How would you split these classes?

[HouseAnxiety]

Parents/teachers...

I'm a KS1 Co-ordinator and I need your help :D
We have a 45 pupil intake per year group. In KS1, the children are arranged in a Y1, Y1/2 and Y2 class. At the moment, we are lucky enough to have 4 teachers in the morning so the Y1/2 class get taught separately for maths/english in the mornings. Unfortunately, due to budget cuts, this set up will end and we'll be back to 3 classes in Sept.
Our layout is as follows:
Y1: large classroom with access to outdoor area
Y1/2: two smaller classrooms separated by a door, one side set up for play based learning with water tray etc. Role play areas in both.
Y2: Large classroom with role play area.
Our F2 setting is very play based/child initiated and Y1 is seen as the transitional year (very play based for Autumn term).

I would like to ask your opinions on how to split the classes in Sept. Teachers or TAs with experience, what has worked/not worked in your opinion? Parents, how would you feel with the set up? What is your experience as a parent?

There are a few different ideas...
1: 3 x Y1/2 classes - my concerns are delivering a very challenging curriculum with children just out of F2. Also, I don't want the Y1s to miss out on a gentle transition.
2: Stay with Y1, Y1/2 and Y2 classes - classrooms are already set up for this arrangement - but how do we split the children?

My thoughts are to put 15 middle - higher ability children in mixed along with 15 mixed Y2s.

Would you hate this as a parent?

God that was long - sorry!

My very young child in the year child never needed a confidence boost of being the eldest! Honestly she never knew who the eldest were!!!! She was bright, articulate and full of confidence. She was with lots of other bright Summer borns - 4 of whom were Oxbridge, others did medicine and other sought after degrees. The teachers understood assessment and progress and taught the bright children appropriately and stretched them, whatever their birth date! Why do young children in the year get stereotyped as babies! Schools should not stereotype children. Would you put all the Send children in one class? Or how about all the shorter ones so they blend in better with the younger children?

Mix the years - all classes y1/2 with a mix of abilities and personalities and sexes. Who can complain about that? Then they will all be treated the same. It means all your teachers will have to differentiate (a lot) and do it well. Another idea: expand the PAN to 60. My DDs old infant school expanded to 90 and is now going to 120 as the village expands. I am so glad my summer borns were treated as individuals and not labelled or taught in a way that took account of their birth dates.

My DS (now grammar but was L6 in y6) got a huge amount of being the eldest in a mixed y1/2 class despite normally being the youngest. Hes an articulate, top level, contained, quiet, reliable, gentle character and in infants, the louder pushy kids usually dominated. I never worried about academic achievement at all because I knew the teachers would differentiate in which ever class

Secondly ime the top end of year 1 will actually be better than the bottom of year 2, which I don't think is brilliant

I agree with this. You run the risk of having the youngest half of a class generally more able than the oldest in a split by ability.

If split by academic ability, I don't think i'd be happy with the potential age difference of dc in the same class tbh. If an August born Year 1 ended up in the same class as a September born Year 2 then there's nearly a 2 year age gap there...that's pretty huge in terms of social development/maturity, even if they are evenly matched academically.

It was for that exact reason that we didn't send ds1 to our catchment primary - because they had a completely mixed nursery and Reception class. So they'd be putting just turned 3 year olds into the same class as 5 year olds which seemed like madness to me.

I would far rather the classes were split by age. So the youngest 2/3 of the year 1 class together, then the oldest 1/3 of Year 1s and the youngest 1/3 of year 2's, then the oldest 2/3 of the Year 2's together.

If an August born Year 1 ended up in the same class as a September born Year 2 then there's nearly a 2 year age gap there

In fact, the more I think about this, the more I think i'd be really unhappy in this being a possibility.

My ds's have a 2 year 3 month age gap between them..so only 4 months more than the 'potential' age gap you face, within a class, if you split by ability.

The difference between my two emotionally and socially is huge. I would be very upset at ds1 ending up in a class with dc 2 years younger than him (regardless of academics) and just as unhappy (worried?) if ds2 was put into a class of those up to 2 years older.

I like the idea of just splitting by age. So eldest 1/3 in one class, middle aged 1/3 in middle class, youngest 1/3 in last class. The classes will still be mixed ability and the parents will be less likely to wrangle over placement as you can't argue the toss about birth order! You could potentially make the youngest class slightly smaller?