please explain to me the pros of mixing years 3 and 4 together cos i seem to be missing the point

[juicychops]

my son starts junior school in september. the school was taken over by an academy in April and after a meeting 2 days ago i have discovered they are putting into practice all these changes starting in september.

there are 3 classes in the infant school, and we were originally told my son's class would move up together and all stay together as a class (as would the other 2 classes in his year). the junior school is a feeder school from the infant school with supposedly close links to eachother.

we were told at the meeting that instead of having 12 classes in the junior school (3 per year) they are now condensing this down to 2 lots of 5 classes - 5 will be years 3 and 4 mixed, and the other 5 will be year 5 and 6 mixed.

the meeting was incredibly rushed as they probably expected parents to object to the new format and ask many questions, so it was completely rushed and was not given a chance to ask any questions before the meeting was wrapped up and we were sent on our way. Because of this it wasn't until i got home that i actually started thinking about this and to be honest i can't think of many positives for the way this new system is being put in place.

as i missing the point?

as far as i can see, the only positive i can see is that the year 3s who are top of the class will benefit from doing harder work with the year 4s.

surely each year will be working on a different lesson plan, year 4 will end up going over stuff they already did in year 3, or year 3 will completely miss out on stuff they should be taught in year 3 so as not to repeat it for the year 4s. the bottom year 4s will be held back with year 3s, more kids per class,

"All classes have ranges of 2 years plus and minus"

2 years? I wish. I currently (in Year 4) have a range of 6! And it's not uncommon in Year 6 to have some children working at the level of a 14year old and others at 7.

When I was in a mixed class I was in the top range so wax always say with the children a year older... Then they left to go to secondary and I was sad

Indigobell, there is currently about 30 kids per class so when this 'merge' thing happens and they have scrapped 2 classes, there will be another 6-7 kids per class so 36-37 kids per class and still 1 teacher. im not sure how many assistants - there are currently 1 per class. im not feeling positive about there being more when this is all for financial reasons

That is not good :(

If the school says they are doing it for financial reasons it will not be to 'cut corners', it will be because budgets have been cut so drastically in the last 2 years that they cannot afford to replace the two teachers that are leaving. If there are 30 + in each class they may well employ more teaching assistants to support since they are on a much lower pay scale than teachers (although often they don't deserve to be)
However, mixed age classes are very common, can and do work - for all the reasons that others have already explained.
Try to be supportive of the school - by all means ask questions but the decision will not have been taken lightly by senior management.

My DS flourished when the school spilt the groups and he was in the Y3/4 class when in Y3. He found a soulmate and was stretched academically. School said they were splitting them arbitrarily but they were definitely split by ability. Good for DS.
When same applied for DD it was not great. There were two Y1/2classes and the teachers taught them between them - she ended up with four teachers and at parents eve it really felt like no-one knew her at all. they returned to single classes the following year.
One con I noticed was the impact on friendships, which were definitely affected by being in different classes.

I've had good and bad experience of mixed age classes.

Good: school with deliberate mixed-age ethos from the start, 3-year age range in each class, small classes (about 20) and two full-time teachers for each class, plus specialist teachers for art, music, PE etc. Worked very well, lots of differentiation going on and work tailored to individual needs and interests. It was also bilingual, so further differentiation needed for different children's abilities in each language. As you can probably guess, that was not a UK state school (actually international school in Japan).

Bad: 'outstanding' state primary in UK. DD was in a yr1/yr2 class; she was one of the oldest and brightest in yr1, so worked mainly with yr2 children for the first year - was given reasonably challenging work and was very happy, and formed friendships with the older children as well as her own age group.

Then at the end of the year, the yr2 children moved up, and DD was left as almost the oldest in her class, and with very few others working at her level in maths, literacy etc. But - presumably for ease of planning - they were put into groups of 6-8 for maths and literacy work, all doing the same thing, and because it was aimed at the average level of her group, she tended to find the work easy and boring, so she finished quickly. And then seemed to end up being the one the teacher always called on to escort a particularly disruptive boy to another classroom when he was playing up in class .

I'd say if you have an experienced, dedicated teacher who puts a lot of effort into planning and differentiation, then multiage classes can work well. But if it is being rushed into for financial reasons, and classes will be bigger, so more children for teachers to plan for, when they don't have experience of multiage teaching - it doesn't sound brilliant to me.

My DD will go into a mixed Year 3/4 class in September. I'll be really happy when she's in Year 3, as I think she'll be stretched by the Year 4s and I am certain that when she gets to Year 4, I'll be worried that she's being held back. I'll live with it though, as long as she's happy.

Janni I am in your situation WRT the 3/4 class, but one year on ie. DD will be a year 4 in September in a 3/4 class, and I have the same concerns as you - I will let you know how it goes.

Just to say it isn't new and I'm not sure it's an issue as long as teaching quality is good.

When I was a kid in the 1970's my mum was an infant head and she had "vertical grouping" classes and the kids stayed in one form and were taught together from reception to yr2 age. It worked OK.

DH now teaches. He hasn't taught mixed ages, but, as previously mentioned a state primary class what ever the chronological age of the kids will have kids working at levels 1 to 5 or 6 and differentiated work is set to cover that range. It's not easy but he manages. Social maturity varies so much too so age is really "just a number" even then.

From what I have seen the spread of ability is so great within any given year anyway that a mixed year isn't much more of a challenge anyway.

Headinhands - surely a spread over 2 years would be even wider?

Yes so differentiation will already be the norm. Some small village schools have 4 years in the same class.

Seems a cop out to me to avoid 2xY3 2xY4 and one mixed Y3/Y4, much simpler for planning and all the parents are in the same boat.

Could work really well, however, because that many parallel classes ought to let the teachers share the planning burden really well. Also, they will have to differentiate properly because the spread of abilities makes it unavoidable and the parents will be watching.

I think DD2 group has done particularly well in their mixed Y5/Y6 because the teacher knows that parents will notice if they don't cater to their particular child.

Parents have moved children to a single form entry school so they know they need to be careful.

In fact the spread of abilities in Y6 is so large that it falls either side of Y5 and so the combined class doesn't affect planing as much as it might.

The KS2 in our school is 1x Y3 1x Y4 1x Y5 and 1xY6. Lower Ks2 (so Y3/4) learn the same topics and Y5/6 do the same so the teachers can plan together. The following year Y3/4 do different topics then the year after that Y3/4 do the topic done 2 years ago so all children will do the same core topics but some will do it in Y3 and others in Y4. Topic work is so general in primary schools I don't think it really makes a difference if you learn it in Y3 or Y4.
The spread of abilities will be very similar in Y3 and Y4 so unless your child is genius I wouldn't worry about them not being pushed.

I would worry that the class is going to be 36/7 unless your school is massive. My kids in juniors are in classes of 32 and their classroom seems pretty cramped when full and their school is a new one and probably more spacious than some older schools.

I'd definitely be chasing up TA provision. At our schools TAs don't work all day every day in juniors and I think that a class of 36/7 would need one all the time.

But starball - if there were only one mixed class who would want their children in it when all others were single years? Not me for sure! This was a deal breaker for me when choosing a school