Mixed year group classes in primary school

[88keys]

My daughter’s primary school informed us just before half-term that they will be mixing years 3 and 4 from September. The class sizes will be over 30, around 33 or 34. My daughter will be year 4 in September. I’m struggling to find any positives here, so would be grateful to know about other people’s experiences! Thank you.

Both my kids had this at various times through primary.
It never did them any harm and both did well.

I think it was a little upsetting for some though because they made friends in different years and were then split up the next year, or when older ones left for high school.

It seemed to work generally though.

The challenge is that the resignation deadline is May so up until that point things can change. I never give out next year class organisation until after the resignation date or risk having to go out again to parents saying things have changed. I understand it’s not ideal but that I suspect is the reason.

All very useful insights, thank you. It is a new thing, the school has not had mixed classes before. We have been researching other options but in many ways that’s even more disruptive. Interested re the Scottish angle where there is a cap on class sizes of mixed year groups. The school haven’t said how they will mix the ages within the 3 classes. Our daughter is an Autumn birthday and also very bright (she’s already found year 3 Maths really easy). We’ll definitely be following up with these helpful questions.

English has a Y3/4 curriculum, not separate year groups. There is some specific Y3 and Y4 vocab but Y3s are perfectly capable of learning the Y4 concepts like determiners.

Our school went mixed for Yr 1&2, due to declining numbers last year. We were told in May it was happening and class size jumped from 18 in reception, to 30 in the Yr 1/2 class.
The children in Yr 1/2 have maths and English/phonics with different teachers according to ability, which means they see others in their year daily.
They cover a rolling 2 year curriculum for other subjects.
It’s not ideal - definitely feel like some of the younger ones are a bit overlooked, though that could be down to class size.
The school are determined to be positive about it, and at the end of the day we don’t really have any choice but to support it. Numbers aren’t going to magically increase, and if we moved to another school there is no guarantee the same won’t happen.

I remember being in a class like that in the 1980s, the equivalent of year 4 and 5 mixed. I never understood why it happened, it might have been an experiment, as no other classes were like that in my time there. Usually we did everything together, with occasional separate activities for each year. Sometimes it meant I did the same activities again the following year, in year 5.

I think my infant school was also quite fluid with year groups,

Mine were mixed after Reception so 1&2, 3&4, 5&6. It meant one year they were the oldest and the following the youngest. It was due to uneven numbers in each year group, so one year might have 18 and the next 37. Three teachers would have been needed to cover 2 separate year groups but by combining they only needed 2. It was never an issue as they differentiated the work by ability not age and my DD is now taking her GCSEs and doing well.

The only reason it is ever done is because there aren’t enough children in single year groups to make full classes of 30, and there isn’t enough money to justify paying for a teacher for eg 18 children and another for 15 in the year below.

I have never ever heard of a school choosing to mix year groups when they have 30 (or multiples of) per year group and can do single classes, which tells you all you need to know! Overall the disadvantages outweigh the advantages, which is not to say some individual children would be absolutely fine and will have done well academically despite it (I am one of those children myself!)

I think mixing 3 and 4 or 5 and 6 is fine, DS had both of those. When he was in the infants Yr1 was split with the older ones going with the Yr 2's and the younger ones staying with Reception. That's ok, but what I think is really hard is a mixed R/Yr1/Yr2 class. What Reception is doing is quite different from Yr1 let alone Yr 2 that I wouldn't have wanted DS in a class that was that mixed, that young, especially not of 30+ kids.

It’s ok as long as you're not a very bright but young year 1, or an older y1 who struggles academically. For either of those types of pupil it’s not a good arrangement.

My school, with all mixed year classes, has had more than one year where we got 100% of children to age related expectations in all 4 reported areas. Where that doesn't happen, it is generally because we have children with SEND for whom that isn't possible. It is more challenging for a teacher but the academic standards can definitely be as high. I wouldn't be concerned by the mixed ages in the OP's school; I would be concerned by the class size.

@Holly485 My DD, August born, was reading well by end of YR. Why would she benefit by repeating YR? Other summer borns were even more advanced - one went to Cambridge for maths! Why would they benefit from being kept back?

When year groups divide @88keys I would prefer all dc to be in mixed classes. If your dc is older they might get the best scenario but a younger bright dc in one mixed age class is clearly not going to thrive and it definitely discriminates and assumes they are behind. If I had been faced with this, it would be all or nothing. They can set and do team teaching but some dc staying in correct year group and only a minority being mixed would have had me walking for the door.

I would be concerned. It’s one thing if a school has always been mixed year groups. I still (as a former teacher) don’t like it, but at least the staff are experienced in teaching this way or new staff are being mentored by experienced people. And the school has long term curriculum planning in this style to draw on.

But suddenly switching to this type of teaching is going to impact the quality of provision. If your daughter is at either extreme end of the ability spectrum, I’d be asking for clear answers as to what support will be in place for them. And be prepared to keep a close eye on their attainment and maybe look at outside tutoring depending how it goes.

As someone else said up thread, no schools ever do this through choice when they have enough children to have separate year groups. It’s always a “make the best of it” solution, which mostly just works “fine” for the majority but I’d prefer better than just fine.

It’s not uncommon with falling birth rates for this to happen. It will be happening more frequently. Teachers in the school might have experienced mixed cohorts before. It’s hardly unusual in small schools or ones with falling rolls. The key is quality of teaching and how it’s organised.

Our tiny village primary did this. Great for my academic DC lower down the school (yr R/yr 1- did the yr1 work, y1/yr2- Did the yr 2 work so effectively working a "year ahead") However G&T DS ending up effectively doing yr 6 X 2 and was so bored by the end he was being quite disruptive.

It wasn’t brilliant for my bright September-born DD.

Her school had an intake of 1 1/2 classes. YrR was taught in 2 classes, but all the rest were mixed, so 3 x (y1&2), 3 x (Y3&4) and 3 x (y5&6).

She was on the “top table” during y1 in a y1/2 class. At the end of the year the rest of her table (who were all y2) moved up to a y3&4 class and she was left behind. I asked the school if she could move up with them, they agreed but checked with the LA who said the teacher should be able to differentiate and DD must do her second year in the y1&2 class.

When she moved up a year later to a y3&4 class her teacher called us in after a month or so to say that DD did very little in class. I wonder how she got into that habit?

You might wonder why the school didn’t have, for instance, a y1 class, a y2 class and one mixed y1&2 class. The headteacher said that was what they’d done initially. However, all the parents of children who were to go in the mixed class complained - so they made all the post-reception classes mixed.

I changed jobs and moved her to an independent school in y4.

@JuneShellChangeHerTune Why on earth should just some dc be mixed but you get the best for your DD? What about the very bright ones singled out in the only mixed class? They will leave!

The La was 100% correct. Your dd should have been extended. My DDs friend from primary stayed in the correct year and went to Cambridge to do maths. It’s depth of curriculum that matters but, as a summer born, should this dd have been in the only mixed class? It’s even more difficult to see how her needs would be met. The school didn’t need to promote your dd out of cohort - they just needed to teach more appropriately and in much greater depth.

There's a school local to me with a strange set-up...
YrR on their own.
1/2 together.
Then there's Yr3 mixed with low ability Yr4.
Then higher ability Yr4 mixed with all of Yr5.
Then Yr6 on their own.

I'd be fascinated to hear what the Yr4s parents, who are in with Yr3, think of the set up.

Apparently it's just the way the school have always done it. The youngest and oldest are always separate, and they mix the other groups according to need and numbers.

@TizerorFizz - I didn’t say DD should never be in the mixed class. It should be possible for any child to be in a combined-age class only in alternate years.

However, there must have been a reason why, the school didn’t order all the y1&2 pupils by date of birth, putting the oldest third in one class, the youngest third in another class and the rest together, ie dividing strictly by age. I don’t know what the reason was, though.

@zingally , interesting. I assume numbers don’t allow 6 classes.

Is the y1&2 class particularly large? If it is in one year, what do they do? Move a few into the class above?

Do many state primary schools currently organise classes by ability rather than age? They did when I was at school, but that was a long time ago and I’d rather assumed it didn’t happen any more.

@JuneShellChangeHerTune So which year do the bright summer borns go into? Lots of schools do select on the and seem to assume summer borns can always go with dc younger than them. It’s better to mix everyone and not assume age equals ability. Not that ours schools did this but if they had my summer born, and plenty of other bright summer borns, would have always been discriminated against. If schools need to do it, mix everyone. They can use sets for Maths and English. However they need to set extension work for the brightest in all year groups and teach the appropriate curriculum.

Would make the most sense to divide the classes by ability rather than age so the teachers don't have to differentiate quite so widely. I am pretty sure that's how my primary school did it judging by which year 5s went into the year 4 classes and which went to the year 6 classes

DS's school mixes the first 3 years (but only on a part time basis, rest of the time they are in classes in their own year group, so not the same as mixed classes but some similarities) and they mix sometimes according to ability so that the young bright children get to work with older children at the same level (other times its mixed regardless of ability for lessons that are more general)

As a parent, I took my high achieving children out of a school with mixed year classes. As a teacher, it's very tricky to provide the correct challenge and support for all of the children all of the time, hard as we try. I know numbers sometimes mean it has to happen, but if definitely doesn't work for everyone.