Primay schools with 2 school years per class - any experiences?

[giddly]

My 2 DDs will be going to the small village school. It has a good OFSTED etc, but I'm just a bit concerned that apart from reception, the other classes all consist of 2 school years (1 and 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6). The classes are usually about 25-30 children and also have a classroom assistant. In particular, I'm concerned that they may not be able to cope with the two extremes (i.e. unconfident children in the younger year who need extra support or bright children in the older year who need challenging).Don't know if I'm worrying unnecessarily about this - can anyone tell me of their experiences of this?

[giddly]

Thanks very much for your very helpful replies. Luckily my two DDs will miss being in the same class by a whisker, so that's not an issue (though can imagine it would be very difficult to manage). Will stop worrying about it now!

[supaninny]

hope you don't mind my butting in but we recently moved from a busy town to a sleepy village however we did not move the childrens school, i have 2 school age boys and i have been dissatisfied with various aspects of the school that they attend for some time, i have complained about my youngest son's teacher 3 times and now we have a strained relationship with the headteacher, which i think is undeserved as all i wanted to do was to air some concerns and i think that a headteacher should be open to some criticism, anyway the local school has about 30 pupils and only three classes, it is in the good schools guide and has an excellent inspection report. i am hesitating because my eldest son has made good friends in his current school and i don't want to send them to different schools although my heart tells me that it is definately the right decision for my youngest as he would recieve more attention from teacher due to smaller classes. long message i know. any advice or thoughts anyone?

[1dilemma]

Interested in this we're a combination of jajas and hewlittsdaughter, although a relatively big inner London primary.
We didn't do this at my school so I'm pleased to read it's OK

And impressed by teachers that manage to pitch work at everyone!

[hellish]

dd has been in 2 split classes, 1/2 and 2/3
She'll be in 4/5 next year. Can understand your concern bt Have never had any problems.

[heronsfly]

My children have been in mixed year classes,and like others Im not over bothered about it,although I do agree that they progress better when they are in the younger year group,again,it depends on the teacher.
From september our school is also spltting years 3/4/5 into mixed ability groups for maths and literacy,this will be interesting and is becoming more common in schools.
I think it will be great from an education point of view,but not to sure about the childrens feelings, 10 year olds will be working with 7 year olds,ok if its the highest group but difficult for the lowest.

[Littlefish]

As a teacher, I've always loved teaching mixed age classes. It gives me the opportunity to really target each child. I'm not constrained by the perceived curriculum expectations of a single year group. I can honestly say that when I'm teaching a mixed age group, I couldn't tell you who was in each year group, as I teach them according to ability.