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Original poster

Calling classes by names - why?

76 replies

Fossil · 17/03/2011 12:56

DS's class has recently become 'Kingfishers', and all the other classes in the school have been named after different birds. Notice from looking at other school websites that this seems to be a trend. What is the reason for this?

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onesandwichshort · 17/03/2011 13:49

I've been wondering that too. DD is about to start school, and it's all Sun and Moon Class, Azure and all sorts of other faintly hippyish cobblers names.

I'm so old, though, that my classes were named like Mallory Towers - Lower Third and so on - which means that I do not understand this one little bit. I shall await answers with interest....

throckenholt · 17/03/2011 13:59

no idea - ours changed from numbers to jewels a year or so back. I still don't remember which is which. And to be honest I find the jewel thing a bit naff.

I think it is touchy feely rubbish.

bigknickersbigknockers · 17/03/2011 14:02

ours are named after trees, i can never remember which child is in which class to be honest and dont understand why they changed things.

ragged · 17/03/2011 14:05

We have trees, too!! Blech. I honestly preferred numbers and teacher initials that we had in the past.

Ben10isthespawnofthedevil · 17/03/2011 14:07

Is it so that they can have mixed year group classes more easily? We have birds...

mummytime · 17/03/2011 14:09

Our infants used to be colours, its now trees. But that is because it has merged with juniors and they are also now all in colour coded houses. There is more than one class in each year. The junior bit has the year and the teacher's initials just like my old juniors.

The weird one is the senios which has the year number plus : A, C, E, F, G, O, P, M, W, and Y. I have no idea why.

Fimbo · 17/03/2011 14:10

Ours are trees to introduced last year by the new head. Don't see the point as any letters come Fimbo Boy, his year and teachers intials like always.

Fimbo · 17/03/2011 14:12

My dd is at High School mummytime and they are given the letters and known by that form for the rest of their time at school. We have already worked out that ds will be M by the time he gets there.

mummytime · 17/03/2011 14:18

Fimbo that is seniors. There are 10 forms and you get one of those letters. So you start in 7F then go to 8F and so on. But I don't think anyone has a clue why those random letters were choosen (long lost teachers?).

Fimbo · 17/03/2011 14:19

Ah that's not the way it works here. DD is in G2 and it stays as G2 until the end of time.

2pinkmonkeys · 17/03/2011 15:08

dd's school have colours, they did try changing them to animals last year but they had been colours so long that it didnt take off as every one kept refering to them as red class, blue class ect so this year they are colours again.

Lancelottie · 17/03/2011 15:42

Mummytime -- letters taken from the school's name, maybe?

spanieleyes · 17/03/2011 18:33

We are trees as we have mixed age classes, it's much easier to refer to Elm Class than year 4's,5's and 6's!

Original poster
Fossil · 17/03/2011 18:48

Hmm, so none of us has thought to ask. I suppose I could just ask the school but maybe they don't know either.

I just find that in the newsletter and so on they refer to 'Kingfishers were doing such and such this week', and you haven't got a clue which class they are on about unless its your child's. Teacher's names worked in my day.

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mrz · 17/03/2011 18:49

mummytime A few years ago our classes had the initial of the teacher's surname plus the year group so B1 and J1 or A2 and C2 Hmm

CrazyHorse · 17/03/2011 18:56

DS's last school changed to birds, so instead of 1M (year one, fist letter of teacher's sur name) they were Doves, or Kingfishers or whatever. So If you asked a child which class they were in, you suddently had no idea what year they were, or who their teacher was.

DD's school started it too this year. It's a Catholic school and each class is named after a saint, but tbh, I have no idea what the other classes are called.

Original poster
Fossil · 17/03/2011 19:06

If you ask ours which class they are in, they say the teacher's name, so maybe its not having the desired effect. Whatever that is.

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Geocentric · 17/03/2011 19:10

Our school has several classes in each year (A, B, C, D) so in the beginning of the school year the children have to research words with that letter and vote on a name.

I quite like it - helps with literacy (for the small ones) and with research (older ones), teaches about voting and gives the class an identity.

limpingbint · 17/03/2011 19:12

Ours are named after planets and other solar system bits and bobs and then they have 4 houses named after Saints

MADABOUTTHEBOY2000 · 17/03/2011 19:18

our middle school had plant names to do with growing and maturing like plants i believe but in secondary they are in two houses so they are either 7d1 this changes the following year to 8d1 and so on and so forth and the other house name begins with N so they are 7N1 then 8N1 so its their year there house and their room

BertieBotts · 17/03/2011 19:21

Mummytime I expect they are all the letters which look unique enough not to get mixed up with handwriting errors, printing gaps etc. So O but not D, F but not T.

Our school had the ability groups named in order with letters from the school's name. So A, Y, L, E, S, F, R (I don't care if that means you can guess my old school Grin) - they omitted the O and D I guess because they looked too similar. They have scrapped it now I think - probably because S, F, R were all assisted learning groups so you got the inevitable S = stupid, R = something worse.

NeverAttributeToMalice · 17/03/2011 19:22

Certain class names came to be associated with "the clever kids" or "the stupid ones" in our school. Kids who had never been to the school (and their parents Angry) would make assumptions based on the class you said you were in. If you said you were in 1A, people would think you must be smart and if you were in 1E, you were bad and/or thick. Also, I think teachers were a bit inclined to think along the same lines.Blush

A few years of self-fulfilling prophecy later, and we decided to rename the groups and, more importantly I think, to rotate the names around randomly. It has made a huge difference in the atmosphere of the school.

UniS · 17/03/2011 19:29

I guess it gets harder to use teacher initals when teachers job share. Are you in 1F or 1R or 1FR or something else. DS is at a school small enough to just call classes year R , year 1 etc.

littleducks · 17/03/2011 19:35

Dd started at a school which had letters and numbers, her class was simple with RC and a cover teacher on fridays when her class teacher did PPA but the class next door was RSW due to a job share

Jezabelle · 17/03/2011 19:50

I agree with geocentric, naming classes does give the children an identity. I know schools where the class teacher has a special song for Starfish class to make them feel more of a team. What's wrong with it? I think it's nice, especailly in infants. Just make an effort to remember your child's class name. It can't be that difficult!