Mixed year groups? Good or bad?

[SheruMoo]

DC 2 is due to start primary in 2021 and we are looking to move house. Most of the schools near the area I think we like have mixed year groups. I have no experience of this model and DH thinks it could be disastrous....Anyone willing to share their experiences?

I went to a small country school so was educated in a mix class with no issues.

My mum is also a teacher now and thinks that's mix classes really help bring children on as it allows each child to work at there own level of capability. You may have a child working an advance level for there age being in a mixed class means that level of education is readily available to them and vice versa

What size are the classes? I went to one and it was fine, but we had smaller classes and the teachers got paid for extra preparation time to reflect the fact that it's more work teaching 2 years. If it's full classes of 30 across 2 years that would worry me a bit.

It also depends how mixed the age groups are! At one school near me there were 2 classes- one for reception, year 1, year 2 and the other for year 3-6. We didn’t choose that school purely because I thought having three or four years in one class was far too widespread. However if it was a case of two school years together I wouldn’t worry about that, as others have said they can be advantages as long as the overall class size isn’t too big.?

Worked fine for my daughters but they were bright and could study alone, the kids who needed the teachers full attention all the time suffered because she had to split her time helping each attainment group (loosely years but some like my eldest sat with the year above)

Biggest issue is small pool of potential friends and villages can be tricky socially for the adults

My son is in a composite class and i have mixes feelings. He's gifted and sometimes struggles because when he was in the lower class he was able to do maths with the older children, now he is in the older class that option isnt open to him and the class teacher has enough going on with teaching 3 sets of maths to 2 classes at once without having to add alternative work for him too so now hes very stagnant and its starting to show in his behaviour.

On the other hand i feel that its very socially advantageous as the children tend not to just have friends on their own year group but accross the 3 years that they share classes with. The transition at thee beginning of each year is a little tricky with half of their friends dissapearing to a different classroom can be tough but they all mix together well at break and lunch.

There was an unfortunate incident a couple of years ago where a new family moved to the village and it skewed all of the class sizes and one year group ended up being split with the youngest few pupils remaining in the lower class and all the rest moving up. This meant that 2 full year groups and the 3 from the older class were all together and that they had to do some awkward shuffling so that these childten could be included in the right year groups plays/foreign language classes etc.

On the whole, schools that work in this way are very good at what they do and blanancing things out for the children. Ours has extra teaching assistants which helps a lot. I think that the positives outweigh the negatives, especially socially. I would much rather my son was in a mixed age class of 18 with friends throughout the school than in a class of 30 with another 'rival' class of the same age group.

It depends on the reason for the composite class/classes. Is it because it is a big school and the classes are full? Usually it is the older and more advanced children who are in a composite class.

Or is it a rural school where each year’s intake is small and classes are combined? Many children thrive in this situation, although some may not. Does everyone go to the local school, or are families driving to the nearest town for a larger school?

Neither situation would necessarily be disastrous. What do you and/or DH think might be wrong for your child?

In any class there will be a range of abilities. In a straight Y2 class, there could be children working at Y1 level and Y3 level. Good teachers will differentiate work and challenge children at the level they need to be working at, mixed year group or not.

It’s worth checking that there is good TA support in the class as children may well be working on different things and (an) extra adult(s) can help with delivering different lesson inputs.

My friend teaches in a small school with mixed year classes. Say there are 20 kids in each year group but 30 in each class, the top class would be 20 year 6 plus 10 year 5, the next class would be 10 year 5 plus 20 year 4 and so on. So each year group is sometimes all together and sometimes split. The split is entirely based on age not ability.

My friend says that it works well because the younger children in a year group sometimes get the opportunity to be the older ones in the class (ie the year 5s in the second class in the example above) rather than always being the younger ones. And similarly the older kids find out what it's like to sometimes have people above you. Socially it has advantages and disadvantages - you get to know people in different year groups but you may end up being separated from your close friends.

My daughter is in P3 at a small village school in Scotland. For her first 2 years she was in a composite class of P1/2/3 with the new intake each year sitting at an average of 5 new P1s, so only half a full class. It worked well due to the low numbers but I'm not so sure it would have been so easy with a larger class.

This year things changed as both the outgoing and upcoming P7 were a large cohort in comparison to the other years..so they have rejigged to 2 classes instead of 3 and DD is now in a composite class of P1/2/3/4 and the younger half of P5! Number is still only at the mid twenties and it all seems to be going ok but DD is bright with no areas of concern which might be an issue for another child in such a large age range. It did cause a bump socially at the start of the year as new friendship groups were made but it's such a small.school that they all mix at lunch and break time anyway.

I was worried that mixed classes would be a bad idea. But actually we really like it.

Ours is set out as:

Reception only classes
Year 1 and 2 mixed
Year 3 and 4 mixed
Year 5 and 6 mixed

We have 45 kids per year so 1.5 classes.

The kids gets mixed up every year which has also turned out to be a good thing as they can separate difficult friendship groups and troublesome kids.

My DD is in year 3 and so far we've avoided them all falling out. My DD has quite a wide friendship circle of girls in her year and the years above and below.

It seems to keep them all quite young. It's only in year 6 when phones start to appear, and we've had no sign of any kids on social media in her year group.

So in short it's been a really good system for us. The school has a good community feel and the kids look out for each other.

Similar to mumoftwoboys my son thrives when he's the youngest in the mixed class, as he's bright and gets the opportunity to work with older children in some topics, particularly maths which he loves.

Downside is, he's now one of the oldest in class so doesn't feel he's being stretched. But, he struggles a bit socially, so one of things that's quite good about him now having younger children with him is that they come to him for help, and he explains things, which boosts his confidence.

Also agree it is great for friendships and being able to get on with all ages. Our school is very small, but very much a family, the year 6 kids are very caring of the tiny reception kids, everyone knows each other and look out for each other. I wouldn't change it.

Mine are in mixed year group classes (numbers fluctuate so sometimes it's 3 year groups) and it's worked out well. They have more TAs and actually spend a lot of time in year groups so only 11 to an adult iyswim. My dc are working above their age so get a lot from being able to work with others at their level. The dc who are struggling seem to get a lot of small group time too.

I like the added benefits of them all mixing at break and lunch and friendships forming regardless of year groups. As a pp said, my older ones have had a lot longer being younger this way - playing proper playground games and not involved with SM or phones yet and almost at end of primary.

Mine went to a 2 form entry school before and received nothing like the individual attention they do now. Year groups were rigidly segregated so went to lunch, break, pe etc together and there were no friendship opportunities or curriculum opportunities outside of your year. I much prefer the mixed set up!

I have very limited experience of this (we are just in year 1) but our school does mixed year groups. They sold the concept to us with enthusiasm (but the reality is that the school has no choice as it’s the only way to fit everyone in). So far it seems so good, like PP being in the younger group suits by DC, but I’m a little apprehensive about next year. There does seem to be a lot of small group and individual paced learning which is excellent. And as a parent I really like the idea that children are mixed up each year into new groups. I think that’s really good for making friends. So, cautiously optimistic here...

Small village primary here with mixed year groups because the school is small. If you have good teaching, it’s absolutely not an issue. If your teaching is not good, then you have much bigger issues at school than mixed classes. Parents don’t necessarily like it but by all measures our mixed year group school does really well - the mixed year group schools in our county always perform strongly in SATS and a local highly desirable school saw SATs progress drop significantly when they expanded to single year groups.

The potential pool for friendships can be an issue in a small school but our kids tend to play across the whole school, rather than just in their year group.

Check how the class split is done. Local primary is arranged as stated by Lucile but split is by ability, not age. I cannot understand why a school would keep a bright summer born in a mixed 4/5 class if they were capable of year 6 level work. 2 of DCs friend would have fallen in this category and it would have been disastrous. Equally, an autumn born year 5 struggling will benefit so much before year 6 being in a year 4/5 class to consolidate knowledge. Our experience of mixed 5/6 classes is that year 5 can be ignored at the expense of SATS preparation for the year 6, so actually it's a frustrating year for them. Lower down the school, an autumn born year 3 aged 8 in Sept/Oct can be very different to a summer born year 2 aged 6 and a bit. Poor behaviour of the younger ones due to their immaturity could be frustrating for the older ones

The split is:
Nursery/Reception
Year 1/2
Year 3/4
Year 5/6

Full classes of 30 in each group. They do get very good results in SATS at least. I have an autumn born girl. Her brother is in lovely prep school and I'm anxious for her to have a good experience as well.

What questions should I ask when I go to visit the school?

I’ve taught in two schools with mixed year groups. One, id send my child too and one I wouldn’t. The one I wouldn’t had reception/year 1 (two different curriculums), years 2/3 (different curriculums) and 4/5/6 (crazy). The school was just too small for me. Lovely kids & staff but I felt teachers were struggling to balance the needs of two curriculums & the 4/5/6 class was a nightmare. The year 6’s were too big for their boots as they’d been in the same class, same teacher for 3 years! And the year 4’s were nervous of them & the expectations of work being taught we with such older kids.

The other school was fantastic. Reception, 1/2, 3/4 & 5/6 .. much bigger. Kids flourished & only having a years gap meant not to big a leap! The classes got mixed up each year too so kids weren’t stuck in the same class for two years. Obviously some had the same teacher but their year group class mates got jumbled.