Primary school streaming

[LoisWilkerson]

Can anyone tell me when primary schools are likely to allocate pupils into sets or streams?
We've had notification of which First Year class our child is due to join in September and there is something on the note that looks suspiciously like a stream allocation. Surely this doesn't happen in their second year at school?

Children will be working in groups from quite early on, so that they can all progress in their own ways - is that what you mean? It's not rigid, and will mostly vary for different subjects depending how far they have reached with numeracy or literacy etc. And it's only likely to cover reading bands, spellins, and maths, not all subjects.

DD was in a group in the second term of reception - I had no idea it was streamed until much later. Streaming was crap and based on how long children had been there etc.

In Y1, the groups were a bit more fluid - you could swap more easily from one to the other. There were different groups for numeracy and literacy. In Y2 they seem more fixed again, but again there were different groups for numeracy and literacy.

It does mean they do differentiated work, which is good. But it is nice if they do things as a whole-group and also in different groups when possible. DD's class do a lot of pair-work, which means they get to work with different members of the class.

My son is in Reception and they stream for phonics and numeracy. It's inevitable since some started Reception reading while others like my son knew nothing. In maths some struggle with counting to 5 while others are ready to learn more advanced stuff like counting in 2s.

At our school y1 setting would be for numeracy, literacy (guided reading, phonics) and spelling. There is a wide range of abilities and I think that teachers have to set if everyone can make progress.

Setting and streaming are different. You can be in top group for literacy and middle group for numeracy but setting is where you are in a fixed group for all subjects. I think it's quite unusual to be equally good at all subjects so most schools set rather than stream.
Sets are fluid at our school too.

Streamed pupils stay in a group of children with similar ability for all lessons, and set pupils are placed in an ability group only for certain lessons.

Ability set are commonplace in primary teaching.

OK, thanks all.

setting is where you are in a fixed group for all subjects.

That's streaming!

At DD2's school groups are very fluid and there is lots of movement throughout the yar, which is as it should be - children need differentiated support tailored to their strengths and their needs. A good teacher will soon get to know your DS and put him where he belongs -and then constantly monitor the situation and adjust as needed. Have faith.