ds1 is a square - what's that all about?

[yossa]

ds1 (in reception since september) came home on friday and said he is a square, along with some other children in his class. Me thinks this smells of streaming as they are all different shapes. How would the teacher be likely to react if i asked - and does anyone know if a square is likely to be a good thing or not in complarison to other shapes such as circles and triangles - seems bizarre!! Am i on the right track or is it more likely to be completely random?

Dd1 used to come home and explain the whole class set up including timetables etc!
She is in Green group and dd2 is a hedgehog .Dd1 wants to know whether dd2 is isn the top group or not , I think she is in the middle group.

It appears (DD has told me) that on Thursdays her year 1 class is mixed with the other two classes. She goes to one of the other rooms for maths and stays in her romm for English. This is all accordingt to her say.

I have asssumed that this is ability grouping. I would be quite surprised if it isn't. Don't have a problem. I am pleased they have assessed her accurately and are teaching her appropriately to her ability.

Oh and my year 5 class. Triangles are the top group, squares are the middle group and circles are the lower group. {smile] Of course they are differeent for English and have Englishy names not maths names (shapes)

Hand on heart though, I'm so relieved he's not dyslexic like ds1 that I really don't care. He seems fine to me.

Based on pure personal observations - is it just me or do the girls seem more aware of 'where' they are in a group and who is top and bottom etc?
I remember when they were doing KS1 SATS, ds and his mates had no idea and all the girls were coming out full of importance saying ''we just had an exam'' !

dd's Yr1 class has been arranged like this since October half term - the table names and mix of kids changes each half term. I get a sense of the ability basis by the other children on the table and listening to reading. However it can vary and children develop during the year. The actual groupings may also be adjusted to position certain children specifically relative to the teacher/board if a child has hearing, sight or attention problems, for example, and to integrate newcomers.

By the time they get to secondary they can all tell you (to within about 10%) of 'where' they are in a class, and this is without us giving them grades!

Girls are more 'bovvered' about it. The top end boys are 'bovvered', lower end boys pretend not to be 'bovvered', but crow like hell when they do well

Got to love 'em!

Reception groups are by no means indicative of a child's long term ability - hence the fluidity

ds1, now in year 3 does not sit with the same group as he did in Reception

CECE- My dd1 class used to do this.Green and red groups from both classes in one room and Blu and Orange groups in the other room for English and Maths.

We have 'colour' groups.

I asked about it at one parents evening but the teachers are vague about what this really means or where the child is at in comparison to the class. I got the impression it was meaningful to the teacher but we were not supposed to be in on it so I'm none the wiser.

I wish they were more forthcoming because our input is asked for often enough when it comes to homework and so on. I do understand that a grouping system of some sort is probably necessary though.

DS1 was gloriously oblivious of all this until the end of yr1 (when he was 6).

DS2 had it all well sussed out within the first term of reception

In my class the circles are the lowest grp as they go round and round but never get anywhere - terrible iknow but it helps me remember the grp names!The rest go up according to number of sides - youve got to be pretty clever to draw a pentagon!! So on my system squares are ok!!

PMSL I thought you were complaining that the other children thought your son was boring and swattish!

Yes, all my children have been through bizarrely named groups - I particularly liked it when dd was in "cottages" (as opposed to flats and a couple of others I forget). If they are streamed, you can soon tell. It was never stated as such, but I watched ds1 rise from the middle of the class to the top over 2 years - always working out by who was on his table for Maths and English.

often the group names are linked to a topic the class is doing, not something to confuse the parents. Some teachers change them every term or even half term.

missmapp - that is the same reason my lower group are called cirles!

Squares - nice solid stedy shape - middles

triangle - pointing to the sky - tops!

The top reading group in DS2's Y1 class are Leopards, while the not-yet-really-reading group are Elephants. In DS1's Y3 class they used to be grouped for Literacy into Paragraphs, Sentences. Words and Letters!

My children's school has just moved to animal names for classes (very confusing IMO) and then they have all sorts of names for their groups - dd's are simple, just colours, which I think is for spelling (dd objects to not being in the top group - pretty obvious for spelling as the different groups have more or less words to learn) ds's groups are called after authors, which is a bit of a mouthful, and then I think he has shapes for numeracy. this term he has moved to the top group for spelling (this is weird as he has just been assessed as dyslexic and will get them all wildly wrong if we don't sit on him and get him to basically learn the spelling by heart - he told me the other day that he was good at spelling because of his dyslexia!) and down a group in maths, which again is a bit odd as that's his strong point. So maybe it's a bit random. who knows, once they get into the junior bit of the school you can't talk to the teachers anyway, so I have no real idea what goes on.

DD's have been in various groupings througout primary - don't see a problem with it myself. As Twiglett said (I think!) how could they work at the right pace for individuals if they didn't group? There are so many of them.

DD (Yr 1) is an octagon (numeracy) and a dog (literacy). Of course she knows, as others say, who is good at what.

(Octagon sounds good tho if we are thinking number of sides+degree of cleverness, yeah? Unless there's a dodecagons set or something ).

Lol at MI's DD being in elvis. Yay!

Agree with Twig about need for some sort of setting, ability range otherwise so huge and unmanageable.

The squares are the top group in my children's primary school.

The other strange names for sets include insects - I thought it a bit bizarre that bees were the bottom group for spelling...