Streaming/setting

[Peppadog]

I've just discovered that the local secondary school we would probably send our eldest to in a few years keeps all classes mixed ability except maths. Is this the norm now?
When I was at school we were all in different sets. This school is a true comp, kids from all backgrounds, surely the bright kids just end up getting picked on for being bright and the less able ones feel embarrassed and just play up/misbehave?

DD's seems to both set and stream from Y7.

General stream for most subjects done via tutor groups, which are mixed ability officially, but from what I can work out they used the banding tests to divide everyone into tutor groups based on which band they were in for admission (banding test was NVR). The majority of subjects have a mix of different tutor groups - so the higher ability tutor groups across one set of classes and the lower ability across another.

Then they are careful set for maths, english and science depending on a mix of CAT, banding, attainment and what the individual needs. There's a fair amount of churn where kids move up and down the sets until they are in the right one for their ability and the pace they are best studying at. (Plus if you hate or love a teacher that is taken into account).

Massive school with over 400 in the year group so plenty of classes to do swapping around with.

One of the best performing comps near me does this OP. They clearly know how to do it well.

It seems to me it is more common to set for at least some things from at least y8.

My DD's old school didn't stream, it had two equal halves for timetabling in lower years.

From looking at local schools it varies in my area. Most at least set for maths in Y7 a couple, but not many, set for other core subjects too (English and Science). None of them stream, as far as I know. There might be more setting in GCSE years, adding Science sets to Maths sets.

The school my DC is at only sets for maths and there’s no teasing about being bright, it seems very different from my day! I’m sure I’ve seen when this has come up before that the data shows less able kids do better in mixed sets and bright kids do no worse.

My DC went to a comprehensive where there were no sets in any subject. I'm not a fan. Setting allows teachers to teach different ability groups in different ways, stretching the able children and going more slowly and supportively with the less able children. In a mixed class the less able children feel inferior and struggle to keep up, and the more able children are held back and never reach their full potential. I think the mixed classes dragged my DC down, made them lose enthusiasm for school and lose self confidence.

It may well change, many schools had to keep children in the same classes due to covid bubbles, and setting and streaming was stopped for that reason. If it doesn't work out well in particular schools ,they are slowly moving back towards setting again now

My DC's school (non selective state) sets for several subjects - maths, English, science, languages - but not from year 7. I think it's all mixed ability for the first two years.

They've also recently started setting for PE, which sounds odd but I actually think this is a really good idea, as PE is the subject that it's most obvious/embarrassing if you're bad at it.

My DCs school only sets for Maths and English, everything else is not.

DD's school set for PE in KS4 - they put everyone who was doing GCSE PE and selected others who were good at sport in one group. I don't know if the other two groups were equivalent or not. DD, to her and our surprise, loved PE for the whole of KS4 - the teacher was brilliant at getting them all involved and enjoying themselves, and it didn't seem to matter who she was working with in the group.

I'm concerned about no streaming/setting (don't really understand the difference) as this is a very large comp. I can't see how that would be good for the higher ability kids.
We just moved away from an area with an outstanding school and I'm starting to think we might have made a mistake. I'm probably worrying too much about it, but I went to an awful school and don't want my kids to be scared to do well like I was, the only saving grace was we were in sets. My son is bright and shy, I can't see him coping well in classes with lots of disruption. I realise that no child wants that though!
How are your children finding their mixed ability classes? Is disruption a huge issue or not?

At DDs school the year is split into two. Then within that they are set for STEM, in a mixed ability group for English/humanities, a different mixed ability class for technical subjects and then a single sex PE class.

She does say her mixed ability classes are louder and more disruptive... but she wouldn't have been in the top stream for these subjects so she would have had the same problem

They reassess the STEM sets termly. Its based on attitude and results.

Setting = granular by each subject, you may be good at maths and in top set but middle set at English for example.

streaming = general stream of ability that ignores any differences across subjects

A school near me doesn't set at all for any years; the only difference is when there is a choice of foundation or higher tier at GCSE and then they split them into different groups.
It works for some children, but not all - they don't get that well stretched, and the ones who find things difficult do get embarrassed to read aloud, say, or to ask for help in maths, or hate getting tests back when everyone else has done better.

The other problem with the way this school does it in particular is that they keep them in their form groups all the time. Another local school doesn't set, but at least mixes the classes up for everything. By not moving classes, ever, you get a lot of problems with unhelpful interactions between groups, friends, cliques, bullies etc, and there is no respite, whereas at least with different classes all the time, you have some good and some bad ones.

So if you're considering a school like this, that doesn't set, also worth asking if they do at least mix up all day.

@Peppadog you're lucky they set for maths - not all do- but don't assume bright kids get picked on..In good schools, behaviour is well managed and bulkying isn't tolerated. In my children's comprehensive school it is more likely to be the less able kids who feel intimidated in mixed ability classes.

This.

Having no sets is good if you have a slow kid and bad if you have a bright kid.

Not having sets is a red flag about the school as it says to me that they’ve prioritised one group of children even though it disadvantages another group.

And yes I was the bright kid in my classes and it was a very lonely thing to be.

That's the impression I get. That it's basically trying to bring the lower ability ones up and improve results for more children, but accepting the higher ability ones won't be stretched. Bringing everyone to average essentially.

This school do say they have a gifted and talented policy where they identify the top 10% and the teachers are all aware of who those are and have to give them extra work etc. This is a continuously changing set of children based on previous result apparently.

My school only set for maths in year 9. I remember being very bored the majority of the time. I don’t think it works well for the lower ability children either.

My kids' school doesn't set for Maths and some local parents have avoided it because of that. But they don't all do the same work at the same time. I think the boys have been taught a lot better than I was.

I think sometimes setting and streaming and very inconsistently used testing was used rather than teaching us better. Some of our teachers seemed well trained and qualified, others seemed to be people who'd probably done very well in their subjects at school and university but hadn't been through teacher training. And that was at what was considered to be a better than others suburban comprehensive (with some teachers still inherited from previous grammar schools).

It was very noticeable too that sets depended a lot on what middle school we'd been to previously - my middle school (which used sets for Maths and French, and streamed us in the last year based mainly on English tests) was the only school that wasn't a faith school and wasn't in the outer, posher suburbs of our city, to have lots of us in top sets with the C of E and suburban students.

Moving to O'levels/CSEs after a year there effectively divided us up again anyway, and being in the O'level groups was no guarantee that we were going to be taught well/pushed or against disruption.