Whole class maths - Yrs 3-5

[bluesnowdog]

Our school has just scrapped maths sets in Years 3 to 5, so the class is taught as a whole, with the children able to freely chose one of three question levels as they see fit. My son was top set maths, is choosing the hardest levels, but there is no scope to go further. Historically children could go further with the curriculum, have extension classes etc, this is no more! Does anyone else have whole class maths, and a child that used to be top set, and any views on how they are finding it, I worry that boredom is setting in as they can no longer move on if they have grasped a concept fully.

I think the mastery concept is sometimes either badly taught or badly explained to parents.
Badly taught here. Their idea of mastery is to give them sums with more digits. No no no.

I had understood that the research indicated that setting did have marginal positive impact for the most able, but this was outweighed by larger negative effects for all other ability groups, so the overall impact at a cohort level was negative?

That has been one of the reasons why we have worked so hard as an individual school to really focus on challenge for the highly able in each concept [not across the subject as a whole - the challenge task we always offer is available to whoever needs it in the context of an individual lesson, not to a selected group of 'generally able mathematicians], to try to get the benefiots of non-setting with as few disadvantages as we could manage.

i qualify my comment again with the proviso that our approach works for the 'generally able primary mathematicians' - the 1 in 10 type level fo giftedness, the old 'top set', rather than the 1 in 100 who might be a single outlier in a 3-4 form primary, or the 1 in 1000 who might come along every once in a few school generations in an average sized primary.

That is indeed badly taught catkind.

lowdoor

irvine trust me, L6 really wasn't all that. There really wasn't anything remotely complex or challenging on it for upper ks2 highly able dc.

In a school that interprets the nc as everyone doing the same, and interprets stretching able dc as 'do the same thing in 46 ways', then granted L6 would be preferable for typical top set. But it really didn't offer anything for the most able, it was a glass ceiling for them as much as mastery is. If it was still in place then for dc like yours at a school that aren't even trying the excuse would just be 'but we are teaching l6, and we aren't allowed to go outside or beyond that', instead of the nc excuse you are getting.

Yeah, I totally agree, Lurked.
Totally forgot the fact that this was happening from way before new NC and all those threads about same problems!

It's just a shame schools that do try don't get any recognition for it, and even more of a shame that nothing can be openly recorded so parents can choose a school accordingly. Sats, GCSEs and progress really say nothing about what offer for the most able.

Just to reiterate, but as someone living in a country where we do not do "ability tables" for maths:

It leads to significantly higher maths attainment overall IME, but there are some downsides.

For one, parents are more likely to have to do extra work at home (also, you get more tutoring). The weaker kids will have to do extra practice of basics with parents to keep up to the baseline. The kids with a high level, meanwhile, will not have the same level of opportunity to do extension stuff at school, so parents will have to do this themselves (hence my suggestion to get workbooks from WH Smith and get cracking at home).

The other thing about whole-class teaching styles is that you will have to give up on the fantasy of 100% inclusion and accept that the bottom few-percent of children will have to have a special-needs stream and do their maths in a separate class. Some kids will not keep up with the class no matter how much extra practice they get.

It kind of sucks, but all in all I prefer it to the hitherto English system of putting "less able" (often simply summer-born kids, or from less middle-class families) into "lower ability tables," giving them easier work and letting them bump along the bottom, drifting further and further behind the more privileged kids, until they collapse into bottom sets at secondary school.

The important thing to remember that managing a spread of different attainment levels is a perennial and unsolvable problem in education. There is literally no way to do things which does not involve some trade-offs, downsides and negatives. Whole-class mastery teaching involves the downsides I describe here, yet overall I think it is the "least bad" option. The crucial thing, as a parent, is to know how to handle the downsides for your child.

You don’t need sets or ability tables to provide appropriate challenging work for children

Not absolutely, of course. I would be very surprised if there were not some element of trade-off, however. I don't think there is such a thing as a perfect way to handle "spread" in attainment level.

I think we can get hung up on terminology based on 'seating arrangements' - such as 'ability tables' - when discussing meeting the needs of all children.

Wherever the children sit - mixed ability, in fluid or fixed ability tables - arrangements that always give certain children certain input / tasks and other children different ones is a problem, because it suggests that some children find 'Maths as a whole subject' difficult and others find 'Maths as a whole' easy, rather than admitting that day by day, depending on the area of the subject being taught, children's performance / understanding will differ. Early setting in primary is a particularly rigid example of this, because it puts a physical barrier of the classroom wall between those accessing different levels of input / task on a given day, and as well as the 'general ceiling' of the primary Maths curriculum, it also puts in a set of 'intermediate ceilings' between groups, which may artificially distinguish between children of virtually identical ability, or prevent a child with specific gifts in one area of Maths but difficulties in another from accessing the work they need on a specific day.

However, all of that said, the education system as a whole does not always cater brilliantly for absolute outliers - those who are at the 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000 level of giftedness or difficulty. The 1 in 100 or lower at the lower end of the ability spectrum will tend to be (though not always)in special schools. Gifted outliers - by which I mean the top 1% or 0.1%, not the 1 in 10 who are simply the top few in any class - are often still in mainstream primaries. It is entirely possible to teach 1 in 10 ability children - the top 10% - within a mixed ability primary class if planned for properly. We would be deceiving ourselves if we say that Maths lessons designed for 'the middle 98%/ middle 99.8%' provide challenge on a daily basis for the 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000 outliers.

To use old levels for clarity, an upper KS2 class might typically contain children working at between level 2 and level 6. That is manageable at a whole class teaching level. However, when you add in outliers, as may happen in some years, and you are working with a class where ability ranges between P6 and at least level 8 (ceiling of level 8 only reached only due to curriculum coverage, not understanding) then specific arrangements will need to be made for the extreme outliers. That doesn't mean that the remainder of the class needs to be divided into rigid sets or ability tables or even daily 'set' differentiated work for 'Red Group'. Just that the absolute outliers need specific provision.

norest I agree in theory but it's fair to say differentiating to that extent takes excellent, experienced teaching. Not to mention the heavier workload.

cant we've been very lucky with schools but the general experience is that quite often schools/teachers won't admit they aren't actually catering to that top 1% and above. And thats what causes the problems. It's either pretence the child isn't that able, ignorance of how their mind works and the fact they already fully understand, or ignorance of how damaging it is to the child. I suppose confusion about the fact learning to a good standard so you know a lot, and naturally very high ability are not remotely the same.

Dd had class teachers at the end of ks2 that joked about the fact they couldn't teach her maths, or even help if she ran into a problem, because she processed things differently to them. And that was fine.

The one teacher we did have problems with early on in primary had the opposite attitude. I'm an adult and I've passed exams, and I think this is quite complex, I needed this explaining, I needed to practice that, I think this method is best and can't follow yours, therefore I am meeting your needs.

I have two outlier children that have been through state primary. It's the pretence that they aren't that able that was most damaging. It's a weird sort of gas-lighting for the child. We learned the ropes with our first, and our second has reaped the benefits. We just think of primary school as a nice place to socialise and learn "life skills." Both seem to float to the top in super-selective, private, London day schools. My heart goes out to those who cannot "cut and run." Private school fees are swinging and many people don't face many good choices as their DC get older.

The alternative with a lot of outliers is that they are pulled from state schools and home educated. Not through choice but because the parents feel there is no other choice.

Just to clarify - I haven't said that the top and bottom 1% / 0.1% can't be catered for in state primaries - but the answer FOR THEM is not whole class teaching, despite the likelihood of it being very successful (if well done, with proper use of the genuine challenge resources that are available) for the middle 98% / 99.8%.

I can, and have, willingly gone way above and beyond to try to cater for those genuine outliers, but there will always be lessons that I walk away from and go 'There wasn't enough challenge for X today' or 'I pitched that too high for Y to access, even with 1:1 support. I have come to the conclusion that teaching is one of those jobs where you ALWAYS look back and think 'But I could have done better for A, or B. or C today' - that, however well I plan and teach, I don't simultaneously meet the needs of 30+ children from across the ability spectrum all day, every day, in every subject.

I suppose my definition of success has become 'not failing the same children each time, and not failing anyone systematically or disastrously'....

Wow, I am so happy to read your post, you are an amazing teacher, cant. Your pupils are very lucky.

cant you clearly teach in the same way as dd's primary teachers did, and any parent who took issue with the fact that not every single lesson was perfect for their child would be an entitled fool. And when she had a lesson that didn't really cater to her depth, I certainly didn't consider the teacher as having failed.

We have the same problem, I emailed DD's teacher and he put her name forward for a free Saturday morning maths class at a prep school, which she really enjoys.

This website was introduced by secondary maths teacher noblegiraff
back in the summer. They have done 4 weeks pilot programme and my ds really enjoyed it.

I just realised their site is back up again, and we haven't checked it, but I think it's worth having a look, if interested.

parallel.org.uk/

I agree in theory but it's fair to say differentiating to that extent takes excellent, experienced teaching. Not to mention the heavier workload.

I agree. And at the end of the day, we benefit from good teachers staying in teaching as a long-term career, rather than burning out from sheer exhaustion after a few years, so that teaching becomes a revolving-door profession.

I say that as someone who is a parent and not a teacher (apart from teaching my own kid and teaching a few kids at a weekly Saturday school).

The teacher I’ve met who is excellent at this has been in the job more than 30 years and so far no burn out. It’s possible

A bit of a diversion but I just wanted to canvas opinion on the following maths question,

There are 84 black, blue and red pens in a bag.
There are 6 times as many blue pens as red pens.
There are 4 more black pens than red pens.
How many black pens are there?

What year would you think it appropriate for?

You might get more responses if you start a new thread bear, people usually like a maths puzzle question!

I'd say pretty easy if they've been taught to use that Singapore bar diagram method, but there's a little thinking required. Maybe Y3 for a bright child? Or Y6-7 if you're wanting them to use actual algebra, I don't think it's usually taught before then.
(Disclaimer: not a teacher)

What year has it been set for?

Bear, I think it depends how you want the solution presented.

If you want it presented algebraically
84 = bk + bl +r
bl = 6r
bk = r + 4

and solved by substitution, then it could easily be in secondary.

If you are happy for children to solve it using practical equipment and trial and error, then KS1 (probably no Reception, due to the size of the number 84, though an able Reception mathematician with enough pens and enough time would enjoy the challenge).

A KS2 child might well represent the problem through tabulation, and working systematically through the possibilities, staring with 1 red pen:

Red: 1 Blue: 6 Black: 5 Total = 12 etc

X posted. Bar model method would also work - my fault, as that's not one of my 'natural' personal methods though I teach it all the time!