classes organised according to ability

[swallowthree]

I wondered how other primary schools organise their classes. At my children's school they have two spilt year1/2 classes and then the same in year 3/4, 5/6. Teachers have commented that there is a huge range of ability in the classes and they are really hard to teach. If they split according to age there would be a few children having to go up or down into different year groups - possibly children who are able to cope at a higher level. Can they split classes according to age and ability instead ie having a some of the more able children going up a year and some of the ones struggling going down. Does this make any sense at all ? What does your school do and how well does it work ?

At my last school, there were three parrallel mixed 1/2, 3/4 and 5/6 (ie, three classes for each two year groups).

These classes were organised to have a mix of gender, ability, SEN, age and friendship groups in each class.

This meant that all the teachers could plan together, share ideas and support each other.

I loved teaching mixed age classes. Of course it was challenging, but only slightly more challenging than teaching a single aged class - you just needed to be creative!

With a single aged class, I would differentiate everything into three ability strands. With a mixed age class, it was usually only 4.

We have a mixed class for every two years eg y1 , yr1/2, yr2, yr3 yr3/4 yr4 this is done stictly on age so no-one complains (they still do though!)
I was worried as my daughter is bright but young, but it's worked really well she's doing so much better than when she was with the older ones in her year.
I think it can create all sorts of anxieties, for parents and children, if the class is divided by age with just a few of the more able moving out their chronological class even more so for the ones who are struggling.

DS was at a primary with composite classes (3 classes to cover 7 years), and they always divided strictly by age - I think largely because the parents couldn't then argue with the choices! But they would move children for specific subjects if they felt it made sense. Up here they have a maximum of 25 in a composite class to offset the wider ability range.

DD is in a 5/6 she is one of only 4 p5s. There is also a P4/5 and P3/4 etc they are split by ability. It has suited mine as they have been in a class thats suits the level they are working at. So teachers do have 2 years to teach but they are the top of one year and bottom of the other so close in abilities.

DD's school has four classes covering ages 3 to 11 (ie nursery/reception, then Yr1/2 together, Yr 3/4, and Yr 5/6.
There is a bit of tweaking within that because the years are very different sizes - so last year they kept some of the younger yr 1 pupils in the bottom class for a bit longer because otherwise there would have been 30 in DDs class (yr 1/2) and 9 in nursery/reception. They did then move all the remaining yr 1s up after Christmas though.
The teachers are definitely dealing with a very wide spread of ages, and last year it was very evident with such a big class (they do have TAs though). I'm not sure what else they could do given the number of teachers and number of children . . .