All education should be streamed

[ladykale]

If training young footballers seriously, we would never suggest that they continue to play past primary school age with players of all abilities. It OBVIOUSLY would mean that either worse players would not get to play competitively and best players would not be stretched.

Why don't we take a similar approach to education?? One of my issues with the U.K. education system is it rarely holds children back even one year despite them not passing basic requirements for a year and it is not commonplace to move children ahead one year.

I think there should be the ability to hold children back for max 1 year and move kids forward by max 1 year so that classes are more indicative of ability, and streaming of abilities across all subjects year to year (to allow movement between years).

Everything feels like it is amount the lowest common denominator (particularly in state schools!) which holds back brighter children imo.

This would be much better than having a separate grammar system which separates kids out so young and does not allow for late bloomers

So Ellen is a Maths star, but is dyslexic and working below for reading and writing.

Should be accelerated for her Maths ability, held back for reading ability, or kept with her age which corresponds to neither?

Training young footballers is for the sole purpose of identifying the few with real talent and allowing them to play at elite levels. No one really cares about the others who make up most of the population.
And as in the post above, how would you allow for kids who are good at some things but not all? Streaming within a year group in different subjects might work, but would you make a child repeat a year for failing French and English while excelling in maths and physics?

By asking for streaming you aren't allowing for variations between subjects. So being good at maths and rubbish at history isn't accounted for.

Setting by subject is pretty common in schools already.

And some subjects are teachable in mixed ability groups. I'm not sure that someone being crap at art holds the class up in the same way as someone being crap at maths would. I dont think pshe benefits from having sets.

It doesn't work very well - no real benefit to stronger students and disadvantages to those likely to be in the lower sets. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/setting-and-streaming

It's far too simplistic - and people are good at different things. I have A grades at A level in English, History, Politics. A First Class Honours degree and a Phd in History.

I struggled to pass O level Maths. Failed several times. It's not my thing.

DS on the other hand loathed French and RE (which he had to take at GCSE and failed) - but got good grades at A level in Maths/Physics/Chemistry.

OP probably means setting not streaming ( allocating to groups for each separate subject)

Strangely enough hasn't it been shown that except for maths it doesn't help ?

Although I would be interested if anyone has more detail - "doesn't help" could mean all children do just as well or it could mean the average result doesn't change - sometimes mixed groups help uplift the weaker children but at the expense of the brighter child

Having academically strong and weak child in he same class is fine, poor behaviour from not being stretched enough / not being supportive enough and chaotic home lives and too large classes s teacher can adequately support them is the actual issue.

During COVID class sizes fluctuated massively and teaching a class of 15-20 was bliss, teaching mixed ability groups was great, fewer than that number was tricky as there was less class participation, when all 32 were there it was obviously far harder to get around the room, harder to supervise, harder to manage behaviour etc.

I know that my daughter benefited from setting in maths and science, and languages in KS3 (enabled her to pick up an extra language) - languages were not set in KS4, although her class was mainly those doing either two languages or two humanities, due to the timetable, so was mostly more academic kids. She also benefited from some sorting by ability for KS4 PE - she thoroughly enjoyed it, and I think it helped that none of her group were "into" sport.

For many other subjects, mixed ability works fine.

I worked in a school where KS4 PSHE was done in English sets, for timetabling reasons. They rotated round different units, and the law teacher told me that when it came to her unit, the bottom sets were much more knowledgeable than the top sets!

I don’t believe it is very beneficial to the lower streamed sets to never be given a chance to catch up - I think it’s generally be shown, particularly in primary school, that by always giving children the easier work they never improve to the same standard as a higher ability child. I don’t think that’s very fair as many children’s ability can go up suddenly and also fluctuate at times. It’s why most primaries no longer stream for subjects like phonics and maths and also why they don’t do the old fashioned differentiate three ways with a LA, MA and HA worksheet as the LA only gets to do the easier work.

I was streamed for maths in secondary school into a middle set. It meant I had to take intermediate maths GCSE and could only achieve a top grade of a B. I got basically a hundred per cent for my GCSE but still only got a B. I feel strongly I should have been given the opportunity to get an A. I’m actually rather good at maths and took an A-level in it as an adult and got an A. So my ability did improve!

Does streaming benefit the clever children though? Probably! Particularly when you take into account lots of the lower classes might have behaviour issues going on to which can have a detrimental effect on others.

So I really don’t know what the answer is!

It disadvantages lower attainers, and advantages higher attainers. Mixed setting does the opposite. Someone is going to be disadvantaged by the choice between setting or mixed ability and I would rather it was the higher attainers, whose life chances are already much better, on average.

My dyslexic child would be held back a year then. But her maths she is always one of the best at it. So where would you allocate her to? Would you expect her to move between years? It would be unworkable in primary school. In secondary most schools already set for a lot of subjects as they are set up for that.

It’s a blunt instrument and takes no account of ability levels in different subjects.

Do you mean set? Setting and streaming are different.

I agree it needs to be easier to drop kids back a year. Yes it can be done if talk to a HT but they have to agree as does the secondary.
This is needed as some kids are so behind by y6 they dont even sit the SATs so if we assume 100 is a pass and 104 average. The kid is unlikely without a lot of intervention to pass gcses.
Yet some could pass if given extra year.
Pushing up a year isnt generally helpful but some kods could be gifted across the board.
I agree with pp re issues woth giving primary kids standard and challenge work
As both my dc work more slowly (than the boys..) But are actually pretty good at maths. One only ever did the core stuff never challenge so was effectively constantly getting behind. But could relatively easily have skipped the core and done the challenge....
At secondary they set straight away for maths. Then y8 language and y9 science. Pe is also set. In the unset class there is a ridiculous amount of disruption.

I do agree being set mainly helps the top set. But there does need to be a consequence of not paying attention.

But again setting in y7 maths has meant dc set 2-3 (of 4) are not covering all the difficult bits of a topic (even if the dc could have coped with it...)
Im finding my dc and others are doing less well than expected on the secondary tests as there is little time for revision and no exam week. Also the work in class and mini tests is way easier than the big tests. Dc had a mini test after covering area of circles etc. No warning -- and she must have got the formula wrong so every area q was wrong. Yet obciously the same marks as her friends who pedhaps didnt know how to answer the q. Its rubbish and results are meaningless grr

If very dyslexic for English and other subjects would benefit from being in the year below. Then she should be in the topset in that year for maths.

Even better to have flexibility across year groups so that she could be in top set in fictional year 11 for maths and do maths GCSEs with them, but otherwise have lessons with "year 10" for English or other subjects.

Not that ground breaking - in my high school 20 years ago, the top set for langauges would do their GCSE in year 10, that's what got me thinking the rigidity of the current system is bizarre.

Worst idea imo was the old foundation maths etc which caps a pupil's grade at a B! A portion of those students probably could've done better.

In my school, the same pupils tended to get higher grades across the board and other pupils would get lower grades across the board.

Actually achievement and learning should be the priority not herding children through school like cattle imo.

Yes I mean having sets - not sure what the distinction is with streaming?

Yes she would benefit from being in the year below & there shouldn't be any stigma associated with that which seems to be the tone in some posters responses!

In my old high school the bottom set for maths had fewer children in the class, so more one on one attention compared to the top set (many of who could probably work more independently and fly through maths sheets onto more difficult work)

@ladykale streaming is dividing kids into the same groups for all subjects. Setting is putting them into groups by subject-so they could be top for maths and bottom for history.

@ladykale

dyslexic kids deserved to be challenged in the subjects they excel at. Holding them back a whole year will not help their confidence and will split them from their friends.

It's a less blunt instrument than pushing kids through school absolutely regardless of ability.

That's how you get year 6s who can barely read.

What use it is pushing them on to more challenging material when they haven't mastered the basics.

My view is more relevant for "academic" subjects as opposed to art, theatre, drama etc.

Things have may changed, but I don't remember anyone in my school days absolutely failing maths but coming out with A and A*s in English and History...

Yes setting is what I mean - apologies if not clear from my original post!

Depends how the high school is structured.

Could still be in the same form group with friends but have classes with different year groups.

Could even do away with Y8 maths class for example and just called them Level 1, Level 2 etc

Honestly think we don't think creatively enough about how to optimise education for children enough.

So your child could be in a Level 3 class for maths but Level 2 for English if that makes sense.

Anyway just a thought, may not be workable but I recall being top set for English but in one of the middle sets for English & I thought it served me well.

For example in English, we had a slightly shorter book than GCSE top set, which I think approach wise probably meant I did better than I might have

At my son's school they were set for academic subjects and PE, but mixed ability for things like RE,art, PGCE and so on. I think that was a good compromise-it was good for them all to realise that everyone had opinions and just because you were at opposite ends of the spectrum academically it didn't mean you weren't talented or didn't have opinions worth sharing.

Universities only count GCSEs sat in the same year so doing a GCSE early has gone out of favour.

IME Exam Technique isn’t taught until end of year 11 so the kids studying with year 10s will lose out on that extremely important term of learning.

Personally I think that repeating /skipping one year is pointless when the most academic child in say maths may be 5+ years ahead of the least academic child by year 7. Repeating a year isn’t really going to narrow that gap.

Im surprised that your school doesn’t set. My kids went to a comp (8 form entry) and maths, English and PE were set (8 sets from English and maths, 3 sets for PE) . Science was split into double and triple by GCSE but mixed ability.

I was one of them (undiagnosed) dyslexic kids who couldn't read fluently by Yr6. However I excelled at science and was top set.

I went to Uni and earn a top 10% salary in a professional accadamic job.

You just need focus on helping the individual student whatever their ability. Not holding kids back.