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.

My dd's class was set from 6 weeks into reception. We were told that they were very fluid and children would move in and out but they didn't really occasionally a couple would move but overall they stayed the same throughout the infants.
When they were first set the groups were ants, bears, cats and dogs didn't take a genius to work out.

When my dc were in the infants school, all the classes were divided up into about 5 groups which sat on their respective tables for numeracy and literacy mainly, I think.

Most of the classes followed the same pattern of colours and in the same order - red, orange, yellow, blue and green. Parents and children cottoned on pretty quickly to the hierarchy of the groups.

I remember a few maverick teachers who threw everyone by naming their groups after birds and animals!

Year 1 = tables of 6 named after animals. This was streaming as they sat at the same table for all subjects.

Year 2 = different tables of 6 for literacy, reading and maths named after shapes, punctuation marks and colors.

Year 3 = proper differentiated work but DC seems to have regular partners in each of the disciplines.

DC seems aware of her relative position which means I'm aware but I'm not sure that all parents are aware.

I've yet to come across a primary school that doesn't group children by ability, within the class, for at least a few lessons like English and Maths.

I have a friend who's really concerned about this because her DS is in the phonics group with "the foreign kids" ie the token Polish and Chinese children in the class.

When her DS listed who's in the group, my DS is amongst them (almost to my relief) IMO some children just need things at a slower rate and need to have the foundations set down before they can build on them. She's happy with this (for now) but I can see that it really bothers her that her son is in the "bottom" set.

DCs use top middle and bottom table to parents, they know we are far too dim to remember red, blur,green etc.

See we are even too dim to spell blue

Our school now let the children choose the level of homework they do. They call it the chilli challenge. Green chilli - should be manageable by all. Orange chilli - harder level and red chilli - the highest. They have had different chilli questions for both english and maths already. I believe it has been proven in sat results that the children who challenge themselves go on to get better results.

Quite refreshing and DD enjoyed her red chilli maths homework this week.

There are different groups for reading, but not anything else at DS's school (as far as I'm aware). He's in P2, but I do know they start streaming maths from P3 onwards. DS is certainly aware which groups are the 'highest', although they do give them animal names.

Personally, I think it's a good thing especially for reading in the early years. They all start at such different levels, with some already knowing how to read before starting and others not knowing any of the letter sounds. It makes sense for each child to be able to learn at their own pace.

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.

This is how it works at DS's school. They try hard to balance the classes according to gender/ability/personality, so no one class is particularly top heavy with any group. It has worked fairly well so far.

Always makes me laugh that teachers try to "disguise" it....in our school it's rainbow colours.....needless to say red is a lower set than Purple!

I am sure all kids are streamed from about year 1 to some extent. We were at school - four groups. Clever table, second cleverest, silly table, second silliest. That may not be what the teacher called the tables but all the kids knew them by those names! I helped out at DSs year 1. The groups were called after vegetables so not so easy to distinguish. When allocating pairs for IT the teacher was saying "one broccoli with one onion" and I commented that two broccoli's had sat together. She said -"oh that's ok just don't let two onions sit together"!!!!

Love the chilli homework

Technically speaking, there are some quite different things being used interchangeably here -

Streaming = picking out the layers by ability, and teaching them as a separate class for all their subjects. It is pretty rare, and doesn't allow for much mobility between classes, or for any variation in ability - so you might be brilliant at maths but struggle with English, and end up in the top stream where you find the class goes too fast in English. Similarly you might be in a low stream because you struggle with one subject, but then your other subjects aren't challenging you.

Setting = picking out the layers by ability in that subject, and teaching them separately for that, eg for maths, but having mixed ability classes for other subjects. My secondary school worked on ability sets for maths and foreign languages pretty much from the start, but kept mixed classes for other subjects until a couple of years in.

Differentiation = making sure children get work which suits their current abilities, but not separating them out into classes on the basis of it. They mght be working in ability groups for some subjects, or have slightly different homework, or be on a different level of the reading scheme. That's what is 'normal' in primary schools.

Some schools are better than others at making that non-judgemental, but children pick up pretty fast anyway on whether they are on the tricky books and sums, or not.

DD is streamed across her year group for mental maths & phonics.

The other subjects are done by ability.

DS (yr5) is streamed for maths across the whole year (mental or otherwise!) as apparently there is a massive divide between lowest & highest ability. The rest is ability tables.

Literacy and maths are steamed in the dd's school, it works very well as some of the classes are mixed classes ( year 3 and 4 in dd2s class ) so are working at different levels.

sets here I believe. In Yr1 seem to have sets for maths and english, in yr2 seem to have sets for maths, writing and group reading. might have general groups too but I think they tend to just mix them up rather than have particular other groups so the teacher would pick groups based on what they were doing and what seemed appropriate or getting children who don't normally work together to mix etc.

I should also say that they are streamed in class as well for all subjects (maths literacy, phonics etc) however the chilli challenge is implemented in class too and all groups are given all 3 levels of questions and they choose what level they want to do. If a child consistently choose a level that is too easy, the teacher has a word and encourages them to choose a harder level.

hersetta247, never heard of the chilli challenge method. That sounds great. There would be the reassurance that there was a level for you, but awareness rather than pressure to keep going, not to rest on your laurels for too long!

i'm in ireland and we have the orange table yellow table going on. What do people expect. It's better than tolden dayyz imo.

Is it likely that in Reception, even a group of only 15 would be "streamed" according to their abilities? Just wondering what to expect really - the school haven't really been very forthcoming with information about what they're up to, timescales of things, what they'll be learning over the term etc.

If a teacher is going to split a class into smaller groups, what other criteria would they use other than ability?

Interesting that at DC's school they use a method that I don't think is mentioned here - flexible differentiation within the class.

Broadly speaking the whole class is taught together and then they are given work at a variety of levels and can normally choose which level(s) they wish to tackle -with some guidance from teacher if they feel the child is not pushing themselves enough or choosing something too difficult.

DD really likes this approach - e.g. she is very strong in some areas of maths but not so much in others, so when she is not feeling confident she can choose to do "easier" work (and then sometimes feels she can do the higher level work as well), in a way she wouldn't be able to if they had prescribed groups.

louise In my experience, the teacher will be working to get to know the children and work out what they already know, and most likely 'trying things out' with them to assess that. But it will be extremely low key and your child will not even realise that it's happening. Then they will differentiate work so that children are doing things which are at a suitable level for them.

The aim at this stage isn't to separate out 'high flyers' and hothouse them, but to keep them interested and not bored while the teacher makes sure the ones who don't yet have a grounding in that subject get focus and attention.

Sometimes she'll maybe have one table working on the worksheet on their own, while she goes through it with another table.

The area where parents mostly notice that the children are doing different things will be reading schemes - which is why they get so much discussion amongst parents, either the competitive kind or the worried kind.

redsky I really like that idea - children are capable of feeling so much more 'ownership' of their learning if they feel they can make choices.

what you are talking about is differentiation.

What is means is that each child is taught at the level they are at,

so take addition in maths.
One child can add double figures up to 100
Another child in same class is still struggling with number bonds to 10.

Good practice is that the teacher teaches the child where they are. There is no benefit to either if these children to sit through a whole class lesson about adding numbers to 20. Too hard for one child and too easy for the other. So the teacher should be giving them work at their level.

It happens from the minute the children start school. As they go up the school it is more organised, hence red group getting different homework to blue group.