The glass ceiling for very able children

[var123]

Has anyone else encountered the sense that the school is merely paying lip service to the ideals that they will challenge all children and work to bring all the children in the class to their potential?

I bumped along it a couple of days ago in a face to face conversation with one of the teacher's at my children's secondary.

He was full of buzzwords (like resilience and challenge) but there was a complete vacuum when it came to detail about how he planned to achieve that wrt to my children. In fact, he kept lapsing into telling me how my DC might help the others "by inspiring the less able".

Honestly, has there ever been a human being born into this world, who feels inspired to keep ploughing away at something due to being in the presence of someone who learned to do it without breaking stride?? People who struggle and then succeed are the inspiring ones because they make you feel like if you can do it, then maybe you can too. The ones who always find it easy and are just waiting for you to catch up so they can move on are just disheartening to contemplate.

Mixed ability teaching is dystopia, not utopia.

With regard to the specific post you highlight, I am responding to lurked's claim that only innately, specifically talented - and rare - teachers can meet the needs of a mixed ability group. I disagree. I think that the needs of such a class can be met by pretty much any teacher who has been carefully recruited and adequately trained, knowing that is what he/she will be expected to do. And I think for that to happen, we (society) need to reconsider how we think about, treat, value, assess, and remunerate 'teachers', and how we respect the profession of teaching.

I disagree, Bobochick. But have no desire or need to convince you otherwise.

I'd love to know what the educationalists and politicians in the late 60s \ early 70s were envisaging when they scrapped the old system and introduced secondary moderns instead?
There were undoubtedly problems with the 11+ delivering false positives and false negatives, and the children who failed the 11+ were definitely the poor relations. However that's what they were moving away from. What I would be interested to understand is what they thought they were moving towards?
It surely couldn't be what we have today, could it?

You aren't doing a very good job of convincing anyone.

Why should teachers have any incentive to make their lives difficult by differentiating within a mixed ability classroom when they can make their lives - and those of their pupils - easier in a selective/streamed classroom?

Only dystopian ideologists want teachers to expend unnecessary effort differentiating. Complete waste of time.

Multi so are you simply saying that we should pay teachers (a lot?) more and provide them with a different job description ahead of the interview? Different how?
Also we should question teachers less and respect their profession more?
What changes would you make to the training?

I suppose it depends a bit on whether you think the needs of the most able should take priority over all other groups......

Which post or poster are you addressing in your most recent post,Bertrand?

Just a general observation.

FWIW:

• I think all decent teachers have the ability to teach a group containing a variety of abilities.
• Bobo, no group, however streamed, has a single level of ability in it, so mixed ability teaching has to be a universal part of the skillset of good teachers.
• Some schools with rigorous setting actually cater for the extremes less well, because the setting mindset tends to push teachers to the view that they don't need to differentiate.
• Reducing the total overall spread of abilities, while maintaining the belief that every group of children contains a variety of abilities so adapting to the individual is necessary, does, in a pragmatic sense, reduce the teacher's workload. It means that differentiation can be less dramatic, and can be targeted towards more fine-tuned groups within the class.
• Setting by ability is, sometimes, a proxy for setting by learning attitude - a group of the more able will tend to contain fewer children with behavioural difficulties, learning difficulties or poor attitude to learning. While that is OK for the more able, it is a real problem for the diligent but somewhat less able, who get the other side of the coin.
• Setting by ability is not a solution to genuine outliers, who will never form a big enough group within any class to have a set to themselves.
• Setting is somewhat good for those at the extremes of ability, while being somewhat bad for those in the middle, especially those who are close to the border (or even overlap) between two sets.

But you said "it depends"
What is the "it" in your general observation?

Bobo,

Your posts presuppose that

a) it is possible to set or select by ability so accurately, into economically-sized groups, that differentiation is not needed [In any subject? Ever?]

b) no child's ability varies across different aspects of the same topic.

c) no child is disadvantaged by being on 'the wrong side' of whichever borderline you choose to set, thus only ever giving an 'upside' to selection.

d) Ability remains fixed, from day to day and year to year, such that it is possible to identify the 'right place' for every child in the 'heirarchy' you suggest.

I'm with Bertrand here. I don't think my children, who will do well whatever happens, have priority over children in genuine difficulty. DD has done well in a mixed ability junior high school, despite being well over on the right hand side of the bell curve (based on IQ testing). She is now in a selective class (intake of 24 for the whole county) and there is one other student of similar ability in the class. Yet boredom is more of an issue this year than at middle school, mainly I think because the heavy timetable leaves less time for her personal pursuits.

I've encountered a number of teachers who were very capable of responding to students of different ability levels, notably in our local French middle school (where the intake is very deprived and the ability range consequently very wide).

multi it would also be great if teachers could just get on with teaching, no playing social worker to troubled kids, no shortage of Sen support, all sn diagnosed prior to school, no bratty tarquinellas and their pfb parents, no budget problems, no juggling staff shortages etc etc. But that isn't a realistic theory, anymore than your ideal of a utopia of mixed ability classes.

And it is your ideal. As I said, it was great in primary for dd. But I wouldn't now want your utopia. My child enjoys friendly rivalry, where coming top in something is an achievement, not a given, being able to discuss academic work with peers on an even footing, without it being boasting or need dumbing down. I don't want my dd to be the best across the board at all academic subjects, when she really isn't.

I don't think my children, who will do well whatever happens, have priority over children in genuine difficulty
I don't think any poster has said that they do. However, people have argued that
A) It is a mistake to assume that gifted children, who will do well whatever happens.
B) no group of children should have priority over the others.
C) G&T children can be harmed by having their needs ignored for whatever reason.

I don't think, btw, that 'wholly mixed classes for every subject' in secondary school is a good way forward.

I don't see any need for some subjects - art, drama - to be set, especially not set along 'academic' lines. At GCSE level and beyond, some subjects are not set because the numbers taking them are not big enough to allow for setting - and interestingly this doesn't seem to have a dramatic effect on the 'average' results in those subjects vs 'set' subjects.

I think that setting in some subjects is a decent pragmatic way forward, to allow teachers who specialise at the extremes to teach the extremes, and to reduce the differentiation 'workload' on each teacher (it can also exploit the situation in which e.g. the higher middle set teacher devises work aimed at the higher middles, the middle middle teacher the middle, the lower middle the lower middles - and then they all share resources so that the spread of ability in each class can be well catered for).

But I don't see 'rigorous separation of all children by a crude measure of ability on a single day' as a necessary way forward IYSWIM?

I completely agree with all of teacher's recent posts btw.

var, i think what am saying is that a G&T -child - a genuine outlier - can have their needs ignored in a setted environment just as much as in a mixed ability environment, unless other things to do with attitude and teacher skillset are in place too?

var gifted children can be harmed, yes, but they are less likely to be harmed by poor teaching than children with low ability.

I agree with teacher about setting for key subjects being a sensible pragmatic solution.

Misti, I would disagree with you there.

I do think that gifted children can be harmed. Not necessarily intellectually, but yes, they can be harmed psychologically by poor teaching, especially teaching that goes beyond 'ignoring' needs in a specific lesson to 'actively poor teaching / classroom practice'.

DS would never have become a selective mute had he not been able, and taught by his specific teacher.

lurked a) it's not a utopia; and b) yes, it's very clear what you want, for your child - and you have something like it. That's great. For you. And your child.

Is this about the point that you'd like to use the c-word again?

Teacher,I understand you,and mostly I agree with you.
Even if you were to create a class of children that were +2sd or more (the top 2.5%), there may well still be a child who is significantly more able than that, and since the teacher may think she has a class of homogeneous ability, that child will have work that is too slow.

Whatever is done re streaming or setting, I think it is essential to allow for some flexibility, ie that children can freely move from one set to the next (up or down).
It is well known that some children rworek better when they are heavily challenged (dc1) and other do better when they are at the top of their group but maybe not as challenged (that will be dc2).
But there is a need for children to be able to move around so that, especially lower ability, can move upwards.

"they are less likely to be harmed by poor teaching than children with low ability"

I also disagree with this, btw.