Can anyone tell me the advtanatges and disadvantages of composite classes?

[Hulababy]

I know very little about them or how they work, but want to do some research into it.

How does a composite class of reception/Y1 children work?

Are there any benefits, and who to?

What are the key disadvantages?

Thank you.

Not sure what the term "composite" means, but I am thinking it means that there is a mix of two years in one group.

My dd was in such a class for a year, and we found it to be fine. It meant that the teacher was only teaching half the class at a time, so there was more one-to-one explaining of new work.
The school choose the children for this class carefully, and only put in those who they knew could be trusted to get on with their own work while the teacher was with the other group.
They all mixed well for other things like pe, and probably due to the excellent teacher, it was a good experience.

This would be mixed year reception/year 1. No choice over children. Would be 14 Y1 and 4 reception.

Initailly reception is seperate for am, doing lit and num work, and integrated for pm sessions. Then will be planning to fully integrate from summer term.

Have to say at present I am not convinced.

potoftea, the teacher was only teaching half the class at a time, but therefore your child only got half her day with a teacher. I think I remember you are a teacher hulababy? As a teacher myself, I too am not convinced.

I would have thought the differences could be more marked by summer rather than less. There is already a huge difference between some of the September-born children and summer children in dd's Year one class and you are potentially talking about a difference of up to 23 months in age which at 4-6 is massive. I suppose the brighter children in the younger year could be more challenged and the less confident among the older ones feel more comfortable. Also it depends how the timetabling works as to whether they can successfully have an integrated afternoon of activities for all from the outset (thinking if it is pe then the 4 could be less independent changing than the 14). Is there a full time TA or 2 ?

DS will be entering a composite class of P1/2 and 3 in August. His P1 class will have 6 children , 2 of whom have already been kept back a year (Jan/Feb birthdays) so he'll be at the younger end of his class and potentially being taught alongside 8 year olds.

Ds cannot hold a pencil, while I imagine the 8 year olds will be aiming for complex story writing. There will be one teacher and one TA.

AFAIK they tackle project and topic work as a class, but the individual exercises are done as a year group. The headteacher takes the individual years out separately for literacy and numeracy work I think.

The school has only 27 pupils in total, so composite is the only way forward for us. I'm curous to see how it works in the older classroom with P4-7 which is a much bigger gap in terms of maturity and ability than the P1-3.

Message withdrawn

our local school is usually; Rec&Yr1, Yrs1&2, Yrs3&4, Yrs5&6.
But this year the reception intake is at the max and the current reception and Yr1 are small, so they are having just Rec in one class and all Yrs1&2 together in another.
Don't know how the mixed classes work yet as ds starts in Sep, but only hear good reports from parents I know with kids at the school.

We have them throughout the school as they keep the reception classes at 2 of 20 children - my ddis in year 2 and has been in a Year 1/2 class - she is actually the oldest and she has blossomed by being in it. Her confidence has grown and I think she quite likes being at the 'top of the class' rather than somewhere in the middle.

They do similar topics but different tasks associated with the topic - they also do a lot of 'cooperative learning' so all children take part equally and progress.

Just our experience so far.

Lizs - there is a teaching assistant but she is split between two classes - Y1 and Y2.

Not convinced by reception/yr1 - my ds2 was in yr1 last year and had to share with reception. He frequently complained of being bored. To be honest I can't see any benefits for the yr1s. I suppose the reception children benefit from having children who know the school, routines etc.

I felt the teacher spent most of her time with reception children and the yr1s were left with the TA - not the best TA in the world .... not many qualifications etc.. My son adored his teacher and progressed wonderfully in reception, however he was bored last year - really bored. He is a young one in the year, but quite bright (don't we all say that!) - they split the year 1s on age and the older ones went with yr2.

In my opinion reception year is special and if at all possible should be a single class. Mind you just looked at the numbers - might be ok with only 4 reception.

my ds1 and dd are in the same class - a P1/2/3 dd is in p1 and ds1 in p3.

Benefits to younger children having older kids to "help" them and "look after" them(especially girls) Also benefits for bright kids who can easily work up a class, and also for children who ares truggling to work to their level with the younger class

What about a brighter child in the Y1 section of the class?

schilke - I could have written your post myself. It was the first year they dicided to change it to R/Y1 and the teacher has admitted it didn't work! DS was extremely bored and at Easter a training teacher took on theY1's and he has been relishing in being stretched more. I don't know what he should know by now, but it isn't as much as he should.

Hi Hula,

Not had experience of them personally but they have them at ds1's school.

The R/Yr1 class has 10 reception with 20 year 1. Everything I have heard from parents has been positive and some parents actively want their children to go in this class. The class teacher reads with each child every day (I don't know she does this as this doesn't happen in any other class!).

We also have a joint Yr1/Yr2 class which has 20 yr1 and 10 yr 2. I haven't really heard any comments re that.

I don't know how they choose which children to put where but I wouldn't imagine they'd put a bright reception child back into a yr1/R class as a yr 1.

As someone else mentioned, single year classes potentially have children that are 12 months apart anyway. By mixing R and Yr 1 for example, you could narrow that gap potentially.

There is also a huge difference in ability in ds1's straight yr1 class with some working at yr2 and 3 level literacy and some probably at a stage somewhere in reception iyswim. So I'd guess that's no different to having a mixed year class.

Anyway, the school has done it for years adn years and it's at the top of the league table with an outstanding ofsted - I know that doesn't tell us anything about every individual but it's an indication, I think, that it's certainly not a complete disaster.

our school has composite classes - there are 90 children in the whole school and they're split into four classes.

I am very happy with it, TBH children differ so much in their ability anyway so it's great to have teachers who feel completely at ease with differentiating the curriculum as a matter of course.

The year R/1 class has two teaching assistants in it as well as the teacher, and children tend to work in small groups, so differentiation isn't hard. Obviously the YR children benefit from having older ones there to show them the ropes, and the Y1 children often benefit from being able to help the younger ones.

I can't really think of any disadvantages TBH as long as the teaching is good!

Last week I observed a lesson in class 4 (Y4, 5 & 6 here) [I'm a parent governor and get to observe lessons a few times a year] and it was really fab to see differentiation in action - done very subtly but effectively - this was a numeracy lesson and exercises were tailored to include bits for all the year groups - the teacher would simply ask a child from a particular year group to answer the question without being obvious about it IYSWIM.

This has been proposed for DD's next year. She will be in the Y1 class. There are only 4 new starters next year - all our private preps here have seen big drops in numbers this year due o fall in birth rate that year - so she would be in the older class with 4 reception age in.

At the moment I am not happy with the proposals. I have 2.5 typed pages of concerns, and the only benefit I see is that of more children to socialise with for the new starters. I can see no benefits for DD's class as it means more children in class (with no FT teaching assistant) and therefore less time per child than they currently have.

It's not what I signe du for when I paided out my money - so not happy.

Just trying to guage thoughts here before DH and I go in to speak with class teacher and/or head this week.

DD1 is just finishing Y1 in a composite class. It has worked very well indeed. She has always been given work that stretches her - and she's bright, doing well, coming top of the class (I would say that, wouldn't I, but her lovely teacher agrees, honestly!) and has a lot of friends of different ages.

At very least there should be dedicated TA's for each age group, the teacher cannot do this alone or with a single pt TA. I'm surprised a private school cannot fill a class tbh, even in a lower birth rate year (fwiw the year below dd which is current Reception was well oversubscribed but that may vary by area), and would be equally unhappy to be a parent of one of the 4 since that hardly makes a sports team or a wide social circle to go forward with. iirc they just put your fees up to introduce the nursery dept. As Reception forms part of Foundation Stage and Year 1 KS1 wouldn't it make more sense to redeploy the nursery resources to accommodate the 4 ?

All the independents here are really badly affected. tHE GIRLS SCHOOLS ESPECIALLY SO.

School has just introduced a preschool starting in September. I personally think the receptions should be merged with them in the afternoons, rather than Y1, as the foundation stage curriculum is the same, whilst Y1 very different. Then, depending on what happens next year they can decide what to do again.

The minimum we will accept is for them to provise a FT TA in the class.

and how interesting that they have left it this late to tell you of their proposal - enrollments can hardly have dropped that much so recently. Doesn't give you time to rethink and give contractural notice, yet they can change the system

Ds1 has really benefitted from a new composite in his school R/Y1 (he was going into Y1 as they changed it). His confidence has come on in leaps and bounds because he's now one of the "older" kids looking after the "littlies" yet he's still getting stretched enough as they split them into different groupings throughout the day/week to do different types of work.

I've been very impressed with it, tbh.

I know Lizs, and really very unlike them. Have been so so impressed with the school since DD started there, and this has really knocked me.

If you've been impressed so far... do you think it might be worth taking on trust that they'll do their utmost to make it work well?

As I say, our school transitioned really well - it had great Ofsteds and there was a whole load of suspicion and dissent when they announced they were going to merge like that. Yet as far as I can see it's been a resounding success and much much better than their previous arrangement (they used to have a mixed Y1/Y2 class - they've now got smaller classes in Y2 and let the Y1s have a longer time learning in a less structured environment).

I do kind of feel that at some point, if you like the school ethos and everything else about the school then you have to take it on trust that they know what they're doing...

I think they are doing purely because of the lwow number of new starters, and to benefit them - and my daughter's class happen to just be the year ahead. I don't think they are doing it to benefit my daughter's class at all if I am onest.

But the school is otherwise wonderful. And we have loved it so far.

I will be following this up this week. I will make an appointment for me and Dh to speak with the head, and send in my letter of concerns prior o that so the head can be prepared about what we want to speak about. I know there are at least two other sets of parents equally concerned as I have managed to speak to them this weekend. I will guage other's reactions tomorrow hopefully.

Hulababy I don't have any actual experience of composite classes but it is one of the reasons we are considering sending our DD privately. I am v surprised that your independant school has introduced this and frankly I would be livid if it happened to me. That said - what are they doing to support the addition of the 4 new ones - is there an additional teaching resource? I am sure other parents feel the same - what are they saying?