streaming

[lincsslass67]

Is obvious streaming common in school. Ds came home yesterday and said that he was top in writing as he was sitting on the back row. I know he is good at writing.
I felt a little sad that it was so public. Incidently near front for numeracy.

Should have said year 4

I believe "streaming" is normally across the year group. DS's school (junior) streams for maths and the children know they are in set 1,2,3 ... so VERY obvious.

They have ability based groups for other things and I think it is pretty obvious to the children by this age that e.g. red group is the top writing group. Yesterday DS told me that 1 group had to write 1 sentence, 2nd group had to write 2 sentences and 3rd group had to write a paragraph - I think by 7+ most children can work out that the "paragraph" group are the best writers.

Our Junior school sets across the year group for Maths (2 classes, plus TA group). The kids know which is which. They also know the Green table is higher than the yellow table etc.

Even without sets, differentiation means, or should mean, children will be getting different work across the class.

It's very unusual to have 'rows' in primary class - and if you do it's not normal to stream by what row you sit in.

Most (but not all) kids know what set they're in regardless of how they're dressed up.

I think by the time children are in year 3 or 4, it is common for them to be in streams for maths and possibly streamed (or identifiably differentiated by table) for English/literacy and spellings.

And yes, they can work out by that age which is which.

A good school will, however, make sure that this isn't unduly important, and that there is also recognition for other good work, attitude, sports/music/drama/art achievement, hard work, consideration etc etc etc.

Most schools will do setting for at least some things - reading/spelling and numeracy in particular. Your DSs school sounds like an odd layout if the pupils are arranged in rows - groups around tables seem to be much more common these days - but no matter how they do it, the children will usually be quite clear which group is which. Even if the groups are called random things and randomly spread round the classroom, by Y4 they will see who is on chapter books, who is doing things they've already covered etc.