Do reception ever split by ability before the children start?

[Stillhopingstillhere]

So from their preschool profiles?

Ds has just started and there are two classes and there seems to be a big divide between the two classes. It makes me wonder if they've separated the classes by ability based on their profiles. Do they? Or is it just chance it's panned out this way?

I don't think they can - there will be children they really know nothing about and there are normally other factors to consider. In my kids school I can tell they have tried to divide up equally by age so both classes have a fair share of older, middle and younger, half and half girls and boys in each class, SEN shared out (well the obvious ones), EAL shared out, especially where large numbers speak the same language they are divided to try and encourage integration and immersion into English.

I would guess it is probably coincidence if it has worked out the classes are different.

Based on the reception years at the dc's school then I would guess not. Very wide range of ages and abilities.

Not to my knowledge - DC go to a selective private primary school and there is no streaming at first.

Maybe it's just chance then. I'd never heard of it before either but it does seen quite a marked divide!

Based on my mother's experience as a primary teacher, they don't and they wouldn't want to.

They juggle a million things anyway - sex, age, known SEN, etc.

Also, in most two intake schools the teachers try to work together to lesson plan. It wouldn't make sense to be creating two different 'streams'. Plus most teachers i know would be massively resistant to the idea of boxing children by ability with no way to easily move up and down.

I know of schools who juggle the classes at the end of Reception, in order to make them a more even split but have never come across one that would set out to 'set' Reception children.
Even if someone thought this were a good idea, how on earth would you be able to assess those children who haven't come from a Nursery class ?

I know of one school that arranges by age, but this is a bit of a throwback to when they used to admit children into reception twice a year and the 2nd intake made a new class. Most of the others aim for a mix of genders and age. Both ways of splitting can lead to discrepancies in ability between classes but by coincidence rather than design.

I doubt it extremely.

However dd1's class was split by listing the girls in age order and alternating them into classes and doing the same with the boys.
It was very clear by year 1 that one class was streaks ahead of the other academically, and this continued through that school and the non-connected juniors. eg when they set a maths across the school at juniors there were none from one class in the top set, and only 1 in the second set. The other had 6 in the top set and 10 in the second.

My db went to a selective school and they split them by ordering them on the entrance exam list and going 1,2,3,4,5... down the list.
They still in every year ended up with one class known to be better academically, and one class known to be weaker-and it wasn't the class that all the 1s went into that was better either.

Our school split reception by age, so Sept-Feb and Feb-August. The 'older' class tend to be that bit more mature, some are obviously almost a year older then the summer born, so the pace and expecations are slightly differentiated.

They are mixed up in Yr1 though.