Primary teachers - what do you think of mixed age classes?

[GillW]

I was talking to a friend last night, and she was saying that her dd's school (her dd is Y3 now) is going to mix Y3/Y4 classes next year, so that they have 3 classes to cover the two years. A lot of the parents are apparently very unhappy about it.

I'd guess that it's a cost cutting measure so that the school can manage with one less teacher, but I wonder what the teachers here would make of the situation.

The school doesn't currently have mixed age classes, so the children haven't been used to it up to now (so it is presumably a slightly different situation to the smaller village schools around here where mixed age classes are normal all the way through).

If you are going to have mixed age classes like this what's the best way to do it? I think in this case it's just going to be 3 mixed classes, but would splitting it on some criteria (by age, or ability, for example) make more sense? And how does a mixed group like that affect the way you teach? Does it affect your planning dramatically if you've been, say, teaching Y3 and then suddenly have to have Y4 as well (or vice versa)? What effect do you think it has on the children?

I've been lucky enough to have always taught single year group classes for almost all my career. The brief stint in Spain showed mw how problematic it is, especially with the rigidity of Literacy and Numeracy. You get an hour a day for each - Year 1 Term 1 etc type stuff. So how do you teach Year 1 and Year 2 in the same hour? There must be a solution because plenty of schools do it. But I wouldn't be happy teaching like that and wouldn't want my children in mixed age classes.