Ability Groups

[curiousmum32]

My daughter who is 4 an in reception told me today that the class has been divided into a few groups- Moon, Stars, Earth, Sun. And that she is in the star group.
Cant figure out if she's in the top group or in the middle or below. Havent had a chance to ask the teacher and I am not sure if they would tell.
Please advise.
Thank you

mrz, it really doesn't matter, imo. Top group child doing easy option due to laziness just tread along. Or teacher can make sure it won't happen again. If the child is not motivated enough to challenge themselves, that's who they are. Either teacher can pay more attention if they want them to progress even further, or let them be.

teacher sits with a group, ta sits with another group and the rest are on hold unnoticed until work is marked.

Poor practice indeed

Agree with pipi, and I doubt it happens. Teacher/ta sitting with a group does not mean they are fixed there. They can still move around and check how other children are doing.
So, answer to "when do you realise they are taking the easy option" is, when they go around to check how top/second/independent table are doing, or if it went unnoticed during lesson, it's yourself to blame as a teacher, and should make sure they are under your radar to check and monitor next time.

The evidence is that it’s very common practice Irvine

But tbh, the child capable of harder work taking easy option is not a huge issue, as sir says. They know/learned the concept already. So applying it with bigger number or with word problem as a harder option doesn't really make a great challenge anyway. (That is how it seems to work at my ds's school, not sure about others)
So even though they maybe taking easy option, they are still practicing the concept/skill they are learning. And if the child is capable to apply it to other problems/questions, it really doesn't matter, imo.

Say easy work was 2 digit x 2 digit multiplication. If my ds decided to choose normal rather than 5 digit x 5 digit for hard work, that is totally fine, since he can do it anyway. It maybe a challenge for less able children, but for children who are capable, learning the concept and understanding/applying the knowledge is more important, rather than doing the harder work.

I am not happy at all how my ds's school work, but I have lost hopes to expect more personalised work long ago, so quite glad that he can just whizz through with work and do something else, rather than spending whole time doing easy work or helping others.

Bigger numbers isn’t harder work

mrz, I can understand that, but it only tells you about the teacher. I can really see that. Some teachers aren't capable to extend able, they just let them be. They know that those children have no problem achieving expected anyway.

My ds's teacher said he is doing fine, can do well at sats even it happened now, at the parent's eve last months. But still giving him the same work other yr5's are getting. Go figure she isn't interested in extending able.

There are plenty of crap teachers out there, sadly.

I assume you don’t remember the Literacy and Numeracy Strategies then?
Good practice was a teacher sitting with one group (wearing a tiara so the other children knew they couldn’t interrupt) and ignoring the class while they got on with independent work. I remember being criticised by an inspector for attending a child who had vomited over her work, apparently I should have left it until the end of the lesson

Proves nothing except that Ofsted is off its head, which we all knew anyway 😁

You can’t blame teachers for an imposed system

At our school, children are free to choose their assignment from different levels.(maths)
So bottom table child can choose to do hardest if they want/can. So I don't think it actually limit progress. And groups seems very fluid.

When dd1 was in reception the teacher showed me some of her work laughing. They'd been doing adding single and double digits, which she was very good at-could add into the 1000s easily. Very good at maths.
She'd finished the work and the teacher had suggested she made up some sums of her own, thinking she'd like to do some harder ones with three digit sums. Being dd1, who liked to get everything right she played safe.
She had written a whole side of sums which were 101+0=101
102+0 = 102..
The teacher suggested she could try some harder ones, so she wrote:
101+1=102

Otoh ds liked big numbers. So his sums when he made them up tended to be along the lines of:
75 0000000000000 + 2 0000000000000 = 77 0000000000000

Dd2 doesn't like being bored and likes a challenge and doesn't mind being wrong. So her sums were along the lines of 243563+346323=...

They're all equally good at maths.
So I can say that dd1 would have probably done the easiest paper, dd2 would have done the hardest. Ds would have chosen whichever he fancied at the time. If you'd drawn a football at the top of the paper that would probably effect his choice.

In EYFS and infants the groups could be for any number of reasons - ability, random, friendship, etc.

Our KS1 class English and Maths ability groups (different in each subject) are Terrific, Excellent, Marvellous and Awesome. Anyone care to work out the order?

There is a fair bit of movement between them and they can vary lesson on lesson depending on what is being taught.

We also do the whole challenge things for some lessons - average around once a week. 3 or 4 levels and children select their own work from the tasks. They can mix and match where appropriate. They are given some guidelines as to where they personally should consider (normally one of two starting points for them to select from) but can make their own choice. Obviously the teacher and TA do monitor to an extend - we try to ensure some of our time is in monitoring the res, even if working with a group. In our experience of using this for a while now, most children chose a suitable starting level esp after a little guidance occasionally. Those who find it hard to do so are given help to chose the appropriate level. If a child is always trying to start on too low a level they are then encouraged to move higher - we would never just leave a child to make the easy option all the time.

Hula, the one that has the 4 obviously extremely bright children in is the top group. The one that has the 2 children who can't read is the bottom group. If these are all split up it's not an ability grouping. Middle two are not so obvious but I could probably work it out if I cared.

Oh dear! The parents of the children in my class must be tearing their hair out

No, parents of your children would be thinking it's the norm and doesn't really realise how lucky they are, mrz.
It's clear just reading on MN school/teacher do things differently.
It's even clearer from one teacher from another my ds had over the years.

Catkind - well yes, a parent who knows the class could tell. But I was referring to those who thought there was always a system to work out without knowing the children. Though we do like to mix them around a bit and use the names for maths and English ability groups plus a mixed ability for other group work.

Mrz, was that to me? If you're not using consistent groups or not using ability groups, that would be obvious too. Though if you were giving my children actually challenging work on a regular basis I might just be too busy fainting with shock to notice if they were in the Olympic sprint final let alone Lemmings Group.

PS you guys do realise the folks making up group logic above were joking, right?

I'm afraid our school really do use circles/triangles/squares/pentagons/hexagons in that order though, in several different year groups. Even the kids work that one out pretty fast. When we get a teacher who puts circles at the top I'll expect the maths teaching to look up.

PS you guys do realise the folks making up group logic above were joking, right?

I think it's obvious? But our school uses same system of 2d shapes in KS1. It is very obvious from anybody.

In KS2, it's more original. In year3, "bottom" or word equivalent meant top group.It was reverse. Ds thought it was very funny. It was ok for top group child, but not sure how children in actual bottom group felt.

“PS you guys do realise the folks making up group logic above were joking, right? “ unfortunately many parents do believe this rubbish. I’ve been asked many times by friends and family which group is which based on group names

“Mrz, was that to me? “ no it was a general comment.
“If you're not using consistent groups” even worse ...I’m not using groups at all or even group tables!

We don't have any ability grouping in my school.

Thank you everyone for your comments.