Streaming in Year 1 / Summer Borns.

[rafa]

Hello,

Just wanted some feedback from others that have been in similar situation. DD currently in year one, latest possible August birthday. Struggled in reception with phonics and reading but was working at the expected level for her age.

Now in Year 1 has really got going. Classes are streamed for phonics (4 sets,1 being the most advanced ) and she is currently in set 4. I mentioned to her teacher about the possibility of her moving up a set as she is really coming on now and the teacher said the problem is she may struggle as will have missed some of the work that has been done.

My issue is I know that she is where she is because of her age. If children are already streamed at such a young age and doing different work what hope have those in the lower sets ever got of getting to their full potential,especially the summer borns?

So my questions are, do you think I should bring it up again with the teacher or just leave it? How are ability groups reassessed in your experience and when do the summer borns catch up?

Thanks all!

Why not screw the phonics and just teach her to read? Somewhere down the line it seems that phonics teachers and reading scheme owners have forgotten that these are just means to an end and not the ends in themselves. Phonics schmonics, streaming schmeeming.

I would not bring it up again but would work with her to ensure that she has a really firm grasp of everything she is being taught. I would read to her lots and encourage her to read to you and, I'm sure, it will all sort itself out in the long run. I think a firm foundation is better than speeding away ahead and perhaps missing something she will need later.

Ability based sets should be fluid. If they've been reasonably static up till now I'd expect the teachers to be considering movements to coincide with end of term/start of new one.

There's like to be considerable overlap between sets (so top of one set is working at similar level to bottom of set above). I'd be concerned if being in bottom set meant that you had to stay in the bottom set forever. It is likely that some children working at the same level might be better in one set than another (e.g. they may need more support, do better with slower pace work etc). Which I suspect is the message that the teacher intended to give you.

DD is in Y1 and summer-born. Of the "top" group (she is in it) for reading in her class, 3 are summer-born and 2 are autumn-born.

The common denominator for all of the children in the "top" group is that they all (bar one) attended good nurseries with phonics teaching before starting school. The other child had a lot of parental teaching before starting. (I know the children pretty well.)

It's obviously not a scientific study, but the summer-born thing hasn't proven to be problem for the children I know and may be a red herring. If a child hasn't done so well it can obviously be a factor due to tiredness, emotional immaturity, etc.

The teacher should be performing regular assessments and changing groups accordingly. My DD has changed reading band 2 times this term and the groups have been reshuffled at least once.

You could ask the teacher how and when the streaming is reassessed?

My summer born boy seemed to catch up by end of year 2.
You will get loads of people having summer born children who are bucking the trend and doing very well at school posting. Statistically month of birth is relevant in early years; especially for an August born I would think.
I have another summer born boy in Reception. He is getting there with reading but not 'clicked' like some and is still on the earliest level books. I am more relaxed with him as know learning the basics is so important and must not be rushed.
Try not to worry.

My summer born (31st Aug) had caught up in every subject by the end of yr1. There were some subjects when he started yr1 he was very strong (also had a tough reception year) after about 3 weeks in.

He is in yr4 and doing very well but is one of the quieter kids.

I do find the streaming very frustrating when you have a summer born (I have written another thread on this!). The thing is that I have found that whilst my DC has actually hit certain milestones at the same age as the other children she is considered to have less "ability" because it is further on in her schooling due to her age.

I think streaming is very divisive and also risks "capping" the education of those in the lower streams and not allowing them to catch up with the others so the gap gets wider and wider.

There is also the psychological harm that can be done to the children who, at a very young age, end up categorising themselves as not able to do things. In contrast the "top table" are told they are capable of doing more, seem to be given more support and pushed further and therefore they believe this to be true and it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy.

I have read lots about streaming pros and cons and am definitely not in favour of it. The only people it really benefits are the top set.

However what I would say is that you needn't be constrained by what the school do. I wholeheartedly know my DC is capable of more than the school are giving her. I have given up fighting with the school about this as it takes time and energy and I am basically banging my head against a brick wall. Therefore I have just taken it upon myself to fill in the gaps. I have done this by:

1. encouraging her to read higher levels of the reading scheme she is on at home (buy from amazon or get from library). This has really helped her reading.
2. Buying some of the official phonics workbooks to go through with her at home (I am finding that being in a lower phonics set means she is on a lower phase which therefore impacts her reading as she hasn't learnt the phonics so again a vicious circle of capped learning)
3. Using websites like reading eggs, Twinkl where you can get good teaching resources and online games.

I have to say that with all of this DC has really come on the first term of Year 1 and I think she is starting to catch up - but I feel pretty certain that this is mainly due to what I have been doing with her. School seem happy to have catergorised her as low ability and have told me they have no intention of pushing her any further on within the class.

I think phonic groups in Yr1 are fair enough though. I mean if at the end of reception some of the children are completely confident in all the sounds they have been taught then they should be able to move on but equally if some of the others need to revise and keep revising some of them then it would be unfair to try and push them to learn even more new ones on top of those ones because they won't be ready for them.

The best thing I personally think you can do is keep revising all the phonic sounds, Ask the teacher for a list of them all in the order they teach them in and practice them to make sure she is secure in them then you can look at finding out which sounds would be taught next and you can start practicing those. Groups will be rejigged as and when necessary I am sure but phonics groups may well stay the same all year although they will end the year having been taught all the same ones so at the start of Yr2 when put in groups they SHOULD be related to their abilities at the time not their abilities in the autumn of Yr1.

My dd is late summer born. She know 5 letter sounds at the end of Reception and was in the bottom set until Year 2. By the end of Year 2 she was on an upward trajectory. She is now in Year 5 and right at the top of the top set. In the lower years I found the teachers were generally very aware of who was young and old for the year. This seemed to change around Year 3 and in Year 5 the teacher has no idea.

Thank you all for your replies.

Neolara I am glad to hear that.

Sapphiremoon - I agree being a year younger than some of her classfriends must have an impact.

Avery - thanks for the tips and interesting comments. I agree with you and this is exactly what I am worried about, the gap getting wider and wider. In many other countries a five year old would not even be at school and in England ours are already streamed - sad really.

The gap does not have to get wider. DS is late Aug birthday and started school unable to read. In yr1 he caught up and in KS1 SATS got a 3. We read bedtime stories and listened to school books but I never bought any reading scheme books for home.

It's my big bug bear with phonics streaming ... it just widens the gap between those who are in group 1 and those in group 4 ... it's a never catch up situation.

This article might be of interest. It discusses the impact of streaming on children born in the summer.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21699054

Thanks postnomore, interesting but depressing! I know there are summer borns that buck the trend but reading this just reconfirms my worries.

At our school it's not clear to me how the different phonic groups progress in relation to each other. It may be to other parents of course. Children from YR to Yr2 are grouped according to level they are at rather than age or year group so that those working together are at a simlar stage. Sounds fine and sensible in principle, but whilst parents are told of the system they aren't told (unless they ask I suppose) which group the kid is in. It did become apparent that by Nov of Y1 DD hadn't progressed through the sounds at the same rate as other in the top group and she failed phonics test at the end of Y1.

I think maybe this sort of thing ought to be explained to parents. DS2 (now YR) tells me which sound/letters they've done that day and he seems to be charging through them at a rate of knots despite being an Aug birthday. So maybe he's been put in a faster-track group (I can hope ) But if he didn't happen to be the kind of kid that relives school quite intensely when he's at home, I wouldn't have a clue where he was at or whether I could expect him to be able to decode words in the reading books he brings home.

Hmm I may be rambling on due to G&T but it is food for thought.

At our Infants school there were lots of bright children who attained level in 3 in what were, in those days, compulsory SATs. The school was sensible enough to mix up the children though so the brightest did have the less bright on their table. The summer borns were never ever singled out. This was possibly because they were extremely bright with four of them now at Oxbridge. The brightest children were reading before coming into Reception and my DD was the only one of the high achievers that was not reading. I think your school could easily mix the children up and summer borns should not be sitting together. It is very lazy to set children in Reception when they know age is a factor in prior learning in some cases, but obviously not all. In our school the slightly slower ones were not singled out in Reception.

Can I add that synthetic phonics lasts for 10-15mins a day. The children who are at the earlier stages of phonic recognition actually make accelerated progress because they're in small groups. Please do not get hung up on streaming from such a young age, unless you make it a big deal a child in year 1 will not even be aware. Also in most schools due to the phonics testing at the end of year 1 children are assessed regularly so if you want your child to move up I'm sure they will.

Just my thoughts.

because in the 10 -15 mins these children are withdrawn to work on the early stages the rest of the class learn nothing new
IMHO phonics catch up needs to be in addition to, not a substitute for what the class are being taught

Not sure what you're talking about. It is a requirement for ks1 to take part in phonics. Ks2 spelling document. Why would the children learn nothing new? This why the children are set according their level.

Suggest you do some kind of phonics work at home - dancing bears series so she is covering everything.

It's 10 minute a day at home - won't hurt her.

I did similar with mine and maths - similar issues couldn't move up as they'd miss stuff by not being in the top groups.

The progress they made was eventually picked up by the school though by then moving up groups was a moot point as their confidence and ability had grown anyway.

You shouldn't have to but it's better than your DC being held back - well that what I thought.

Well in order for the children working in the earlier stages to catch up the other children will need to tread water or they will continue to move through the programme with the gap maintained That's why setting is primary is shown to be detrimental

That's very well explained mrz. Thanks!

We have a newish head who as his first strategy did away with the setting that had been in place for precisely that reason - it was divisive and meant that the gap was never going to be addressed.

Put lots of parents backs right up (ashamed to say I didn't understand it at first - had dd in "top" groups). But then when I thought about it some more, and spoke to him to find out what the reasoning was, it seemed so obviously the right thing to do.

The second thing done was to re-jig the TA set up to ensure that the school has well-trained literacy and numeracy TAs who can actually have an impact on learning for small targeted groups, including low achievers and to provide better phonics support for ks2 children who slipped through the gap left by dire phonics teaching in KS1 Pre-new head.

In theory the gap could close but that would require the children who are having difficulty and are already behind making twice as much progress as their peers

So here's the thing... what do you do with the children that are ready to move on in maths literacy or anything else for that matter. Even if you don't stream/set work still surely has to be differentiated for children of different abilities. Eg DS1 is currently working with year 2 groups for maths and literacy. He can add double digit numbers in his head, tell the time completely, recognise place value to thousands etc, he can read and understand books beyond line level and his writing is good.
There will always need to be differentiation of work (OFSTED recognises) this and gaps will open up because children are individuals who learn at different rates and indeed eventually even with a perfect education system they won't ever all achieve equally (unless you fiddle with the exam mark scheme.) The best you can hope for is to support each child individually to progress at their own speed with support where necessary to achieve this. Therefore a child like OP's that may now be making faster progress is allowed to continue that fast progress and perhaps catch up/ overtake some children that are not progressing so fast.
Some children will start ahead and continue to progress very quickly and I don't think you can expect to stop them.
My Eutopia would be for every child to be supported individually and have the opportunities to be the best that they can be.
Being summer born does not necessarily equal being slower to learn. DS2 is born at the very end of April so not properly summer but very end of spring and according to his teacher he is well ahead of all of the rest of the class (perhaps helped by wanting to always do whatever DS1 does due to small age gap.)
Boys/ girls/ summer born / autumn born they are all individuals.

Yes they are all individuals but excluding some children from the chance to learn what is being taught to their peers while they are sent off with a TA to do something else is hardly helpful.

As the mum of 2 summer borns reading reports of how educationally disadvantaged children born in the summer months are I often wonder how much influence lower expectations/less terms in school/withdrawal by TAs plays on attainment