Does your school have separate tables for clever and 'not so clever' children?

[Flightattendant]

Wondering if this is commonplace in primary schools...it was the case when we were small, and everyone know who were the 'clever' children and who was at the other end of the spectrum.
I remember it being awful and nobody from either group ended up changing from that slot all the way through school.

It seems ds's school is doing this as well and he's on the 'rubbish' table (his description of himself)

I am furious that he has been given this idea that he is not good at stuff

Someone mentioned they thought it wasn't allowed any more, but I don't know.

Would appreciate your comments on whether this happens at your child's school or not, and what the thinking is behind it.

Thankyou.

yes, my dcs' classes are divided into different tables according to ability.
I don't have a problem with it. Far better for them to be working at a level that suits their ability than struggling with work that's too hard or not being challenged enough because it's too easy.
MoreCrack is right, you need to make sure your dc knows that it isn't an indicator of being better or worse at everything, just that in those areas it's a different stage.
Also, I found my ds1 wanted to try and get on the same table as one of his friends so it actually spurred him on to try even harder at school.

DD1 is yr1. i don't know if they stream them or not yet. her "home" table is definitely mixed up. i have noticed that the bright ones all seem to sit top right on each table so there maybe some subtle streaming going on. will ask DD if they mix up the groups for activities in the day.

and yes from a very young age they know exactly who is good at reading, spelling, sums, art, music, PE etc.

Message withdrawn

Yes, they are streamed for maths and literacy, and sit on tables with similairly able children. Each table has a colour, but the children still know which colours are more able. However, the school works hard to find something that everyone can be on the 'top' table for something. For example, one of DS1's friends is brilliant at football, so he is in the 'top' colour group for PE.

DS1 has been streamed for maths and literacy at least since reception - now Y2. He didn't notice till Y1 and was very upset by it, as his friends were all in the top stream. It actually put him off working at his school work for a while. However we did a bit of noting who could and could not ride without stabilisers, whose teeth fell out first etc as part of people do different things at different stages, and the school found him an "important" job to do at one of his clubs. We also kept reminding him how he could do things now that he'd found difficult 12 months ago. It took a while but all this helped. He is happier now in the middle of the class and working hard and making good progress.

His very splendid Y1 teacher also gave harder homework to the brighter/ more hardworking pupils.

I don't have an issue with it myself. I'd like DS1 to keep working at the right level for him, not at the right level for one of his friends.

yes

starts in foundation

Our dd's reception and year 1 class have been like this. I'm not sure that the children have quite worked our what it means.

They do at my dd's school, too. To be honest I can't see how it could be done any differently - after all they need to work at their own level.

No. They sit at mixed-ability tables and are moved around every term or so (or more often if there seems to be an issue between a couple of children). Maths and English are done partly in mixed-ability groups and partly in loosely streamed groups taken from across the classes in each year group (proportion of time in streamed groups increases as they go up the school).

Thanks all, sorry I didn't come back sooner but our boiler tripped the electrics! Brrr.

I can see that my ire may be misplaced.

I can't think of a different way in which the children could be taught, unless as people are saying, they are all given the same work. Then of course some will be able to do it and some won't.

i think what I am actually fed up about is that ds thinks he is rubbish.

Also that he doesn't appear to have been given appropriate work...his spellings this week were ridiculous. And having just ascertained how bright he is with an assessment, it seems he has been put in that set because of his dyslexia when in fact I think they ought to be helping him more to achieve his potential.

It's the fact the teacher hasn't picked up on the dyslexia or the brightness and therefore he seems to be stuck in the bottom set that is upsetting.

I can see now thanks to your posts thatthis is just a necessary part of teaching a large group.

Have to say that Ineedacleaner's school sounds idyllic though

Cross posts with Mattsmith whose school also seems to have adopted a less divergent method...hmm.

I was grateful when ds's school did finally stream them as his confidence was constantly dented by his mate telling him he wasn't clever and couldn't do things. Being in bottom set clearly told him he wasn't as clever as his mate- but far less painful than his mate rubbing it in all the time.

What you need to help him with is how to handle this information. If you get all upset, he will think it's terrible to be in bottom set. But somebody has to be- it's no worse that it's him than if it were somebody else. Far better is to be brisk about it- yes that means you need a bit of extra help with your maths at the moment. When you've learnt a bit more, you might move up, but it doesn't really matter what table you're on, as long as you're working well.

Flight, I understand that your DS might not be happy, my own DS(8 1/2) was not too chuffed to be in a lower group than he expected for litteracy, but then, his teacher gave him (and the others) their personall targets to get to the next group. He has worked at home on all of them ( I helped but the impulse came from him) and he has now moved up a group and I am really grateful to the teacher to have explained to him exaclty what he had to put more effort in (and obviously be consistant). I found having targets made it more "achievable" than by just saying "when you are doing better or when you are more confident)

My dd's old primary did have tables organised according to ability.

She is 14 now so was a few years ago however the school had that system for years and I doubt it has changed.

The groups were (how sad I remember this): blue, silver, black, red and gold. Gold group being the lowest ability.

All the kids knew, gold group was where you sat if you had 'problems' as evinced by the fact a TA sat there.

Then in Year 4 they had an experiment - there were 5 classes in dd's year group (as opposed to 4 classes in the other years, there must have been a mini population explosion in Ilfracombe the year dd was born!) so they had one class set aside which was all special needs children (eductaional, behavioural, disabled etc) and assigned an extra TA to this class. All the kids knew - is was again the 'problem' class. Nice bit of inclusion work there. Talk about stigmatise the kids. My dd wasn;t SEN but I thought it was a bloody awful set up and it was abandoned after a year. That was only 5 or so years ago.

that's very true Cory, thankyou - I will certainly prepare myself with a sensible attitude in reserve for when it next comes up. I would almost feel better about it if he were truly not that able, but it seems he is really strong cognitively and it might be the writing etc holding him back...basically I want them to give him the extra help he needs rather than presume he isn't doing things because he doesn't understand them, not because it's all there in his little head but he can't express it on paper.

iyswim.
I think they ought to have picked up on his difficulties by now really.

Gor, thankyou for the suggestion, maybe he does need specified targets...hope your ds is happier now.

Getorf, I can see that the special class would be awful...there's just not an easy answer is there.

I don't know what prompted him to describe himself as rubbish though...that is really worrying me.

I'm sure the teachers won't have said it, but maybe the other kids?

Flight - is the school aware of his dyslexia, and has he had a formal dx via teh school? Some schools don't tackle it until Y2, but in any case I'd have thought he'd have an IEP.

Hello DS in Yr1, they have mixed ability home tables and the are streamed into 4 groups (different colours) for maths / literacy.

I very much understand that, Flight; if he has SN and they are not supporting that, then they are failing in their duties. I am actually shortly going to have to raise this with my ds's new school as he has bad joint pains and the equipment he is supposed to be using hasn't materialised. If it then turns out that he is still in the right set, I'll have absolutely no problem with that. But like yourself, I don't want the waters muddied by something purely technical.

Grunge yes but we have only just had private formal Dx. i've been badgering them about him since the start of yr1. In the end it took a year to get appt with assessment person who then told us his iq is 140+ as well.

So I'm reeling from that really.
I just think they should be helping him more instead of sticking him on the dullsville work because they assume he can't understand anything else...it's just not true. He just can't write it down very well yet.

hoping they will sort out IEP sharpish but tis early days. Will give them a chance!

That's exactly it Cory, thanks for understanding - hope they sort out the equipment. It must be v frustrating having always to push for these things just to equalise the playing field as it were...not fair on them at all.

It makes me cross that nobody has thought to question what he can do, only seeing what he can't.

It had better change from here on in, or there will be trouble! Thank GOD I got the assessment done.

Flight, I suspect that your ds has worked out tha ability tables for himself. It will be fairly obvious, I would imagine, from the work they are asked to do. So the teacher will take a session on, say, phonics, them each group will do related work at their ability level. In reception this may involve some groups writing whole sentences, others filling in missing letters, and some practicing letter formation.

Has he a particular talent for anything you can use to bolster his self esteem? Being a fast runner or having lovely manners for example?

Although in my dd's class, some rather unsubtle naming of ability groups took place, with the science sets being 'metallic metals' 'cosy cottons' etc etc. They labelled the lowest ability group 'the woody woods'
Even at 7 my daughter believed it was the teacher's attempt at humour.

As for the other issues you describe, they are seperate from this but it does sound as though the school is failing to meet your ds's needs. Hope it can be resolved, and in the meantime that you can boost his confidence.

LOL that's a good one!

Ours have colour names.

He is fab at lego and other kinds of inventing but sadly that isn't really covered much at school.

He thinks he is good at maths, so that's something...although I'm not sure how true that is. But his little friend has AS and is fairly much a maths genius, talking off the scale, so ds isn't 'best' at it...but doesn't seem to mind that.

Deffo needs lots of work on his confidence and self esteem though.

Thanks Morecrack. I hope so too.