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Mixed age groups in one class!

3 replies

Nancyclancy · 08/09/2012 13:10

My ds's go to our local village primary school. When my first ds started there were about 110 children in the whole school and four classes.

Over the last few years the numbers have dropped considerably to just under 70, a class has been lost making 3 classes. The classes are divided like this;

Reception and Yr1 together
Yr 2 and 3 together
Yrs 4,5 and 6 together

For the core subjects yr 4 mix back in with yrs 2 and 3.

My twins are in yr 4 and are behind in their learning. They had homework this week that I feel was very difficult for them. They have just started in their new class with a new teacher who doesn't really know them ( he's only been at the school a few months.)

I'm going to speak to the teacher on Monday and explain this. But I'm concerned that this split yr thing isn't going to work. The classes are small so it's not as if it's a huge class divided between 3 yr groups. I sympathise with the teacher as it must be difficult organising the lessons to fit around all the class.

I'm worried if I move them, it'll knock their confidence and set them back.
So what do I do? I almost feel I'm having to do a hell of a lot at home to make up for what they don't do at school.
They don't seem to read much at school and when they do it's with elderly grandparents of children at the school, very rarely the class teacher or assistant. I have to go in after school to change their books otherwise w ave the same one for weeks on end!

I'm all for supporting the local primary school, but I'm seriously having doubts!

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
LindyHemming · 08/09/2012 19:57

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

lljkk · 08/09/2012 20:08

I would keep them where they are. At least see how things develop.
I think most interested parents do a lot at home with their children, I also do the things you describe & mine aren't struggling.

They should have chance to change own reading book at this age, I'd ask about that.

I would imagine not that hard to differentiate the HW set. Let teacher know it was too challenging

MrsJamin · 08/09/2012 20:51

I taught Y4 and you don't hear individual readers at that age, and they should be able to change their own books. Their homework does need to be differentiated though. I would give it a few more weeks (give the h/w back saying "too difficult for my DC to do, so we did some reading on X instead"), and you would hope that the new teacher would pick up on the abilities of the Y4s more accurately. It's very hard to differentiate with such a large variance in ability, so you may need to be patient for a month or two.

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