Mixed Yr 2 / Yr 3 class

[Bramshott]

I am normally on here counselling people to be relaxed about mixed classes, and I agree that they generally work well. However, DD1's school are changing the setup and next year she'll be a Yr 3 in a mixed Yr 2 / Yr 3 class. Is there anything in particular that can cause problems with mixing a class across 2 key-stages?

My first ever teaching post many moons ago was in a mixed Y2/3 class. At the time I had mainly Y2 with the 7 or 8 youngest year 3s. It worked well and the only issues were that KS2 had a different home time and KS1 and KS2 had different playgrounds.

My DS spent two years in the younger half of mixed yr1/2 and 2/3. The only problem I have experienced is this year (his y3) when they have put the year group back together again and he seems to be effectively repeating the year in spite of all the reassurances we were given that this wouldn't happen. My sympathies are with the teacher in some ways as the ability levels range from 1c to 4a but those at the upper end seem to be teaching themselves. Maths consists of he and his little pal doing exercises on the computer as the whole class stuff is not suitable/too easy.

Thanks both. One thing that's occurred to me today is what they will do about teaching French? Previously they introduced this in Year 3, but I don't know if that was just a school policy or a national one, so whether they will now delay teaching French by a year.

There is a meeting next Tues so I want to go with a list of questions!

or teach it to both Y2 and Y3 ...

Yes maybe. The teacher that will teach the Yr2/Yr3 class previously taught the Yr1/Yr2 class so she doesn't teach French at the moment. I will add it to my list of questions for the meeting!

Basically they are moving from a setup which goes:
Yr R
Yr 1 & Yr 2
Yr 3 & Yr 4
Yr 5 & Yr 6

to:
Yr R & Yr 1
Yr 2 & Yr 3
Yr 4 & Yr 5
Yr 6

I'm sure there are good reasons, and it's well throught through, but for DD, who is moving from Yr 2 to Yr 3, it feels a little bit like being "held back" in the infants, as she will remain in what had always been the infant class IYSWIM.

French (or another language) must legally be taught to y3, from the beginning of this school year.

Thanks Racingsnake - that's useful. So they will have to teach French to Yr 3, I guess it's just a question of whether that's delivered by their class teacher, or by them joining the Yr 4 / Yr 5 class for French.

It's a big upheaval for the school, and I am trying frantically so sort emotional "not liking change" issues out in my mind from "issues I need an answer on / reassurance about how this will work"!

I suppose if y4/5 have done very little French to date they could all be put together ... one school I know of has the y3 group working with teacher/TA on French, while the y2's get on with something else.

Why are they doing this? Is it purely numbers? Ie v. small reception/year 1 or very large y6. Will the bulge/small year group work its way through the school and then the system change again?

No, I think the change is permanent. They have a new head who is changing lots of systems.

I can't work out what the basic reason for the change is, unless it's giving Yr 1 the chance to do more play-based learning with Yr R. They are also losing some support staff to save money. BUT (and this is one of my questions) the only way I can see that they can do this is by reducing their admission number to 15 (it's currently 17 as some of the Yr 1s work with Yr R) which surely means less funding for the school.

Thanks for listening to me banging on!