Is it important to be in the top ability groups?

[wigglywoowoo]

Is it important to be in the to be in the top ability groups at school at school? While she is doing well I think this is mainly due to her being one of the oldest in the year.

The group she is in seems to be a little too important to her and I have chatted to her about the groups and how children in them change but she 100% certain that won't be her. If it happens I know that I will have a very unhappy little girl, mainly due to friendship groups.

They are grouped in the class for literacy and numbers and streamed across years 1 and 2 for phonics.

Do the groups change substantially over the years?

Too often children just presume that you can just get good at something - it just happens.

What a refreshing and thoughtful post from PastSellByDate - thanks for making all those points.

I am biased as I have thought this for a while; graduates coming in thinking they will be given the sexiest work immediately and not realising that they will have to prove themselves as worthy of it. Graduates coming in and thinking they will get a massive bonus with relatively little effort (there is a theme here). I'm not a stayer very well myself and notice that DS is similar - anything he doesn't find easy immediately he drifts away from. I hope he gets more of my DH's ethic, which is to work bloody hard. I think the media doesn't help either, with the hysteria over bonuses. It's true that some will be rewarded for not doing that much, but for the majority of people top performance grades and therefore bonuses are hard to achieve and require hard work.

Shite - should have previewed. Sorry.

"The day the child is born and the Mum looks between his legs she knows what she's up against"... er no LandS I can't say that's at all how I felt when either of my wonderful, amazing little chaps were born.
The problem boys have is they are set up against a massive set of societal attitudes now that girls are expected to do better and education is currently set up in a way that intrinsically serves girls a bit better- if you will a total reversal of the situation 100 years ago!
DS1 is autumn and performing well ahead of his year group. DS2 is an early summer born boy who will start school in September and more than ready for it- can read stage 3 books etc. They haven't been drilled etc at home, they are just bright boys who are interested in the world and want to find out how it works.
Being their mother isn't a chore, it's a privilege.
#proudmummyofboys

Groups are fluid at dds' primary. Sometimes children move to another group to get a better grasp of a particular maths concept, etc.

Both mine have moved around a couple of times in maths over the years, though not in literacy (but that's to do with their needs, not the groups, iyswim).

I didn't think it had anything to do with societal attitudes and expectations. I just thought it was because infant boys typically mature more slowly than girls and so are often more interested in playing than reading and writing. If school started later for all infants some of that problem would have sorted itself out.

My summer born boy (31st Aug) is top ability tables for everything (and has been since yr1) however his age has been mentioned for the first time since reception (now yr3) because he is struggling with the maturity needed in his writing.

LandS - DS is tiny (age 5-6 clothes and he is coming up to 8) and he is very sporty (and good at it).

The groups at DS's school have always been very fluid and kids are moved from one to the other. But like others have said, DS is very aware of who is in what group and when he was in KS1 what book level others were on (but he is by nature very competitive).

DD (in reception) is grouped across the year for phonics, reading and numeracy and does not have a clue which group she is in (and there also does seem to be very little movement between groups).

Abby - why do you think education now serves girls better?

Children all develop at different times. My youngest wasn't ready to start school at four, my older two were. All summer born.
There's so much pressure on parents to make sure that their child is doing exactly what the book says and more.

I think the pressure thing is across life generally.

Simpson- here is why I think the education system is currently serving boys better than girls. If you look at normal distribution of IQ across the genders on population sized studies you find that there is no or very little difference in average IQ between girls and boys if tested at 14: girls about 101 boys about 103 on average. Interestingly where there is a difference is in terms of population variability between the sexes in IQ- there are more boys at the extremes than girls at either end of the IQ scale than girls. Despite this over the last few decades we have seen the performance of boys deteriorate compared to girls who gave accelerated away. Education/society are essentially failing little boys. There are lots of theories why this might be and it is most certainly not just an education problem. There was an interesting piece in the telegraph in Feb this year about how our expectations of boys as parents and teachers are negatively influencing outcomes from a very young age.
You can see this yourself in the forums from comments about boys- boys now grow up hearing that girls are intelligent, want to work hard, want to please. Boys are not expected to do well, we hear they are not as interested in reading, we hear they want to watch Ben 10/ power rangers on replay etc etc. Effectively they are living up to our lowly expectations. This is akin to what used to happen to little girls: people used to say girls don't like maths and science, girls are not as bright, girls want to stay at home and raise the kids when they grow up and for most of the last few hundred years many girls lived up to those negative expectations. There was also an interesting study that said that boys were more negatively affected by negative expectations than girls in terms of test results.
Finally I think many (but not all) boys do thrive on a little bit if healthy competition which has effectively been stamped out from our education system.
If we want all children to do well we have to go in with the same positive expectations if all children as individuals across society.
Sorry a bit off topic OP

"If we want all children to do well we have to go in with the same positive expectations "

Expectations that is the key ... and first step is to get away from expecting less of summer born boys!

Most children work out which is the "bottom group" simply because it is the one that the TA helps most of all.

Which is another bad practice

Abby - I don't really agree with what you have said (but can only go on my DC school). DS's teacher positively encourages a bit of healthy competition between her pupils...

I would have thought a TA would go to where ever they were needed not just the lower ability group.

MY DD2 is in a y3/4 class where they choose what level to work on themselves.So say if they are studying fractions they all do the first worksheet and then if they are finding it easy select a more difficult worksheet to do next, or if they are struggling do another at the same level.It is a very small class (for a state school) of 13 so maybe that makes it a bit easier to keep an eye on.OFSTED LOVE it because the children are managing their own learning.

My grandsons are in a village school where there are two year groups in each class so:
Nursery and Reception
Y1 and Y2
Y3 and Y4
Y5 and Y6
They are also in ability groups within the class which means that they move around for different subjects and are,I think,unaware of the pecking order.Dgs is in top group for Y1 but there are some group2 pupils from Y2 in the same group etc.

It is always going to be a huge advantage being an autumn born baby. How can it not be? My Sept born daughter could read, write, do maths before she was five. She went into reception doing what most can barely do when they leave. They are so much older, so much more experience.

I'm saying this as the mother of a summer born boy who starts Sept.

Why do you think it is it a huge advantage Poppy? Being older doesn't guarantee greater maturity, greater ability, greater knowledge or greater success.

I disagree Poppy, I have 2 May born DDs who are the top in their years, outperforming the autumn borns.

Imagine if they were autumn borns?!

It may guarantee higher expectation

There's nothing to say that a 4yo can't read, write and do maths before Reception either, mine could.

Isn't the advantage more in emotional maturity? Though goodness knows that isn't always dependent on age either (you should meet my dm )

Yes Elibean all the research shows there is no advantage in being able to read and write before school.

Its an advantage because you are a year older and the difference between being just four and just five is...huge :-)
obviously you may be a very smart four year old ( a summer born) and be top of the class. However surely you would be a very, very smart four year old if you were in the class below!

My summer boy can read btw ( at three and before his sister could) but i can't help but think what more he would be able to do if he had another year at home :-(
I don't mean to hot house or push him. What i mean is that the confidence he would have. How less tired he would be. Socially more advanced.
How less guilty i would feel.

Why do you feel guilty?

My summer born boy is top of his class. He loves school and has made some good friends. Being born in the summer hasn't held him back at all.

The eldest child in my class (September birthday) is the least socially, emotionally and academically mature ... and as I have said in an earlier post 5 of my youngest children are amongst the most able and most socially mature. This is something I see year after year ... being 5 doesn't guarantee maturity