Any teacher's opinions on splitting this class/mixing year groups?

[schoolingquery]

Name changed for this.
We received a whole school communication yesterday titled 'Class arrangements for September 2022". All parents naively opened it thinking it would be the details of which teacher would have which year group next year. However, it was a (very brief) letter highlighting the requirement to lose a member of the teaching staff next year due to low class numbers and therefore funding. One of the classes will be split between two other year groups, and it's my DC's class being split. It's a small school which, for various reasons, has had very low intake numbers in recent years. For full disclosure, there was never a nursery until around 18 months ago, when they started offering nursery places but these are part of an EYFS class with Reception.

These are the details for next year:
EYFS - 30 places inc nursery
Y1 - 19 children
Y2 - 20 children
Y3/4 - 24 children (all 17 of this year's Y2 children, plus 7 of this year's Y3 children)
Y4/5 - 25 children - (all 16 of this year's Y4 children, plus 9 of this year's Y3 children)
Y6 - 30 children

My concern in the way the current Y3 children have been split, which is on DOB. There has been no consideration to the additional needs of some children, the social and emotional needs of all of them, friendship groups or ability.
The split and mixed year groups will happen regardless, it is evident it is a financial decision, but is DOB the best way to go about this? For such small class numbers, is it that difficult to assess each child and make a decision on each individual?
It's a situation where you cannot please everybody, but there is uproar as there are a number of children who will absolutely not cope going into the older class just because they are the oldest, and a number of children who could probably cope well in the older class but are going into the younger class with no real friends from their current class.

If you are a teacher/senior leader/headteacher, how would you have gone about this?

At least splitting by date of birth means there are no arguments, they either are or are not! Otherwise you get the case where Billie's parents argue they must be with Fred because they are the best of friends and Fred's parents are equally insistent that Fred should be nowhere near Billie as they hate each other! ( which happens every year!)

Perhaps they did look by need, decided that actually that was a pretty close to how it would split by DOB, so did it that way? Absolutely agree with spanieleyes that it saves a lot of arguments.

my kids school do this in the y3-6 bucket (yr3 class y3/4 class y4 class then the same for y5, y5/6, y6). it's ostensibly done on age only but there is a determined under the counter operation waged by some parents each year to move kids about for various reasons. It is occasionally successful! So I'd have a go if you think that you have a good reason.

my son's school did this for a single intake reception and a joint y1/2 class as the numbers didn't work. They did it by DOB, but I could see exactly why they picked the cut off they did as it completely worked at that age. Everyone was fine with it.
But by the end of the year some of the Y1's still in reception would register and then just pop next door for lessons as they had matured. Sort of makes a mockery of the whole thing but there you go....

I would be annoyed if I felt my DC is not in the right group. I have twins, so same DOB obviously: one would fit in the mixed class of higher age, the other one with the younger class. Age is definitely not everything!
Doing it this way is lazy at best, cowardly at worst. School is supposed to work in the best interest of the children, not do things to avoid conflict with parents.

My godsons school has split classes he is going into year 5 and the baby of the year but the split has been done academically and therefore he is going into the year 5/6 class as opposed to the year 4/5.
Academically he may be ready but socially and emotionally I think it's a recipe for disaster he will have just turned 9 (end of august baby) and will be in a class with 11 year olds (couple of the older children in year 6 will be 11 by the middle of September)!

I think that they picked DOB because they don't want complaints when parents are offended that their child isn't in the older class (some will think older class= more academic )

I agree that social maturity is a factor and DOB js a simplistic measure.

The only other way to do it without prejudice is names in a hat. At least with DOB the decision is clear and no accusations can be made, either overtly or covertly, of favouritism or collusion.

And believe me, they would be made. Some by muttering at the school gate and others by demands to governing bodies, OFSTED, the local MP, the Queen, it would lead to bitter and acrimonious disputes and accusations for years to come.

Unfortunately it's the only fair route!
Tbh, children 'group' differently for every strand of every subject in the curriculum. Teachers plan in a needs led way so leave it upto the professionals and trust that your children have social time together to maintain friends. Its a good opportunity for new relationships and please remember there are 100's of nuances behind the scenes that you are not aware of. Teachers know what they are doing, its understandable to be concerned but let them get on with the business of running the school.

Just adding that DOB is how I would do it too and have done in the past.

DOB removes any room for parents to think they can influence or change class allocations.

What seems an easy fix to a parent is often a far more complex decision behind the scenes in terms of maturity, friendship etc. It's easier to split on DOB.

They won’t be doing this for fun. DOB is the simplest method and easier to justify (but doesn’t mean parents will be happy)

Even in a normal class there will probably be a range of ability that spans about 2 years based on age based ability

Teacher here. I think they've done it the fairest way. Mixed year groups are becoming more common.

They did this at my sons school as there were a few troublesome boys and they put them in the class of a teacher that puts up with no nonsense - it's the end of the year after the change those boys are quite nice kids now and it worked very well.
The school did ask for names of 3 best friends so people were put into classes where they knew at least 1/2 children from their friendship group which I think is best

I also think this is the fairest way. There will be a couple of kids who are academically and socially advanced and would benefit from older class, and a number of obvious candidates for the younger class but in the middle would be the majority of kids whose parents will get upset if they get the 'wrong class' (in their opinion and it will generally be that everyone wants the older class). If you really want the younger class for your child OP then you could request it and likely there is another child they could ask parent if they'd be happy to swap place in younger class.

If it's the older class you want, get over it!

As a parent of a young in the year but academically bright child I was initially totally against this, but then thought about how the slightly more relaxed nature would help. Given the numbers, it will no doubt continue and I’d also rather my child not “repeat” yr 6, so if there is a future yr4/5 and yr5/6 split a younger year 5 would be with yr4 which is preferable to me.

I’d not be happy with split classes unless it was a guaranteed 15 kids entry and a thought out structure. There was a school near us that often had to use split classes due to number of pupils and it was possible that you’d end up in weird split year combinations as they could have up to 30 admitted each year, but numbers often around 20 in a year. Although it was a lovely school, it was crossed off my list of consideration because of the potential of mixed year classes and uncertainty of funding.

I had this when I was in primary and hated it to be honest. I was a clever summer born suck with the year below but then suddenly had to rejoin year 4 when most of the class had been together and I remember it being quite challenging friendship wise.