Do class mates change every year ?

[CluelessAboutSchool]

Husband and I are in disagreement ( neither of us are from the U.K. ). Our son is going into reception in September. Our school has two classrooms for each year . My husband seems to think that the school keeps the same classmates throughout primary school . That’s what he experienced growing up in Ireland . Anyway, I asked a friend who has children in the school and they swap classes most years. My husband thinks this is unusual but I think this is the norm ?

Some schools mix, some schools stay the same. Both is normal.

We stay the same throughout

Why are you and your husband arguing about something when neither of you can know which arrangement the school has? What purpose does this argument serve? Whichever way is more usual doesn't matter because the school will decide based on their own situation not what everyone else does!

Depends on the school, just ask them. Both are normal if you see what I mean. Even schools where classes basically stay the same will sometimes swap kids around if there’s an issue.

It varies from school to school, and even then a school that normally keeps classes still might need to rearrange a particular year group due to an imbalance of ability/ behaviour/ sexes/ or plain numbers if a few leave from one class.
Ds's first school rearranged each year and I thought it was great, but there was no end of moaning from parents about it

You'll also find that the mix of pupils will change during the time your DC is at the school. When my DS started reception there were 21 boys and 9 girls. Due to families moving out of and in to the area by the time he finished year 6 there were more girls than boys. There was a core group of about 20 children who were there together throughout.

@notsayingmuch not an argument . We are happily disagreeing.

Our school does both. DD1's class was mixed for the first two years but is staying the same for Year 3

No right or wrong answer op

school dependent

As others have said it varies from school to school and even (shock horror) in different years within the same school.

My DC were mixed nearly every year. They both ended up with a wider range of friends than they might otherwise have done as a result.

Wow ! Cool! So it does seem to be a mix !

Your husband thinks one thing
your friend thinks another

* I think this is the norm ?*

so you automatically believe your friend over your husband?

@Togiveandtoreceive My friend works in our school and has two children there so I asked her this morning if she knew for our school.

Ours stays the same, but a couple of children might move if the numbers are unbalanced (we had a lot of children leave from class A, so two children moved into class B to even the numbers up a bit).

They all play together at break time anyway, so it doesn’t make a lot of difference.

kind of relevant to your op 😂

So you literally had your answer straight from someone with direct experience of the school your child is going to!

My husband seems to think that the school keeps the same classmates throughout primary school

but someone at the school with children there AND who works at the school in question no less specifically told you otherwise

I think mixing classes is better than moving just moving two or three children over seems much fairer

My elder kids school changed at headteachers discretion each year so you never knew if it would be changed or not but there were no classes who the same throughout primary (London so some movement in and out if school). Younger sons mixes classes at fixed points which ties in with end of phases so end of Y1 and Y4 classes are mixed. They don't mix at other times and I suppose rely on places being filled pretty promptly mid year if a child leaves to not end up with unbalanced numbers.

To be fair to the op, she said in her very first post that the friend knew they mixed most years.

The question was about whether this was normal or not.

At DS school, they mix once, usually at the end of year 3.

Our classes change every year

The school I am at generally keeps class sets together throughout their time.

However there have been instances of mixing and even splitting up further depending in class behaviour/needs. This year we have 2 year groups being mixed up and 1 being divided into 3 classes of 20. I know this isn't a usual set up in state schools, especially with how short staffed schools are, but we're lucky to have a good amount of part time teachers who class share.

Both of my children attended/are attending infant and junior school with a three class entry - ours are mixed up every year but each child is allowed to choose three children they would like to be with, they usually get one at least with them. It works really well, they kept old friends but made new ones each year.

@Togiveandtoreceive my friend texted me back as I was writing the post lol

To clarify , we know our school mixes. My husband thinks this is odd. I think it’s standard . It seems from this post that it’s a real mix ( no pun intended ) haha

DD is in current reception and 2 form entry. Both of the classes have been mixed for Y1.

Ours mixed, but I think there's no norm here at all. Every school is different.