as having learning difficulties, and should be treated similarly. I just don't agree. I think that for very bright children a hands off, student guided approach is the best way- obviously with a pedagogic overview. I don't think that's short changing the very bright- it's facilitating their learning rather than teaching them. And in the competition for resources, the children with learning difficulties should win. Every time.

I am aware that that is a very unpopular view.

I think we ignore our brightest dcs at our peril. Just who are going to be the MPs, doctors, lawyers and professors of the future. If you are happy for every single one of them to have been privately educated then carry on saying that all the resources need to go to the bottom achieving 2% and teaching the rest of the class to the middle ability. Just don't expect a fair or just society in the future.

Pinksquidgy children do have peaks and troughs, go through phases, you often see children racing ahead and then plateauing. It is probably hard for you and for them to sit still mentally but if you can approach it positively then at least nobody feels bad about it in the process.

A friend had a son who was 'bright' (he regurgitated complex things they said to him as a toddler). He was always keen to please his parents and teachers, until he reached secondary when he suddenly decided he knew everything and nobody could tell him what to do at all. This was his way of telling his parents to back off, to let him take control of his learning and to stop treating him like a performing monkey.

I think the problem with the social justice argument (which I do intellectually agree with) is that, in the wildly socially unequal context of the UK, it results in privately-schooled pupils making up 90% of MPs, 90% of judges, 90% of senior barristers, 90% of hospital consultants... etc etc.

Not having a dig at those who chose private for their DC - god knows my conviction has wavered at times.

x-post stillwish

OK I take your point unreal. I know I sound slightly unhinged but I try not to communicate my anxiety to DSs!

"If you are happy for every single one of them to have been privately educated then carry on saying that all the resources need to go to the bottom achieving 2% and teaching the rest of the class to the middle ability."

Who said anything about teaching the rest of the class to the middle ability?

"OK I take your point unreal. I know I sound slightly unhinged but I try not to communicate my anxiety to DSs!"

I was going on to ds this summer about doing a little bit of more serious reading or something so he could "hit the ground running" when he starts GCSE work in in year 9. He listened courteously, then explained that hitting the ground running is a very bad idea- you fall over. Apparently they tested it on Mythbusters........

Really tired. 'no one campaigns to save the secondary modern' .

There are of course non selective schools in selective areas known as 'secondary modern's but they are in no way a 'modern' school.

Really would you want to close these schools that have transformed themselves in to outstanding schools.

The 'real' Secondary Modern schools are schools like Thomas Ferens Academy Hull and the Manchester Creative media Academy both (Comprehensives). These schools are giving their pupils a 'modern' education and bear no comparison with some excellent designated secondary modern schools.

You know, smokepole-I just didn't understand a word of your last post!

I often wonder, and nobody has been able to answer me why, if selection at 11 is such a wonderful idea, LEAs that are wholly selective don't have significantly better results than demographically similar LEAs that have comprehensive schools.........

Haha hakluyt Gotta love a bit of Mythbusters. DS is sitting here watching Top Gear repeats while I resist the urge to quiz him about his day...

My understanding (please correct me if wrong) is that the brightest students do best in non-mixed ability groups (and very possibly in non-mixed ability schools). I disagree that's its ok to say to a child head and shoulders above the rest of the class in terms of ability, go and find something you would like to do. They should still be following a curriculum even if it is a year 7/8/9 level in primary school. Not told to either find something to do or help the other students or colour in.

I appreciate your honesty OP.

It's an unfair system that benefits those who have the money or the nouse. (sp?)

Within that unfair system, governments pretend to try and make it fair.

Er would that be because most secondary school do set at least for maths and English ?

Still makes a good point.

If we don't want the next generation of law makers, financiers, economists, medics etc to come from the same private school pool, we have to find a way to ensure the high achievers in the state sector are comparably educated.

Saying they're fine, that they can challenge themselves, that they're not a priority, will preserve the status quo.

I have to say I completely agree with the OP. High ability children are much left to their own devices or relying heavily on the parents to feed them the right information. Which is great if the parents can do it. Not so good if they can't.

The issue IMO isn't about setting the lower ability against the high ability children. Deciding that one group has greater needs than the other. It's about ensuring that all children are receiving education appropriate to them.
Saying that lower ability group has more needs is saying the higher ability group doesn't (or has less and not as important) which is only true if your aim is to take x% of children to a certain level. If done children can do it with little input, then they are considered as having no or little need for help.
I believe this sets two big issues:
1- what you are actually asking children and teachers to do is to achieve the minimum not the best they can
2- in a society that needs a lot of very qualified people, you will end up missing on very able people.

Yes, that's it in a nutshell unreal

On another tack, my friend told me today that her Y4 DS has just been assessed as L6 at maths - so puts my DS into context

"On another tack, my friend told me today that her Y4 DS has just been assessed as L6 at maths - so puts my DS into context "

My father was an Australian. He used to talk about the German immigrants to the country between the wars, and the cartoon in one of the papers with a Dachshund saying to an Australian dog "Of course, back home in Germany I was an Alsatian"

Pinch of salt, OP, pinch of salt!

"1- what you are actually asking children and teachers to do is to achieve the minimum not the best they can"

I'm certainly not saying that. And any school that did would be fried by OFSTED.

I am just saying that there are many different ways to support very bright kids, and they are not all resource heavy. Unfortunately, the best ways to support lower ability kids generally are resource heavy. I was surprised at the negative view of the way my ds's school supported his music, for example- it struck me as a really good way of letting him work to his ability with help from the teacher and letting the teacher spend most of his time on the rest of the class.

If we are talking about the top 2% academically, and this is over 200K children across the country, then I think this is what they need:

1. Top 2% children need each other's company to push each other on. This is no different than middle sets being pulled up by brighter peers. People spark off each other, and the teacher can't do it all. (It's not the other less bright peers holding them back, but the lack of intellectual company that is hindering them. Spreading these kids around keeps them lonely.)

1. Top 2% children need teachers bright enough, and well versed enough in their subject to keep up; feel confident; and maintain authority. (The teachers don't have to be top 2% as well, but any little chinks in their knowledge will be found out fast.)