Should children's ability groups be on display for all to see?

[choccyp1g]

At parents evening last night, I was a bit to see all the groups listed up for everyone to see; in obvious ability order.
eg maths group in ascending sides (Circles, triangles, going up to hexagons), even the spelling groups go from words to thesaurus.

From the parents point of view, it is the only chance you get to really see how they are doing compared to the rest of the class, but it must be hard on the children to have it on display the whole time.

I help with crafts sometimes, so I know the lists are up all year round.

Kids know anyway. Unasked My mater-of-factly Ds (5.10) explained to me a few months ago the reading groups in his class. "The Blue Jays are the best readers and know the hard words. The Hummingbirds are the the next best readers and need help with the hard words and the Robins have a special teacher to help them because they can only read the baby words." The names of the kids in the various groups is not displayed anywhere in the classroom. Nor, I'm positive, has there been any overt discussion by the teacher, but I am willing to bet that all the kids know ... just as they know who is best at Maths or drawing or running or who is the most popular, prettiest, kindest etc. It's human nature and it's reality.

My DDs school have groups that are named after animals. Am I the only dimwit then who has been unable to work out what the different groups are? I've worked out she is probably in the top group, and what is probably the other top group, but beyond that I haven't a clue... and neither does she. But then maybe it is because I don't actually care. Oh and the lists are up on the boards all year round!

As a parent I can't imagine why anyone would be in the least interested in which groups other DCs are in.
If you go in and help you know it anyway-even if they aren't in groups, you quickly gauge the ability.
I think any DC, even if they aren't in groups, knows where they stand in the general ability-I certainly did when young.

myredcardigan perhaps that is what we do differently. Our teaching is predominately "direct" active teaching in context.

Ah, but what if the teacher has groups in descending order but works counter intuitively and has the 'top' group be the moles, (or the circles) and the 'bottom' group be the squirrels (or hexagons)? You really can't be sure.....

jennifersofia, that is what dd's teacher has done.
She told me at the last parent's evening that dd was top set for both literacy and numeracy. (dd is in Y1) Dd's numaracy group is called hexagons (predictable) but her literacy group is called moles.

And whilst it is interesting to find out where your own child is, I could not give a hoot about the rest of the class. I know who is in the top sets with dd because she told me (mainly because she is with her best friend in both groups and she was happy about this)

I also think that during a parent's evening or open class event you should be looking at the children's work on display, not on notices pinned on the wall behind the teacher's desk. Why not go the whole hog and read her diary while you are at it

The children's work on display always indicated who is able and who is not, who can write paragraphs and use extended and interesting vocabulary that has 'wow!' and who stumbles to the end of a couple of sentences.
Same with Maths, art and most other subjects.
Different children have different strengths, the mathematician who can't spell, the illiterate who is a stunning artist.
So what's the answer? Not display any children's work at all? Ban sports days in case the less athletic are made to feel bad that others are able? Ban parents from the school environment?
Or celebrate the different strengths of the individual?

In DCs school, I am pretty sure that each group choses their own name within a theme(animal, shape, colour...) so not necessarerly less sides = less ability IYSWYM.

In any case, most parents are only interested in where THEIR own child is and could not care less about where the others are at, let alone gossip about it!

I wish I could follow mrz's explanations, lol.

Besides, I can't see that popularity or happiness is linked to ability level (whether or not any parents or indeed children talk about it among themselves).

lljkk the way we work has nothing to do with labelling children.
We work this way because we find it a more effective way than separating children into ability groups. We have high expectation and encourage every child to work to their full ability.

Mrz, how can your teaching be predominately 'directed'? Do you mean the whole lesson, every lesson, is active direction?
If so then how on Earth are those junior children getting opportunity for independent thought and independently produced pieces of work?

We use Big Writing too and the Nicholas Roberts frameworks which are excellent for allowing the less able child to form a piece of work. However, there has got to be opportunity for independent creativity which is not directed by me.

Are you really saying that the teachers in your school stand and talk/direct towards the children constantly all day???

myredcardigan perhaps again you use a different definition of "direct teaching"

?Direct Teaching? is a structured approach to teaching which involves a high level of interactivity.

The model is

Establish the objectives of the teaching
?anticipatory set"
Make expectations and assessment standards clear to pupils
Teach the topic:
Deliver the input
Provide modelling/demonstrations
Give directions for pupils
Check for pupils? understanding
Give guided practice in the task
Draw teacher-controlled work to a close
Provide independent practice

In some situations it may be that not all elements will be present

It will be used most commonly in the whole class situation

Active pupil involvement involves: Watch how I do it ... Help me do it ... I?ll watch you do it ... You do it alone

The approach involves a high level of active participation by pupils

At the end of the process it is important to check pupils? knowledge/understanding

The learned skills must be transferable to other situations

It's important that the lesson is

Clear and well structured

Kept short

delivered at a brisk pace and accompanied by checks on pupil understanding

It sounds fascinating, do you have any websites or books to recommend?
I'd like to find out more about it, the term hasn't percolated down to my part of the country yet.

I can see that it would suit some teachers, and DCs but it wouldn't suit my teaching style at all.

Oh I know what it means. Basically you teach, you model, they do a bit, you talk over any misconceptions, they do a bit more then you bring it together with a plenary.

It still, IMVHO, does not allow for enough independent output for the most able children who are all achieving L5s in Y5.

It is a very good tool for supporting the less able and perhaps helping along the lower middle group but just doesn't do enough for your able child.

I can only ever see it working as a short term solution to raise the overall standards in schools that get mainly L3s in Y6 SATs. Of course it means that less able children do better but that is just as narrow as a teaching format that mainly allows the able to flourish.

I am not criticising your ability as a teacher. I am just saying that IMO, the format is too prescriptive to allow able children to reach their potential.

Also, many, many teachers have little or no TA support in the classroom. Such a strategy really relies on enough adult support.

As a teacher I hate it-it is like the literacy hour. I like to have it more as a workshop, less imput from me and DCs working things out for themselves. I also like long lessons where they can get immersed in a subject. My most successful literacy was where we got right away from the short bursts and they wrote chapter books. They came in and just carried on writing and illustrating-they still talk about it because they had the freedom to do it their way. Obviously we had clear expectations at the start and evaluated it at the end to see if the expectations had been met. The results were fantastic-imaginative and well written and they were immensly proud of them.(We did proper book binding/covers/blub etc and they had something to take home and keep).
I don't like modelling too much as I prefer them to think 'outside the box'.

I like them in ability groups for maths because the range is so huge. If you try and do the same with all you end up teaching to the middle, the top are held back because they have to wait and you can never wait long enough for the bottom.
Science and topic is useful to have a mix so that some in a group have the ideas to motivate and model to the rest.
Lots of TA help is a bonus.

picesmoon, that tends to be the way that I teach, and my class have just completed extended story writing based on the 'Pirateology' book. The majority have achieved level 3a writing, some have hit level 4.
I was interested in the idea of Direct Teaching because it sounded so completely different to the way that I operate in class.

For me, it's just too prescriptive and doesn't allow for the creativity that exists in so many junior kids. But then I hate the literacy strategy too as it bores the hell out of me and I see it doing just the same to the kids.

Good literacy is all about good stimuli. Not about a narrow closed pathway which they all must follow.

I think that I hate the similarity you get. As a parent I once got thank you letters from a group that I looked after on a trip. You could tell that they had all had a lesson on writing thank you letters and they were pretty boring! The one I really liked was the DS, who ignored it all and wrote a letter from the heart-I knew that he had got a lot from it and he wasn't writing from a formula.
I visited a school a while ago who are radically different. They do all the input on a Monday with the whole year group and then they get on with it for the rest of the week. They have a things to do sheet with a list of must be done, should be done and can be done. They then do it in the order they choose. They have to get together in groups for some things-e.g. science experiments. The teachers and TAs are there to work with groups or give individual help. They don't have a set playtime-they go out when the teacher thinks they need a break. They are free to eat their snacks as they work. They do it from foundation to year 6. Obviously they have a more involved individual work sheet by year 6. They have to have finished the must do by Friday or miss out on playtime and/or take it home to finish. They quickly learn that it is best to get it done.
There are no discipline problems because they have a lot of freedom to work the way they want. If they get involved in a topic they can do it all day, as long as they bear in mind that they have other things to cover on the other days. I suppose they must stop for things like PE-I didn't see that. They get outstanding in Ofsted and excellent results. I like the fact that they use their initiative.
It is hard work on the teacher because it is very individual learning and she/he has to make the sheet and keep up to date with what they are doing.

myredcardigan we have one TA in the whole school Y1-Y6

One TA?!!! Why? Sometimes I have 3 in a class-it is fantastic and makes all the difference. (I don't normally have 3, but at least one most of the time)

I'm afraid what you describe isn't anything like what happens in our classrooms myredcardigan. The children are having fun, moving around talking to their talk partners, taking part in impromptu drama and yes dare I say it laughing. Neither do we follow a narrow curriculum or the literacy framework. As our children are mainly from disadvantaged backgrounds we have to provide many of the exciting opportunities that many children take for granted. This is all part of the teaching process. We have just achieved 93% level 4 and above in the writing SATS (3 children arrived in the last term ) and 65% level 5s. As I say it works for us.

piscesmoon I don't set the budget so can't say why we only have 1 TA for 6 classes but I can say that the work produced by the children is quite individual in content.