Composite classes Scotland.

[Youranus]

I have a daughter currently in primary 1. Her class has around 14 primary ones and 6 primary 2 children. As next year's intake is low , (11 children moving up from pre-school) it will be another composite class. School breaks up for the summer holiday at the end of June. My child will either remain as part of that class or move up to primary 2. When am I likely to be informed which class she'll be in for the next academic year? Would be interested and grateful to hear other parents experiences.

It's all a bit odd really as the age and ability range across the composite class is likely to be very similar to a "normal class" i.e. Normal class has pupils who's birthdays fall between 1 March and 29 Feb (with deferred pupils added so maybe 1 Jan - 29 Feb the following year) Composite class could be 1 August to 31st July or about the same age range (14 months ) as a normal class. The difference being that some pupils would have been in school longer. But you would still have younger children who get it quicker than some older children. Teaching shouldn't really be too much different I wouldn't have thought.

Our LA policy on composites, which I happen to have in front of me after a parent council meeting, says that children should be grouped by age. This is the most sensible imo. As our HT said, if you do it by ability then which ability do you chooser, literacy, numeracy, something else?

Age makes the most sense in terms of emotional development.

Fortunately, all the teachers at our school have plenty of experience and have been teaching here for years. Our local authority does state that ability will be the primary deciding factor in allocating children to classes. My daughter is a fluent reader, so as TheTroubleWithAngels has said, others in her class would probably benefit more from re hearing phonics lessons from the start. I've had the opportunity through volunteering at the school to sit in through some lessons in her class. Although these lessons were hugely beneficial to her this year, I'm not sure she'd gain much from hearing it all again for a second year. I feel she has outgrown the P1 class environment and is ready to hear the new topics and lessons in the p2 classroom.

I did say at the start of the para that at ds' school a probationer wouldn't be given a composite class. I agree though - that was headteacher/SMT's policy as they didn't think it was fair on the probationer or the class

In fact, one year, when ds was looking forward to getting a particular teacher, he ended to getting a probationer 'cos his was the non-composite class and at the last minute, another teacher got seconded away and the head teacher had to do a full scale reshuffle and allocated the experienced teacher to one of the composite classes.

As it happened, the probationer was brilliant! and the teacher who's got seconded away, who'd been ds' teacher the previous year was no great loss

The school was really upset that they couldn't keep the probationer et at the end of the year, even though it had a vacancy.

Talking of being unfair on probationers and nothing to do with primary schools, for those of you who are old enough to remember what ROSLAs were (those kids that were made to stay an extra year at school because of the Raising of the School Leaving Age), my mum and I both started at the same secondary school at the same time - her as a probationer English teacher.

She was given the ROSLA English class

As it happened, because she was an inspirational teacher, she actually got them to enjoy reading (Iirc, Kes and To Kill a Mockingbird). But the school didn't know that - it only cared about the exam fodder kids

I bet those old ROSLA students think back fondly of your Mum now prettybird. Does anyone feel their child is at a disadvantage to the group moved to the older class?

Quite the contrary, my DS does better being in the older group in the younger class. But not quite sure how many times I can keep saying the same thing in different ways - stop fretting, it'll be fine

After mum's accident (which was reported in the Herald) and her death as a result a few years later, I got various messages from people on Facebook (and my dad via the BMA) we have a very destinctive surname saying what a fantastic teacher she'd been and how she'd left them with a lifelong appreciation of English and reading.

Best epitaph possible for a teacher