more able child paired with less able

[hibbledobble]

I know this is something that happens frequently at school, and has done for a long time. How do people feel about it?

I don't know if it's fair to put children in a quasi - teaching role, rather than having them focus on their own learning. Otoh I know that teachers are stretched.

Mrz, he did explain to me. I just didn't get it, I don't have a maths brain like him! (Also with 6 year olds' vocab.)

TBH, I'm pretty thick when it come to maths. I tried 9 x 9. 10 x 10 - 10 -9 works, but I still don't get why that works! I don't think my ds even remembers about this, but it just stuck in my mind when I realised we are very different people.

I also had to do this a LOT. I don't think it really helped me that much, because I did already understand the mathematical concepts, and the stuff I was explaining to the other children wasn't anything I needed to consolidate - they were usually struggling with quite basic concepts, so I was helping them get up to the level of the regular class, when I was working well above that. I didn't mind doing it, and I was patient and could usually keep working with them on basic ideas, but I wouldn't say it helped me academically. I was already happy to work with others who needed help, as I did it in lots of situations.

however I think it made the other children see me differently. I was more of an 'older sister' figure than an equal peer, and it changed peer relationships. I just became known as someone you could ask for help.

They didn't try to extend my knowledge all that much, just occasionally find bonus work or puzzles or something that I could do; more often I'd read, go to the library, help others, do the filing for the teacher, cut out letters for displays, mark spelling tests...

It didn't happen much with the boys; they used to work on other things when they'd finished, or be given harder stuff, or maybe they tried to get out of it. I learned that it was a good role for me in life, and I do work with struggling students now. But I sometimes get the sense that it was because my own development didn't really matter.

So sometimes it can be good, but it's not invariably good, for all children, and sometimes the bright ones don't necessarily gain as much as people think, if it's used too often.

It would be poor practice for this to be a permanent arrangement but to spend a few minutes explaining new or complex concepts to a partner (or an adult) can be beneficial for everyone.

I remember doing this aged 11, in my first year of secondary school (the helping another child, not the maths). It can work well if used sparingly (so the able child isn't used as a TA) and the same children shouldn't be paired up together all the time.

One of the things I was quite shocked by was that there were children in my year who couldn't read. Having to help a (really disruptive) child who can't read didn't really teach me anything - and I ended up getting a hard time off the teacher because "she didn't appear to have picked much up".

I must point out that I started secondary school in 1989 so it was a while ago.

Yes, I do agree with you mrz. The problem is that many teacher use this as a form of extension/ not to deal with more able.

My ds loves explaining stuff to others. Problem here is a lot of the time what he talk about doesn't make sense to me. I assume it must be same for less able children.

I am a Y6 teacher and have mixed ability pairs. The alternative to this is tables of children at the 'same' ability e.g. Lowest table, middle table, top table and I hate that. It absolutely destroys self esteem of the low attaining as is a constant reminder that they are the worst in the class. The middle attatining children are limited and in many ways so are the tops.

So my children sit mixed ability. They have work suitable to them, differentiated as appropriate. I wouldn't expect the higher attaining child to spend the lesson explaining to the low attaining child but it can benefit the low attaining child to see how the high attaining one works, their thought processes and focus on the task. Everyone is appropriately challenged, all children always get their tasks done, no one spends the lesson entirely helping another child, and the middle attaining children shoot up in ability.

For what it's worth, the new primary curriculum recommends that children are not accelerated through the year groups, and instead develop a deep understanding of their year group content. Maths has three key themes - fluency, problem solving and reasoning. Children who are accelerated often shoot ahead on fluency, but have not done enough reasoning or problem solving. There are some incredibly complex problems which use 2 digit numbers, for example, which can stretch and challenge children in Year 2 without needing jump ahead to Y3,Y4 work etc. A child that cannot explain their answers needs to develop skills in reasoning, not move on to more fluency.

"child that cannot explain their answers"

But what about the child who can explain in their own words, but not simple/slow enough for people with normal brain, do they need to learn to come down to normal people's level, otherwise you classify they don't get it?

I think everyone would agree that it is really important to ensure a child have depth of understanding. It is great that more emphasis is placed on that across the board in education. I think a small amount of explaining can be helpful. But, the issue arises where explanation is relied on too heavily as the extension activity for more able children. Sadly, it seems to be used too often as a way of keeping the able children occupied and 'extended'.

Practicing verbalizing skills is crucial. But it is a slightly different skill. Although there was one person who said they loved explaining on the board, and are now a teacher, for some children who are more shy that would be excruciating. Some kids can't find their words, or don't choose the right ones. I still can't define the meaning of words very well, even though I have an excellent vocabulary. Like Irvine's son, my understanding is intuitive, and I know how to use them, and I understand them when I read them, if someone gave me a group of words as a fixed choice I would know what would define them best, but my ability to free-recall other words to define words is not great. I have the same problem when explaining concepts to people (which I have to do in my job). I am just not good at giving the most precise explanation, even though I have a very profound understanding of what they are. The words I use to explain, are sometimes (not always) just not ideal for communicating to others. There will also be the children who possibly have very advanced reasoning skills, but are less good at verbal interaction. Again, encouraging them to do some explanation is a good thing. But, it does not solve the problem of extension and challenge to very able kids. As some teachers have said, used correctly, and as a small part of extension great, but not great for children who get too much. For most kids, it isn't going to inspire them to crave knowledge, understanding and to enhance their thinking. For many kids, it may be worth while, but it will be a laborious and frustrating exercise.

For these kids, who may already HAVE that depth of understanding already. The system assumes that for a certain stage, in a certain year, children don't have that. Unsurprisingly, it works on the core percentage of children in the middle, with an acknowledgement of adjustment and help that is needed for children at the struggling end. At some level, I do understand why the system places most importance on those children at the 'struggling' end of the table, because the impact of not achieving is most detrimental to them. However, it is a shame that in many cases, the state system cannot understand, let alone accommodate the other extreme of children. These kids need more than just explaining as an extension. I think that probably most teachers on here would agree, but clearly the experience of some parents is that their children simply aren't getting that.

I take the point about deepening understanding, but I think this needs to be at an appropriate level. Pairing a wide range of abilities together means that this doesn't seem to be the case. I have heard of children in other schools sent to join the year above for certain classes if they found the work too easy, but my dc's school doesn't seem to do this.

misstic yes I have bought the workbooks for her, but again only at her request, as the ones for her age group were too easy. I facilitate her learning, but she leads it.

She works in the books happily by herself, or asks me to help her. I'm never the one picking them up. Her learning is very much self directed, and I firmly believe that it would be counterproductive to pressure her in any way.

"I have heard of children in other schools sent to join the year above for certain classes if they found the work too easy, but my dc's school doesn't seem to do this."
At least your child's school is getting that right even if you're not happy with everything. Teaching outside of year /setting is considered ineffective in primary according to all the research

Why is that mrz ?

I would have thought that if a child is working at a level of a year group beyond them, then it would be productive.

They don't have to change classes to work at an appropriate level

While at the same time the American research points to skipping a year as being the most effective strategy for extending able/gifted children.

Quite a lot of UK pedagogy seems to be based on an intense disbelief that some children are capable of understanding work well, and at a faster pace than other; that they already have a depth of understanding that is a) sufficient for their age and b) provides a sound basis for progressing forward and that in-class differentiation isn't always the best strategy for allowing these children to do well in school.

I know that there are budget constraints, and that OFSTED isn't a sufficiently subtle instrument to make schools care about these children when there are very few of them anyway. But what really bothers me is that there is a tonne of research done (not in this country because we don't believe in gifted kids but in the US and Australia) and that schools and teachers here don't take the blindest bit of notice.

For very able kids there is definite research - although annoyingly I can't lay my hands on it right now- which shows if they are paired with children who aren't their peers, this has limited benefit for the other children but has no benefit at all for them. None.

My favourite bit of research of all - for all the people who think it's OK for kids to be bored in class and learn to just switch off - is that gifted children actually learned LESS the more they were forced to repeat the subject.

If we ran the NHS like this people would be up in arms. It's like people talking about homeopathy when there's research showing which treatments work.

But it's also worth remembering that research findings vary massively depending on who you are looking at.

In class differentiation does work for probably 99% of the school population. But when you look at the other 1%, or 0.1%, the same results don't necessarily apply. But everyone just shouts at you and tells you that it's fine when it clearly isn't.

The evidence is based on over thirty years data - setting and streaming has a negative impact

BTW most of the data is from American research

What I'd understood is that setting and streaming overall has a negative impact. However, it does benefit the most able. So the decision has to be made that these children will be held back in order that others aren't disadvantaged.

Which, overall, I am fine with if we are being explicit about how it works.
But this is the reason why quite a few able children are, if they have parents who can afford it, taken out of the state system.

What no one is looking at though, mrz, is the specific research about gifted/highly able children. Because they simply wouldn't be saying some of what is said if that were so.

The recommendations are clear: skipping works (up to a point and not for the highly gifted), peer group clustering works, compacting the curriculum, independent higher level study works. Repeating the curriculum in the name of mastery, non-peer pairings, in-class differentiation don't.

Repeating the curriculum in the name of mastery, non-peer pairings, in-class differentiation don't

You make some very interesting points chop

I was held back a yr in primary. Something shifted slightly and I had a borderline birthday so one yr I just stayed behind.

People told me it was because of my age/birthday but that didn't stop me going from thinking I was doing OK to suddenly feeling I was held back cos I was too Stupid to move up.

It was pretty much from that point that I started being refused to do higher level work cos although I'd already completed the text book no one in the class had and I had to wait for them to catch up. It was then I was in the same class as the girl I had to keep helping. We became friends so I helped her of course but as I said I did miss some break times as I'd been disturbed so often I hadn't finished.

So, I was bored, demotivated, even with a second chance to learn the stuff I was patchy on it was just my luck that was the stuff that I was paired with smarter kids on and so received no more assistance on....

I really don't think i did as well as I could have done in school and arbitrary restrictions in the name of remaining inside the year group didn't help.

Here we go. NFER literature review.

"Mixed ability teaching can have a negative impact on high ability pupils' levels of motivation and achievement."

Sorry to hear your experiences Giles. I think the real lesson is that teachers need to look at individual pupils and work out what's actually happening for them, but that's nearly impossible right now.

And this is the research I was trying to find about precisely this issue:

Rogers found more recent research on peer-tutored dyads (high ability student paired with lower achieving student for collaborative learning of set tasks) and like-ability cooperative learn- ing (high ability students provided with cooperative learning tasks to complete jointly). Effects for these options were moderately positive for like-ability coop- erative learning (Arneson & Hoff, 1992; Coleman, Gallagher, & Nelson, 1993; Hollingsworth & Harrison, 1995; Kenny, Archambault, & Hallmark, 1995; Neber, Finsterwald, & Urban, 2001), but null for peer-tutored dyads (Brush, 1997; Carter, Jones, & Rira, 2001; Elmore & Zenus, 1994; Hernandez- Garduno, 1997). Neither the gifted nor other member of the dyad made any academic gain, but the lower achieving dyad member did “act more like a student”— probably not enough of a change to consider this a viable strategy for gifted learners!

So, in short, there is no academic benefit for an able child tutoring another class member; there may be other social gains, but against this, the able child isn't actually learning anything. However, it does save the teacher from having to find actual, differentiated work.

"The evidence on setting and streaming is fairly consistent and has accumulated over at least 30 years of research. The majority of the evidence comes from the USA, and there are few rigorous UK studies. Although there is some variation depending on methods and research design, conclusions on the impact of ability grouping are relatively consistent." Impact -1month progress over the course of a school year.

"There are a number of meta-analyses which indicate that, on average, mastery learning approaches are effective, leading to an additional five months’ progress over the course of a school year compared to traditional approaches."

Chop chop chop the benefit to higher ability children isn't in the setting and streaming. Those taught in mixed ability groupings with appropriate "interventions" make on average 1-2 months more progress

I think that it is worth considering the difference between 'highly able' and 'normally able' children when discussing this. Some authors use a non-linear scale of giftedness, which is probably most helpful at these extremes - so 1 in 10, 1 in 100, 1 in 1000, 1 in 10,0000.

Approaches that work well for a '1 in 10' level for giftedness child - 3 in every class, the 'top half of the top table' in traditional terms - may well look very different for those that are needed for a 1 in 10,000 child, who are working at a level which a teacher may only see once in a career.

An approach in which a 1 in 10 giftedness child is asked to explain something to, or work with, an average child in the class, may be very successful on occasion in securing their understanding - though not as a continuous thing, and not as an alternative to proper support within the classroom.

However, the 1 in 1000 or 1 in 10,000 child - I have encountered, though not taught, one of the latter - has a different set of needs, and is sufficiently uncommon not to show up in the statistical studies predominantly made up of 'normally able' or 'moderately able' - 1 in 10, 1 in 100 - type children. After all, they are 10 or 100x rarer.

In the case of very highly able children, yes, year acceleration - or more frequently, arrangements to access work closer to their level from many years ahead in the education system - may work better, but these cases are RARE. Ibn the case of the child i know, arrangements were made early in secondary school for the child to access the sixth form maths lessons, and later to be tutored at an individual level by a university academic, though for all other subjects they were simply pushed just over the boundary (being near an age group boundary anyway) into the next yea up.

I think what I am saying is that it can be simultaneously true that for the vast majority of 'normally gifted / moderately gifted' children, year acceleration is not of benefit, and working with a slightly less able peer may work well on occasion, AND that for the much smaller group of very highly gifted children, acceleration may be one part of the solution.