Mums realising the children are streamed!!

[WipsGlitter]

Chatting with some if the other mums yesterday about homework confusions that had occurred. A lot didn't realise the children were streamed and got different homeworks (only maths I think). Lots of nervous giggling and "what colour is xx on then??"

I thought there were three levels, apparently there are four. I think DS is in the third group, but tbh I'm happy as he was in the lowest group last year.

Oh I've no clue
What year are you talking about ?

Yes, they are in different groups for language and maths at DDs school. I think I was aware of it from year 1 or 2. The teachers don't use the language of top, middle, bottom, they talk about your child, so I can see it would take a while to cotton on.

Streaming is a good thing, would you want your child struggling with work which is too hard? Or bored by work which is too easy? How else are they supposed to cope with 30 children of differing ability in a class.

Erm age 6-7 not sure what that us in English system - y2 I think?

I do think it's better when it's not referred to as top/middle/bottom although the children always know. I remember being in red and orange was the bottom, I was pleased because I didn't like the colour orange so thought it fitting

streaming not necessarily good

Yep, they were set in Reception, pretty early on.
But the tables had colors. Not sure what order they were in tho.
Must admit, I didn't realise the homework was different til quite late on. I knew the reading books were different levels tho.

According to that article it's not good for lower attainers but is better for higher attainers. Surely then just stream the top ~70% out (and I hate to use "top" because it doesn't make them better, but it can be so damaging for a child not to be stretched.) and teach the rest together.

Are you sure you mean streamed, or do you mean given differentiated work?

I'm not sure! What's the difference between streaming and differentiated work!?

The teachers don't call it top, middle, bottom, but dd says it is easy to guess after a while.

Streaming is where kids are split according to ability but are in the same stream for all subjects. Setting is where kids can be in different ability sets for different subjects, so top table for reading but bottom table for maths etc.

Streaming is where children are separated by ability; differentiation is where children are taught together but have some small group work by ability.

For example, my 6yo in a class of 6-7yos has Maths homework this weekend. There's a big worksheet and a note to say to concentrate on the highlighted parts, then the teacher has highlighted the harder or easier bits. And she's added a handwritten note with something else she wants him to do.

So all the children have to do the worksheet and read their book, but inrreality they're all doing very different work.

This has happened since Year 1 in our classes. They had 4 different groups in R based on general ability.

Now ds1 is in Yr 2 they have different groups for literacy and numeracy, based on ability.

That makes sense. I'd be in favour of differentiation, then. Streaming for all subjects seems mad to me. (I wasn't aware of the distinction).

So in Year R my dc were streamed (4 different groups on general ability) and in Year 1 they are set (different group levels possible for literacy and numeracy)?

Ooh we don't ask what colour each other's child is on! That's a BIG no no in our school.

It's hard to know because I don't really know the ins and outs of the classroom. I think they do small group work in small groups (obviously!!) but do some stuff as a whole class. It's less obvious than last year when they sat in their groups.

Differentiation in my school is providing work that matches each child's learning need - not permanent top, middle, bottom groups. E.g. On Monday one group will be sorting numbers so they are working on understanding place value to 99, another group who already understand that will be working on basic column addition and a third group will be introduced to how to cross the tens boundary when doing column addition (so in theory L,M & U work). But the next week is telling the time and different children will require L, M & U work as they have different skills in that area. So that is what I base the week's homework on.

mrsw it will be a big no-no in DS's school too, but some mums were really only cottoning on yesterday!

Not sure its if that's the case as their maths home workbook has the matching coloured dot on it so all the yellows get a yellow dot workbook etc. So it's not different each week.

In DS's class each child has a numeracy group and a literacy group (set but fluid IYSWIM, so subject to change) and a topic group where the teacher deliberately mixes the children up.

It really is very good. The children don't seem to notice.

The DC's school does 'setting' from Y1. So children can change from say, the hardest group in numeracy to a lower phonics group. The same kids seem to end up in each group (DS was always with the same names) but it allows for flexibility.

It always surprises me how little some schools share. Or maybe some parents don't read everything.

My dc don't seem aware of if they are top or bottom set they just know they do things in groups

They are year 1&2

Homework is set for abilities too, ds2 who is clearly top set for reading, spelling and phonics stuff will have harder spellings than ds1 who is likely in one of the lower two groups in his class for these same things

Terracotta turtle I'd say your DC were neither setted nor streamed unless all the brightest children were in the same class and the least able in another, or they moved classrooms for some subjects.

Ours are just differentiated into groups. When they put together the class lists they actively try to balance the range of abilities in each class.