ability groups in reception

[monairethu]

i've just had a little off the cuff chat with my ds this morning and have realised that he is in the lower group in reception. i'm no tiger mom but i am not impressed by this - either the streaming in itself or the fact that he is in the lower set (contradictory i know!). i had the impression he was bumping along at an average level which we were absolutely fine with. anyway i need to speak to the teacher about it to get to the bottom of their criteria for splitting them up because it's puzzling - for instance his bf is in the 'top' group but is at the same reading level as my child? so that doesn't make sense if they are attainment groups - or ability groups really! mind boggling!

anyway if anyone has experience of this i'd like to hear please! i hate the idea of my child being pigeonholed at such a young age.

My child goes to a prep nursery and I was told by his teacher he was distinctly average. Both teaching assistans commented on how bright he was and other parents alike. He had a teacher change and within two weeks was pushed to top sets for English, Maths and Art. He was reading and doing quite advanced maths at home so the group change hasn't had a huge affect on his ability but on his confidence and happiness in class as well as his behavior. The new teacher said on parents evening that he's easily the brightest and definitely at least one of 2 or 3 in his class. I was told by the new teacher that she couldn't understand his previous groupings and I was told by at least two other mums that I should be asking for him to be pulled up. My point is, if you feel your child is obviously in the wrong sets them speak. I took the teacher as expert which resulted in him being labelled as unruly when in actual fact he was just bored and in fact conscious that he was in the lower sets when being told be eveybodu else that he was bright.

no offence to anyone with a summer born baby - my apologies. their age isn't relevant to this.

Sorry for typo's on phone! My post does not read to well but like I say you are the most influential person in your childs education and it's your duty to challenge anything you do not think is right. I've never taken the role myself but I am upset for not doing so in the past and see it as a lesson learnt. Similarly groupings in reception do matter, as do they at all levels. A child in the bottom set in r is unlikely to be pushed into the top by yr2, especially if there is no teacher change. I do not mean become an annoying daily teacher hog parent, but having had words of wisdom from my teacher cousin, those parents that ask questions get more attention played to the children through the teachers needing to find out answers!

I only would like to know, because I grow up in a different educational system in another country, and we got marks nearly every day, but at least every week. So my parent know that where I am with my study (if I am good or bad, or if I needed any support). Also we had books for each subject, so the parents could follow what we learnt in the school, and whet we should know.

I like to support my son learning, but I cannot be sure that the support he receives from me is ok (not too much or not too less). I do not want him to know things that he has time to learn in Year1 or later, but I do would like him to know the staff he needs to know in Reception. The lack of information from schools (e.g.: no marking, no books), I hardly know what they learnt on that day or that week in the school, so I have not got the chance to practice the same things at home with him (I am not speaking about reading, I speak about maths, nature, art, etc...). So even if I think he is clever, I cannot be sure that what he knows is enough or too much in Reception. Me and my son learn at home every day a little bit, but if he is very good in the school and the support I give him is too much, I would not mind to let him play instead of teaching things for him that he will learn in Year1 again.

Mona you didn't come across as offensive to summer borns. I am currently teaching my 3 year old summer born her phonics because I know that the children who know their letter sounds when they start reception go into the top 2 reading groups. She is happy to learn otherwise I wouldn't bother. But my other children never changed reading groups they were initially put in during reception the whole time they were at infants. She will be disadvantaged because of her age in other areas trying to give her a head start where I can make a difference.

I'm a deputy head with a reasonable amount of experience and all reception classes I've known have been pretty free-flow with only very short phonics/ maths/ story whole class sessions on the carpet.

The only group is a small phonics support group. We target children/ groups throughout the day for learning activities but not as ability groups as such.

I would constantly review groupings for maths and literacy and move children as often as needed. It's madness to want your child to be in a set above their ability! They gain nothing from it apart from damaged confidence and boredom because if the learning goes straight over their head they switch off. I'm sure that any teacher worth their salt will be constantly assessing your son and all his peers so that they can benefit from being in the right groups! Don't let your own vanity or pride get in the way of whats right for ds.

I am used to ability groups in reception.

Bottom set for what, which subject? Math or English or both?

I read stories on MN which suggest some schools do setting badly, BUT

imho, and according to Ofsted Best practice expectations (ie, schools will be marked down if they don't do this): ability grouping is extremely flexible, reviewed regularly (at least once a term) and set for individual subjects. Bottom in one subject, middle in a second subject and top in another is a very plausible situation. Also, ability groups overlap, and children can be shifted slightly for social reasons, like DS2 has regularly been put down a group because emotionally he doesn't cope well with frustration or Miss bossy Boots Perfect types.

The only pigeonholing is to do with attitude, not ability.

I think you need to ask the school to address any of your concerns. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Sorry but groupings for 4 year olds doesnt matter IME

There cannot be a bottom set of 4 year olds that will never get out of the bottom set and ruin their whole educational lives.

they are small children, its their first year of school. They are all learning new things.
But they are all 4.

DS2 is in yr4; he think he's in the top ability group and I know he's not! HA! Yes for maths but not English, not at all. Don't think DS1 was that clued up either, certainly not until y3 at least.

And so what if they do know their ability group? 4yos know better than us that they are still changing & developing. They will think nothing of it if they move around in ability groups, they are used to mysterious ways of adults having no rhyme or reason.

thanks fraggle - it's not vanity or pride believe me. i do have my head screwed on and i know my precious angel is no einstein but i do really believe he is average and not below that. i do appreciate the fantastic job all teachers do and his is amazing. but but but i am his mother and as such i have only his best interests at heart. so it seems to me to be entirely appropriate that i should want to find out more about the group he's been placed in and question that decision if i see fit.

At my DS' s infant school they openly stream for literacy and numeracy. They send every child home with a letter saying your child is in say Red group this means they are working above average. Or orange =average or Yellow = below average.They tell us not to share the information re ability with our children and claim they tell the children everyone is the same. Other parents do though,
DS is middle stream but and actually cried that he is not in the 'clever class' despite me telling him there was no clever class.
They also have split class where they teach the top 15 year ones with the top 15 year twos. Makes no sense as surely the top year ones with bottom year twos woukd be at a similar level. I hate it but apparently it is the right way to do things as they are OFSTED outstanding.

DS, who is now in year one, had a couple of breakaway groups going on when he was in reception. A few of his classmates were in a group for help with reading, whilst he and a couple of others were in a group who were ahead in the reading but needed be 'held' whilst the rest caught up. DS himself was in a group called Fizzy Fingers where they did exercises to strengthen their pencil grip as they were struggling. His class now is split for reading, maths and spellings. It works fine. No one is label led - in fact his friend who has SN is in his spelling group (top group) as he's flying with the help. The top group thing isn't a boast, it's just pointing out that the kids flit in and out and no one is labelled. The head is even against labeling SN as she thinks, and is proving, that ability not labeling is the way forward.

Hi OP, I'm another one who thinks you should just ask the teacher. You sound pretty level headed about it to me, so I don't think you'll ask in a way that's going to offend anybody! The teacher may know your son is of sufficient ability to be in a higher group but if he's quiet and they are a bunch of confident know-it-alls then she may have thought he'd do better in the lower group. Also, if he's quiet he may not always be showing how able he is, so no harm having a word with teacher so she can check.

All I know about DD's school is that she is in a random ability group within her class which has stayed the same since Autumn half term and does phonics and maths in streamed groups across the whole year. I ask her 'did you do maths/phonics with x (renowned brainy child)' so I can find out if she's in the top set, but as others have said the word of a 4/5 year old is often not very reliable!

DS is late Aug birthday. It did make a difference to his reception year but not in a lasting way. He seemed to spend a lot of time outside messing with sticks/sand/ mud with a TA and I think that was right for him. We hadn't taught him phonics/reading as the HT had asked the preschool not to so they could learn in her preferred method. Fast forward a couple of years and he did well in KS1 SATS. The young ones do need time to grow into school. The Sept/Oct born girls in particular seem like giants with oodles of confidence in comparison.

Groupings/sets etc in reception are there to help the children. I have a child in reception at the moment, he is one of the older in the year group. he started out in the top set for reading and phonics but as the year has progressed he has moved groups several times (as have many others in the class) It dosent matter to me which group he is in as long he is making progress, working to the best of his ability and having fun. he was recently moved down a reading group because he was really struggling and not enjoying reading, refusing to read at home and becomming distressed. He is now reading much easier books but he has got his confidence and love of reading back which in my eyes is the most important thing at this very early stage of his education. I honestly would forget which group he is in and focus on his learning as an individual, what everyone else in the class is doing and acheiving is irrelevant to your individual child.

OP - You said your child is in a group with quiet children, and is quiet himself. Perhaps you have your answer right there? They may have grouped off the quieter ones to give them a chance to speak/shine without the more forward ones butting in the whole time. After all, in reception, social skills are quite a key part.

I helped out for a couple of hours every week when my son was in Reception (he's now in Year 2) - private prep school.

Each time the teacher gave me differentiated targets for the activity, splitting the class into (normally) three ability groups.

For example, children in Group One have already demonstrated reliably counting to 100 in tens and are working on 200. Group Two are just getting grips with counting in tens so are working towards counting to 100 but will likely need help in getting the order of tens right. Group Three haven't grasped the concept yet so will be working on grouping cubes into into tens and counting them one by one if necessary.

The groups in theory could have changed every week according to previously demonstrated ability in the particular area, although in reality they were pretty stable, I rarely saw children demonstrate a high ability in one area and low ability in another. And I can honestly say that with one exception, as far as I can see, those who were high ability and low ability in Reception remain so today into Year 2.

It seems to be a cumulative effect. So, continuing the above example, those children placed in the 'top' group' for counting in tens in Reception, when the topic came up the next time, they would have already demonstrated that skill so perhaps would be moved on to counting in 5s or something. Of course because they were 'more able' they grasped that quickly also. So when the topic came round for the third time, perhaps in Year One by this time, they had already mastered both counting in 10s and 5s and so would again work on something related but more challenging, which they would again grasp very quickly...and so the cycle continues (FYI, in case it's relevant, my child was and still is 'very able' so was part of that top group)

So I guess the point is that whilst it doesn't "matter" as such which group a Reception child is in as long as they are happy, with my second child who is now in the Nursery class, I am doing everything I possibly can at home to ensure that she is up there in that top group from Day One. Because my personal experience is that once a child misses that boat, the cumulative effect means that in reality it's very hard to move upwards because the simply haven't been exposed to the same amount of material.

Just my two penny worth, I'm happy to be told that it's entirely different in other schools.

My DD is a quiet one. She asks me why x gets all the prizes/stickers/rewards every time. She doesn't understand that loud is noticed. But she absolutely understands in her own way what levels are, that she is good at reading etc.

She is actually one of the best readers in her class and top set Maths, she knows this but she still doesn't think she is very good at stuff because she gets no rewards. She doesn't require praise to be good, or to try hard. She thinks she never wins 'stuff'.

Quiet children are definitely often overlooked.I found this especially so in reception. There were certain targets that teacher has to actually see in order to award (tick boxes) and quiet ones may not show they can. I remember being told at Xmas, she is coming on nicely can almost count to 10. You're joking surely? She can write them and add them at home?!?

Y1 isn't any better but she can at least see levels of achievement now such as book bands, maths stages so she is starting to see a glimmer that she can rather than can't.

Quiet children need confidence boosters as well, and not for being loud once in a while.

I would disagree with jgigig though maybe it's different in a private prep school than in my dc's state. I was a bit taken aback when there were some extremely evident groupings going on my ds's class, made worse by fact that in those days the older kids started in Sept and the younger ones in Jan (in effect, the older ones had a term more of reception, plus in a class of 15). I was worried that it would be come self-perpetuating - that those in higher groups would be further stretched and the gap would become wider.
Anyway, that absolutely hasn't been the case. I'd say only about half of those 'top' ones are still in the high achieving group, plus the groups in the top half of the class are incredibly fluid with lots of overlap. Interestingly, it's the girls who were at the top who no longer are (still lots of girls, just different ones).
A good school should be very fluid in these things. I'd be very unhappy with school if that didn't seem to be the case.

As long as they excel no matter ow different to other children, whats the problem? They are going to have a lot of pressure put on them. Help them and practice at home, but don't worry about stages!
Praise when they go onto the next stage of reading etc but thats all

Shattered - we had the same with DS1, I had to speak to the teachers on a few occasions (which I hated doing as felt embarrassed) but he would always work hard, behave well and achieve good levels so was continuously missed for awards etc, the next week after speaking to them he seemed to have an award!! The concentration was always on the children who didn't always do so well usually so when they did behave or work hard they won an award. To me it always gave the wrong message, DS had asked me why the 'naughty' children alwaysw won awards and that he tried to be good and he never did - at 5 it is not right!

The teacher he has now is brilliant and seems to be very aware of this.

melons we had this problem too. The naughty kid of the class (im so horrible lol) hit another kid in the face, and tripped DD up, and ended the day on Gold. DD asked us why...gobsmacked!
but spoke to teacher and i understand what they are trying to do but they are overdoing the rewarding for good behaviour. to me that shows the hitting earlier in the day was ok.

The teacher even told me that it was a worry DS was labelling children as naughty - I said he is 5 and the child he was referring to hits children in the face on a regular basis - to a 5 year old that IS naughty.

Good behaviour should be normal IMO, I understand that some children do find this more difficult than others but I do feel some schools/teachers do not get the balance quite right. In general I think DSs school are fairly good at this but there were a few instances early on that irritated me.

Shattered - just re-reading your post - I think it sounds as if your DD would have benefitted from having ability groups in YR as she would have had the opportunity to show what she could do. It is a shame as there are a lot of fabulous teachers out there but when they are not so good it has such a huge affect on the children.

affect = effect? Now I can decide which one is right - aaaargh!