Do bright children do better with an able cohort?

[rebus1]

Bit of an academic question really as I'm not really in a position to change anything for a year or so.

DS very bright and is just finishing year 2. According to the school's data the %s of level 3s very low- works out at 2 or 3 per class.

Should I be concerned - does this mean that the expectation for the Y3 classes as a whole next year will be quite low? I realise he will get appropriately differentiated work but I'm concerned he will spend lots of time listening to whole class input that he knows already.

Would he learn more in a school with a higher achieving cohort? I'm thinking faster pace, less need for constant revisiting etc.

Or am I just over worrying- he's only 7 and I can do stuff at home with him.

[rebus1]

It has been really interesting to read all the different povs thank you. I am hoping his new teacher will be able to deal effectively with the huge range of ability that there will be in his class. His previous teachers must have otherwise he wouldn't have done as well as he did in his SATs.

I am also hoping he gets challenged in areas that are not his strengths.

I am a teacher too, and although I do my best to meet all the children's needs it is really hard, and I cannot, hand on heart, say I achieve this all the time.

[rabbitstew]

Well, nobody's perfect! If you never meet particular children's needs, you're doing something wrong, though.

[mrz]

Sorry TheTroubkeWithAngels but I'm having trouble working out what you are actually saying

[mrz]

No I can see your posts perfectly but they seem to be contradictory

[CloserToFiftyThanTwenty]

I think it's helpful to have at least a small group of children within a class or year of a similar ability so that they can work together on certain things eg DS's teacher commented it was nice that she was able to teach a particular book this year as there was a large enough group of able readers to be able to do it with them (she did other books with the other children). And it isn't fun being the class nerd / swot / teacher's pet, if you are one of the only ones who knows the answers to stuff

[bronya]

My recollection of the research is that the only group who did benefit positively from ability grouping was the more able children. That it effectively widened the gap. My experience over years of teaching was that it mattered less in infants and more in juniors. You can teach them at home to make up for it academically but socially they can feel left out if they are not very good at sport or another common interest.

[Lurkedforever1]

Of course the gap will widen because the more able a child is the quicker they learn? What's the alternative, hold them back so we don't risk possibly demoralising the the less able?

[mrz]

The research shows that "bright" pupils taught in ability groups can make one or two months additional progress to children taught in mixed ability groups (effect is seen in maths but evidence less clear in other subjects). Most research is from the U.S. there are few UK studies

[mrz]

"Overall, setting or streaming appears to benefit higher attaining pupils and be detrimental to the learning of mid-range and lower attaining learners. On average, setting or streaming does not appear to be an effective strategy for raising the attainment of disadvantaged pupils, who are more likely to be assigned to lower groups." EEF 2015

[Lurkedforever1]

Agreed thetrouble. I don't like the phrasing on that quote mrsz, it really annoys me and always has. Saying setting is of benefit to high attainers and detrimental to middle and lower attainers isn't exactly truthful, what it should actually say is that disadvantaging high attainers is better for middle and lower abilities. Which strikes me as really unfair, why should what is after all a child have to sacrifice their education for the greater good.

[WhattodowithMum]

Interesting quote mrz. It reminds me of a study about single sex education that concluded single sex was best for girls and coed best for boys! So impossible to create a win/win situation!

[Lurkedforever1]

Agree again trouble. I also really dislike the current trend for measuring how much an individual has been stretched by using either their ks grades/GCSEs or the amount of top grades for the school as a whole. It doesn't tell anyone anything about how individuals have been stretched, unless we're talking outright failing schools. It allows bad methods/ teaching to continue and doesn't allow praise where praise is due for good methods/ teaching. I know nc levels and GCSEs are changing but there will still be a grade system people will still use to judge.

[Tapasfairy]

Whoever made the point about reading groups is spot on, there's no one to do guided reading with when your two/three years ahead! The top readers in the class above are not even at that level....so what happens?

You do one to one reading with teacher...its not the same, you know they are focusing on the children struggling to read. Its just lip service and box ticking, they don't have time to do stretch comprehension and vocab work. (the teacher is not experienced at that level, it's a social nightmare to put you in the class two years ahead) Now if you had three children at that level you could do a group guided reading session.

This is the reality in schools. You can call it lazy, wrong, whatever you like, it's what happens.

[mrz]

Why do guided reading?

[rabbitstew]

Lurkedforever1 - surely it depends what you mean by "disadvantaging"? And what age group you are talking about? Presumably primary school as you are on the Primary Education thread? I think you are suffering from a serious case of hyperbole to say that a very able primary school aged child in a class of children of mixed ability is having to sacrifice their education for the sake of the greater good. If you do actually believe that some children are being sacrificed for the greater good, then you must believe in selective education from the age of 5 or before, because the average-sized primary school is not going to have enough children in it to have a large group of extremely able children to teach, otherwise.

The majority of children in a primary school will be a mix of more and less able, with only a tiny handful of the genuinely gifted, if any at all in some years. I don't think a higher proportion of the more able children will necessarily advantage the minority of children who genuinely are exceptionally able - it might just enable a school to mask a bit better how lazy it is being with the outliers, as it will look like it is doing pretty well by its children because of its cohort. You can't hide in that way if most of the class are less able and one or two children really stand out. So maybe you are really just talking about the above-average who, the research suggests, do not suffer significantly at this age from mixed ability teaching and amongst whom it looks like the OP's child lies.

And finally, there is more than one way to disadvantage a child. Primary school is not solely about academic advancement, but better looked at in the round. You wouldn't want a school getting only the academics right.

[mrz]

Part of the discredited Literacy Strategy that was scrapped almost a decade ago ... Serious question. Why?

[mrz]

You might like this one too the Whattodo
"Studies of targeted interventions for pupils identified as “gifted and talented” are consistent with this finding. They show that high attaining pupils benefit from a range of different kinds of grouping,"

[mrz]

It also addresses TheTroubles concerns
"The evidence on setting and streaming is fairly consistent and has accumulated over at least 30 years of research. Although there is some variation depending on methods and research design, conclusions on the impact of ability grouping are relatively consistent."

[rabbitstew]

And, tbh, having done English Literature A-level, looking at the comprehension questions in the levels 3-5 and level 6 SATs reading papers, I despair at the ridiculously narrow marking schemes and silly questions. There must be more inspiring methods of teaching the genuinely gifted than teaching them how to answer the sorts of questions in those tests, so looking at a school's SATs results is not necessarily going to tell you much about how well they really cater for the genuinely able rather than the accurately and carefully coached.

[mrz]

The marking has been very narrow they had one and only one acceptable answer in mind ...no mark if you added or omitted a single word