Strange way of combining year groups. Is this normal? Why?

[elskovs]

My 8 year old has started a new school this September. He is in year 4 and I found out recently that he is in a class consisting of years 3 and 4. Some other year 4s are in classes with year 5s.

I asked the teacher and she said its nothing to do with ability and they have their own reasons for why they think a child will fit into a particular group. Seemed a bit secretive. Apparently children get shifted regularly too, so don't keep the same class friends.

Is this normal?

I don't know how common this is, but my DD's previous primary school did this.

Year 1's were all together then some Year 2's remained with Year 1 and some moved into the Year 3 class. They apparently based it on age, social skills and ability . My DD was split from her friends as she moved up. The following Year they were all together for Year 3 and then in Year 4 they would be split again! This would continue until they left. We moved away at this point and DD's are now in a small village primary were classes are mixed with two whole year groups in each class.

I much prefer it this way. The previous way used to get children and parents stressed!

elskovs:

Our school is single form and quite small so we don't do this but larger schools in the area do and it is about ability.

So blending years 3 and 4 would be about placing high performing Year 3 pupils with year 4 (totally o.k. students, no behind but not high flyers). Year 4 up to Year 5 - same thing - these are year 4 pupils able to work at Year 5 level.

If your Year 4 child is with Year 3 children - that may not be a problem - sometimes you just have really good years when the children in a group are just doing amazingly well (DD2's class is like this for reading/ literacy).

I think the thing to be asking the teacher is whether you DC is working at or below expected level (if you don't already understand this).

According to Mumsnet notional progress through NC Levels should look like this: www.mumsnet.com/learning/assessment/progress-through-national-curriculum-levels

Found this about different types of progress through KS1 - KS2 - KS3: www.viscountbeaumonts.leics.sch.uk/National%20Curriculum%20Level%20Expectations.pdf

Devon County Council also has this (see page 2): www.devon.gov.uk/fostering-national-curriculum-levels.pdf

It is highly likely the school has assessed your DCs performance in maths and has streamed him into an ability group where teaching/ in-class work/ homework is differentiated for his ability level - but it is not automatic that he's working below the appropriate level (it is quite possible year 3 pupils are working above expected level).

HTH

Ours have pure year groups for years 1 and 2 and then in the juniors the classes are 3/4 4/5 and 5/6. These are split purely on age to stop any arguments and the children will spend two years in one of the classes. My ds for instance is the youngest in his year and so spent two years in 3/4, he's now moved to 4/5 and next year will be in 5/6 before he leaves. The reason it is done is simply down to numbers. Each year group has 25ish children in it.

Thanks for the links. It does sound like it is based on ability doesn't it? Why on Earth didn't she say that then?? Its not based on numbers as in your case Panda, there are 34 in his class.

Im starting to think its a really awful school. I cant find out much about it re. offsted because its recently been made into an Academy. Im pretty sure the majority are polish.

My primary did this 20 odd years ago and I think still does. We'd have about 40 per year group and split them according mainly to ability, as far as I know. I was bright so always in the 'older' class. I loved it.

There may be 34 in his class but the question is how many are there in his year. If, for example, they have 20 in each year that isn't really enough to fund a teacher so it would be reasonable to have a Y3/4 class and a Y4/5 class each with 30.

Ou school used to do this because it only had about a hundred pupils. Now it's got a bigger 'population', they have proper year groups. When dd1 was in year 6, there were only 11 pupils in her year group.

Of the schools that have split classes around here, I can only think of 1 that does it on ability. The others split a variety of ways including age, even mix of genders, personality, even mix of ability, even mix of SEN or other extra needs.

34 is fairly large for a class but the mix of year groups in each class and the class size will be dependent on how many in each year group in KS2.

I imagine it is a fairly small school ...both my children went through primary (80 pupils) in mixed age classes that changed each year

DC school has done it fairly often (360 in the school). For instance, yr3 was divided into
1 class of y2-3
1 class of all y3
1 class of y3-4

Repeat for y4. It wasn't done on ability as near as I could tell.

the ones who suffered, I reckon, were the ones mixed with y4. They got used to socialising with year above, but then y6 was single-cohort, so the kids had to get used to being with their own peers again for y5.

Schools have varying admission numbers. If the number of pupils admitted per year is between 30 and 60 (or significantly under 30) then there are not enough pupils to make one or two year groups for each class, therefore the classes are mixed. Individual schools make their own arrangements for how the classes are mixed. Sometimes it is by age, sometimes by ability or sometimes just a random mix. As the children go further up the school, it is also often easy to make decisions based on pupils that don't work well together etc.

Our village school has a PAN of 20, so our classes are mixed. Academic ability plays a part, but only a part. The child's social and emotional development are also taken into account, as well as SEN. A LOT of time is taken by the teachers to make sure that each child is placed in a class where they will make the best possible progress they can. I know this because I work at the school.

Bit odd that your school changes the classes mid-year, though. I'd be concerned about lack of continuity.

Unfortunately, a lot of parents still see end-of-year class changes as either 'going up' or 'staying down', which is a shame.

Our school does this but it's based strictly on age, not ability.

Yes, composite classes are very normal. It is based on age.

In small rural schools a class could be P1-3 and P4-7. Or, even P1-P7!

I think what puzzled OP was the way the kids were mixed with 2 different yr groups (above & below). Very tiny schools you can have one class for all of y4-6, so not unheard of.

Nowadays DC school tends not to mix with more than one other yr group.

DD1's primary does this, it is by age AFAIK, the youngest Y4 stay in Y3-4 and the eldest go to Y4-5 then everybody gets reshuffled for ability groups when desirable (for math one set as a year 3, year 4 and 5 mostly and a Y6).

My childrens' school does this for certain years.

Nursery and Reception are full years.

Years 1 onwards can be mixed.

The way they normally work it out is age.

For example, my youngest is in Yr 1 but is in a mixed Yr1/2 class. He is in the class because he is one of the oldest in Yr 1. Any child in Yr 1 who had a birthday between Sep and December were put into the Yr1/2 mixed class with the youngest of the Yr2 year. The the eldest in Yr2 had their own class and the Jan to Aug born Yr 1s were in their own class.

The infants school that my DC attended had to mix year groups between classes.
Class 1 reception 30
Class 2 reception 30
Class 3 reception 10 yr 1 20
Class 4 yr 1 30
Class 5 yr 1 10 yr 2 20
Class 6 yr 2 30
Class 7 yr 2 30
This is an example from one of the years that my DC were at the school.
Each year the pan is different for the reception children starting school.
The classes aren't mixed by ability or ages.