Calling classes by names - why?

[Fossil]

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?

I asked our HT this after school. Her responses were:

1. More child friendly and informal
2. Sense of class identity
3. In her previous school the parents always queried if 3A was more able than 3C (no)
4. To avoid we can't use single letter as there are some teachers in the same year group (we're a big school)have the same surname initial, and in one case both initials the same, so adding middle names is far too much for reception aged children.

If you want to raise the profile of whatever foreign language is being taught in your primary school, suggest to the school that they use foreign words for their class names. We used colours (as each class had a different coloured door) and another school uses vegetables.

My DD is currently a "champignon". All the kids in the school learn some extra vocabulary. If you are daring, change the names half way through each year to double the impact ...

I had a jobshare teacher class at primary school. We were 6M/S - other classes were just 5T or 2R or whatever, although my sister's year was 3/4C.

In my first primary school things were confusing as they used class 1, class 2, class 3 etc but there were two classes to each year so class 1 + 2 were reception, class 3 + 4 were year 1, etc. I remember a lot of confusion in the class as to whether we were year 1 or year 2. But because of this "year R" still sounds wrong to me :)

we luckily still use year and teacher initial. there are names for things within the class, like ability tables and house points but for the actual classes its pretty simple.

Unis, we do have a year 2 class at our school with a joint job thing going on, and yes they have put both initials on the class, cant remember what they are but eg. 2hg.

i shall be aware of this new trend though, and if there is any hint of it croppin up i will be on it! lol dont like it, want to stay same lol

We have birds here too, don't know a single child or parent that utilizes their bird name. Everyone just says teacher name and year.

My school uses colours for the infant classes, but it isn't a new thing- when my OH was at the school himself in the early 90s, they had the same colour names then! My own primary school had numbers (7,8 and 9 were reception, 4,5 and 6 were year 1 and 1, 2 and 3 were year 2), but now has jewel names, due to having merged with the junior school to become a through primary.

Ours are animals, Hedgehogs, Squirrels etc. I prefer it,at least they definitely have the same name all year. Unlike DNephew who had job share teachers and one went on maternity midyear. Went from 1/2 DW/RS to 1/2 RS/FT or something. DSis had to relabel lunchbox, clothes, bookag etc.

I think the animals or jewels or whatever are more about the clas than the teacher IYSWIM.

We have two classes per year which are 3B & 3J etc, according to the teacher's name, but we use tree names for the year groups, which the year group keeps throughout their 4 years at the school, so if they start as Pine in Y3 they stay as Pine all through - it's mainly for the computer system, so we don't have to change the folders every year and the children don't have to learn a new log-in, only the teachers.

It's more infantilising child-friendly.

I didn't realise the name thing was so common. Ours just have a simple number. 1,2 and 3 are reception - 4,5 and 6 are yr1 and 7,8 and 9 are yr2. It's an infants' so that's as far as it goes!

We have planets/space related themes. DS is in Asteroids and I think of hemorrhoids every time I have to write it on a form.

previous primary schoo had bird names, but that was because they had one class which was a mixed year group. Once they all left and it moved to one class per year group they switched to Y1, Y2. Current school has year plus teachers initial with job share classes havign two letters. Senior school has year, house name initial, tutor initial for tutor groups, but academic classes are numbered with a much more complicated system for year, cohort, subject and class within that subject.

We just have introduced 4 Houses. Apparently named after mythical beasts. Gets confusing as the classes, all 14, are named after Arthurian legends. Isolde, anyone?

In seniors it's 7(random letter)S, G or F depending on your MFL. I think it'll then be 8 (same random letter) language.

My daughters school has jewels for their classes, I think it's nice :)

Our school has animal classes, DD is in Elephant class. Unnecessary really as we only have one class per year, and no mixed year classes, so everyone still refers to their class as Year 1, Year 2 etc.

DS's have been animals until this year when it has changed to artists.

The dc's classes are named after birds. I quite like it. I work in a school where they are named after planets. I'm just glad I don't work in Uranus.

Years ago I worked in a school where the classes were named after colours. Mine was 'white'. Harvest assembly always took it's inspiration from the colour of your class name. I got heartily sick of 'One potato, two potato...' and envied the green beans and red strawberries. 'Dress in your class colour' day was pretty dull for us too.

In DCs school their form is their house so known as 8EL for short but is Ellis house yr 8

I went to 2 senior schools, the first of which had Houses, all named after areas of Notts, and your class was 1 Thoresby, 2 Thoresby etc (in the days when you started seniors in year 1...)
and the second school was a letter from the word Carlton.
so you were 1C 1A 1R 1L 1T 1O 1N etc.

I preferred the house idea, because you got a house room and did sports between houses etc.

oh, at first school, you got a tie that was a particular colour for your house too.

I worked in a school years ago, that asked the children to think of a theme and new class names every year. That year the theme was "round things", I can only remember two of the class names - "wheels" and "spirals".

surely I must win a prize for most obsure-naming-of-classes.

DD's secondary school had each class named after the house, which were local trades - so 7W were the Weavers, 7G the Goldsmiths etc - not sure how many I can remember now -
Weavers
Tanners
Goldsmiths
Haberdashers
Spinners
Lacemakers

and one other that began with C but I can't remember it....

DD's are numbers that refer to rooms in the school. So she has been in class 5, 6, 23, 24, 13, 19 and 26 (in that order!)

The lower half of my secondary did similar, but the rooms had letters and so your form was the room plus your yeear group - eg 1M, 2E, 3S.

In the upper half of secondary it was year group plus teacher's initials - so 4DJW, 6MJM (I seem to have excised any memory of my O-level year!)

At my secondary we had tutor groups named after the 40 martyrs of England and Wales (Catholic school).

So they were called things like:

Arrowsmith
Campion
Ward
Southwell
Barlow
Rigby
Morse
Owen
Boste
etc

My ds's secondary school do similar, but they only have 6 names in total across all the year groups, so it's kind of like houses.

My two youngest's school has colours, but related in each year, so early years are Silver and Gold, year 1 scarlet and crimson etc. The only one that got me in a muddle was Amethyst when ds was year 4 - could never say it properly, probably proving I am nowhere near middle class enough to be sending them there