Composite class in large primary school, where the older group is in a transition year

[Y34Class]

Trying to gauge how this will work.

Y3 and 4 at a First School being mixed for next year, there will be 2 classes of Y4, 1 of year 3 and 4 and 1 of Y3, there’s usually 3 classes per year.

Y4 will move up to Middle School next September.

Parents are worrying about how the transition will be handed. My DC will be in the mixed class and I’m also worried.

We’re being promised that the Y4s will still get their residential and their end of school trips and treats, plus they’ll still be able to voted onto school council or as house captains, but these are usually done by all of Y4 together so parents are also worrying that all those jobs will go to children in just the Y4 classes not the mixed.

Will it be ok for that class? I’m concerned that my DC will be held back by the lack of opportunities usually granted to Y4 in a First School. I chose the school because they don’t usually make composite classes.

I'm not 100% negative about it, DC will be with the same teacher they've had this year and they get on well, will be in the same classroom and will be with a small group of their friends but not many.

@Y34Class You are being very generous. I would be furious! Clearly the whole y4 classes will be favoured! How will they organise sport for y4?

So 75 y4 Dc and 45 y3 Dc (to make calculations easy). So 120 dc. So 4 classes with 30 in each class. Y3 and Y4 should be completely mixed to make it fair. This makes teaching a lot more difficult, which is why they have swerved it. Your DC has been relegated to the second division. How have they chosen? Youngest in y4? Friendships? Attainment? Random? Obviously too late for you to leave. The only saving grace might be getting an ace teacher. Are you?

I meant to add: Make sure you get a copy of the y4 curriculum. Don’t accept a hybrid y3 one. Ensure DC learns the y4 curriculum. I would prefer a y4 teacher. Not a repeat of y3.

@TizerorFizz It seems to be a mixture of the youngest and lowest attaining Y4s (5 of the 15 chosen have some form of SN or Medical Issue), and the oldest Y3s.

I know full well the full Y4 classes will do everything and we'll lose out considering there's 60 of them and only 15 of us.

The teacher is ace for the 3/4 class, she's DCs teacher this year and is honestly amazing so thats one thing at least. But I am worried plus the class have been together since Reception so many parents are upset they've been split.

@TizerorFizz We've been told the curriculum for the 3/4 class has been adjusted so that Y4s don't repeat what they did this year and the Y3s still get concepts at their level.

I find it so strange when schools do that as it tends to be the lowest achieving of the older children with the highest achieving of the younger which surely gives you a class where the eldest are mainly SEN children or those who have English as a second language.

Our school have 2 separate combined year groups (1/2 and 4/5) but the classes are as evenly mixed as possible between the 2 year groups

Not an issue here at all. Small schools have just two mixed key stage classes YR -2 and Y3-6. Quite manageable.

Given very tight school budgets and lack of teachers, this maybe the school’s only option.

@LacieLane That is why I'm trying to be ok about it, I'm annoyed and many of the parents are upset they've been split now after 4 years together, some longer as they went to the schools Nursery, but there's not much we can do.

It seems its only our class affected though which wrankles more I think, because the other 2 classes are staying the same as they always have.

In small schools where ALL Dc are in mixed age classes, that’s fine. It not ok to do what the OPs school has done. It’s clearly not great for the 15. It should be mixed classes for everyone. Not picking out 15 as lower achieving/younger. Are they having booster classes for maths and English if they think they are lower achieving? Obviously this is budget driven but they could have 4 mixed age classes. Not one.

I think there should be a respect for the professionals leading the school and have faith in their decision making, unless there are wider issues.

I would check the school website for curriculum progression documents which will help you with seeing expected learning.

Unfortunately people lose faith with poor decision-making that definitely makes 15 children feel discriminated against. This sort of class split used to happen over 50 years ago (to my sister!) and that was in y6 when a group was put with y5s. Selected by age, and in a 11 plus county. My sister did go to grammar but the school gave up on her. Our mum didn’t! One would hope this type of split was in the bin in 2023. The youngest and less academic do not deserve to be segregated.

With falling birth rates and school budgets this is going to happen much more in our Primary Schools, even more schools will close too.

The school won’t have done this for the shits and giggles.

This happened to me at the end of primary I had been in full Reception class the whole way through with an older cohort always in the composite class. Then in year 6 ALL my friends went into a new composite class - they were all younger then me and I was in the new full class.

Utter chaos and carnage for me personally.

Why can't the school mix all the classes up, why have all the SEN and weaker performers in one class? Insane and unfair. Effectively using it to stream the year.

@RandomMess I think thats the issue more than the actual composition. If they'd mixed all the classes together but done it as an older/ability/friendship thing many more would be ok with it.

As it is Class A are getting 5 new classmates, class B are getting 7 and the remaining 15 from Class C will be in with Year 3.

I think DC should have been mixed around earlier. Then less angst in y4.

Have I missed something? Where are the new Dc coming from? Is the PAN 90? 12 new Dc have been admitted? Is this right? So there were 63 Dc. This is presumably about money. Why could the 7 and 5 Dc not be put with y3?

@TizerorFizz Pan is 90, currently 82 in Year 3, so they'll have 2 classes of Y4 with 32-33 in, then a class of Y3 and 4 mixed with 28 (15 Y4, 13 Y3) then 1 class of Y3 which will have around 30-32 in.

Apparently there's only 2 classes of 25 and 22 in current Y2 hence the change for KS2.

I think there were 3 straight year 4 classes of less than 30. The 12 DC aren’t new they were from one of the existing classes, leaving 15 to be mixed with 15 of the year 3s.

Curriculum wise yr 3/4 is one of the easier mixes.

The main issue is that the mixed class won't get the top of the school feeling- I would be more concerned in a primary of them doing this in year 5/6. Curriculum wise year 3/4 , the issue comes from an area like history, where the curriculum should be delivered in a progressive way, so the year 3 children will miss out on the year 3 topics and won't have them in the progressive way the other year 3's have - rotating year 3/4 curriculum used to be common, but thanks to ofsted not as common. Maths and English are spiral curriculum so rotate around the same topic areas each year, so should allow for progression/differentiation.

The classes shouldn't have been left for so long as last year this was predictable to need to happen and having classes the same for so long with no changes was going to be a problem for friendship groups.

@Takeachance18 I think thats the issue the top of school feeling rather than worries about the curriculum, all the teachers teach across their keystage anyway throughout the school, so Y4 teacher takes some Y3 and vice versa, Y1 takes some Y2 etc.

So if y2 and y3 combined there would be 92? So this clearly makes it difficult with 30 for class sizes. They could do 30, 30,32 for y2/3 combined (but 32 would only have to be y3 given the numbers. Then keep 82 in 3 classes for y4. I can see if teachers teach y3/4 they have experience but it’s going to be hard to make the 15 feel like leavers.

On a broader issue, planning has been dreadful. Communication with parents not great. Obviously felling rolls and money is a huge issue. Y2 is half what it should be. I don’t think it’s all birth rate. Where are Dc going?

@TizerorFizz Current Y3 (Septembers Y4) has 82. Current Y2 has 47 so total is 129, PAN is 90 and there's usually 3 classes per year. Current Y3 has 3 classes, current Y2 has 2 classes.

It’s worrying that there are so few in y2 at the moment. Why don’t parents want the school? It must be very short of money?

@TizerorFizz I'm guessing location, it's quite far out of the town centre - about 2 miles from the town centre - and quite far from all 3 of the Middle Schools so even though the catchment goes out quite far they still struggle for numbers as there are First Schools closer to town and the Middle Schools which parents chose over this one due to multiple school runs.

They will be making teachers redundant if things don’t improve. That wilL feel awful too. Not sure there’s much to add but hopefully you might get a new housing estate!!

@TizerorFizz Unfortunately not, oddly it's quite a built up area, very little green space apart from the school itself, but the local area the population is getting older. One of the Middle Schools dropped from 7 form to 5 form recently so I think it'll filter up as well and could be an ongoing problem

The school might even close then. Looks like over provision of places.