Position in class

[janinlondon]

This may be a completely stupid question, and apologies to anyone who thinks its unimportant/overly competitive/too demanding etc, but do you know where in your child's class your child is positioned for any particular subject? (ie: 3rd out of 25 in terms of reading age, or top 15% of class in maths). Another Mum has asked me if my school do this, and I wondered about what was normal? Not interested in your childrens' actual positions, you understand, just whether you get a report with this sort of info in it?

saadia I wouldn't worry the impression that I getfrom dd class is thatthey sit with their friends.

Something qute unsettling about eyeing up other five year olds and trying to suss where they are ranked.

What matters is that your child makes the progress that they should. It doesn't matter where they are within the class. If they are 'top of the class' and coasting, that is a worry. If they are 'bottom of the class' and making progress that is excellent.

Giving class positions is often very counterproductive to children at all ends of the scale making the progress that they should.

As a teacher as well, agree with MB, not considered good practice in teaching to do ranking.

Ranking is meaningless. A child who is bottom of a bright class might be doing better than a child who is in the middle of a class with children with learning difficulties. I think that national curriuclum levels are much better. It tells you what the child can do in a particular subject. The next teacher then knows what that child needs to work on to progress.

I am just relieved that I have no idea where my son is compared to the rest of the class. He is happy and is progressing nicely with reading. Admitally he is finding hand writing hard at the moment, but very few children fail to learn how to write if they arent disabled.

I agree, of course, that it's meaningless for all sorts of reasons, not least those that Frances5 gives. The rankings that my brother used to get on his secondary school reports were based on exam results and were a snapshot of how he had done in one test, rather than an overall assessment of his progress.

And, anyway, children progress at such different rates in different areas that any ranking is going to be unreliable.

I was surprised that the school would put up lists of children in achievement order, if it's true.

We now grade children on how well they are doing, against the progress we could reasonably expect them to make. If they are ahead of target they get an A, on target gets them a B and dropping below target gets them a C grade.

This is *far more helpful, than Top of class, middle and bottom of class, which is essentially meaningless as a guide to how your children are progressing

From my own (limited) experiences in KS1 I would be surprised if a classroom displayed lists in ability order for all to see.

I can't see how they would know.

O.K. Perhaps no 1 and number 30 are obvious but for instance, each literacy group, each child within that group may have a particular strength and weakness in various literacy activities e.g. spelling, handwriting, writing, reading so unless they test every child in all these areas all the time the lists would be meaningless.

Do pushy mums check in each week to check positions?

I would have thought it would be breaking the data protection act to display positions for children in literacy. It is none of a parent's business how other children in a class are progressing.

I think children should be encouraged to reach their potential rather than an emphasis on being top. Brains are God given. A child who is top of the class should not be allowed to be complacent and lazy.

My son has targets and I help my son to reach them. None of the children are aware of their targets and really they are just targets for the parents and teachers. We are given an idea of what to work on.

I posted earlier about how the children are 'ranked' in the foundation stage and at key stage 1 at our school. Each class of 30 is divided into 5 colour groups. In reception and Year 1 the children are in these groups for literacy and numeracy. During year 2 there are different groups for literacy and numeracy and there seems to be alot of movement between the groups.

I know that they are ranked in reception as there each group is listed on the appropriate coloured piece of paper on the wall. The children's names are listed non-alphabetically. Ds2's teacher told us at parents evening in november that she would be changing the groups when children moved up from the nursery class in January. She said ds2 was between between the red group(top group) and green group. Now the lists are up and ds2 is first on the green list. There were other lists up relating to targets to be met last term and one pupil's name was always top of the list and she is now top of red group . When DS1 was in reception the lists did change periodically. I do believe ranking is what the lists are about.

In Year 1 they sit on set tables according to the colour group they are in. Above each table there is a mobile with a list of names. Last year when ds1 was in year 1 the names periodically shifted position and I can only think this was to indicate a change in the ranking.

I presume they have the lists up for the teachers benefit to remind them who is in each group. I can't see any other reason. Parents are encouraged to spend 15 minutes in the class each morning at drop-off, if they want to and that is when I have noticed these lists. I am not a pushy parent, and although interested in where the school rank our children don't take that aspect seriously.(especially as it is all on literacy and numeracy).

I am going to question the school about why they use this system. Just waiting for the right moment.Don't want to appear like a pushy parent!

Message withdrawn

Class ranking in nursery or reception is child abuse! Thank God my son has a sane reception teacher.

Children with special needs in his class are dealt with discretely and its not obviously who they are. My son's teacher is professional and she differentiates for each child.

At my son's school all children are considered to be equals. However children have different educational needs.

I would not want my son to attend mimizan's son's school. If they do rank children they obviously don't care about the welfare of their kids. The lower ablity kids self esteem will plummet and the brighter children will become lazy and arrogant.

snorkel, we use historical data for the children but also encorporate the good old fashioned 'Gut reaction' that teachers get so good at! You may have a child on a level 4, who does no work, but it bright and articulate and you think 'Hmm' and nudge the grades a little!

I remember when I was about 8 or 9 we had summer tests and the teacher lined us all up around the edge of the classroom according to how well we had done in the tests (i.e. 1 to 40-odd)

We pretty much know where the DSs are ranked in their classes - you can work it out from the groups they are in, together with what's been said to us at parents' evening etc.

In some Primary schools they are adopting a target teaching system. This is where children are split through ability for Literacy and Numeracy (usually implemented in the morning) from class 1 up to 6. So for instance a class 1 teacher would teach Literacy and Maths at this level, class 2 teacher would teach to this level consequently children are move around for both Literacy and Numeracy. You could therefore have children from a class 5 in a class 6 for Numeracy and a class 2 for Literacy. The whole school works together on say fractions and the child would be placed in a class where they argue 'appropriate teaching for there level' would take place.
My concern is friendship values and special needs.
Anyone else heard of this??

Question - what if group lists are on public display in the classroom, with which child is in each group, but it is not obvious which group is top and which is bottom (eg. named groups like cubes, spheres, cylinders, cubes, pyramids, or dolpins, whales, eels, sharks etc) - would people find this offensive?

I thought the problem wasn't that group lists are displayed (ok), but that within the group the names are in ability order(unacceptable).

I don't have a problem with groups being on display, so that the children can remember which group they are in, and so supply teachers etc know. They are always named imaginatively in my sons' school, but it is obvious from the children which is the top group, if you know what I mean. So the "Leopards" reading group comprises the 5 children who have been reading chapter books since Reception, and the "Elephants" contains the non-readers. And there are various other animal named groups too.

I thought it was more disturbing that they would put the children's names in order in the groups, rather than, say, in alphabetical order.