mixed age classes

[purpledolphin]

Hi there anyone any experience of mixed age classes or know about the benefits of staying with a lower age group versus joining a higher age group as my DC is in such a situation and info would be handy to use to discuss with the school

The youngest ones in my DS's year were put with the oldest ones in the year below.

All I know is that it worked well for them and made a lovely class. Every teacher was in tears at the end of the school year as they didn't want to loose them. It worked well for them but I guess it meant that the age range in the class was actually LESS than in a regular class iyswim?

Composite classes can work brilliantly. DS1 will only be in two different classes for his whole time in primary school.

However, if the school and teachers are not used to composite classes it may not work so well.

Like Eglu, my DS was in composite classes for the whole of primary school - because that's all the school had, he obviously chnaged between being in the younger or older (or even middle!) section of the class. I can't say that any of those positions was better or worse for him - the school was very good at treating each child as an individual and making sure they were working at the right level.

But it may be different if the school isn't used to single age classes and this is a one-off occurence. Is the class likely to be one mixed class all the way up the school so he/she always is in the younger/older section?

My DCs are at a school where they have mixed years 3 and 4 for a long time. It works a treat, but they do also split by ability for separate smaller literacy and numeracy classes.

I went to a small village primary, there were only 3 classes from reception to year 6.
It worked very well and seemed totally natural to me
Every one of my year ended up going to uni and getting good degrees (I'm still in touch with all 8 of them...we were a bumper year! my sister's year had 3 in it!)

It absolutely depends on the skill of the teacher.

The school my dd goes to also has mixed year classes.

She joined in Yr 2 and went into a Yr 1/2 mix. She had no problems.

She is now in a Yr3/4 mix and they have further split them into groups for literacy and numeracy. And they do seem to keep a close eye on how they cope with the work, as several of them have been moved within the groups.

in fact now they have decided to split the literacy groups further and mix up Yrs 3,4 5 and 6 within groups, to ensure that all abilities are covered.

i know a lot of people had their doubts when the school had to do this through part expansion but we have an excellent head and teachers who really are committed to making it work.

They get excellent results and the pupils are happy so it works at our school. But does depend on the head and the teachers.

My boys are in a primary with just two classes. It means 3 through to 7 are one class and then 7 - 11 are the other.

The lower class is all learning through play and there are some excellent staff. The upper class more structured and disciplined.

The advantages are it encourages a more family like, mixed ability environment. I feel that it is more reflective of the real world. I feel particularly strongly that early years is about socialization and developing coping skills for life. As the ability range as well as age range varies children appear to be taught as individuals to their ability rather than within the parameters of what is expected for their year.

The downsides are some of the conversation, understanding and play of older (more worldly) children is a little lively and grown up for the younger ones. As an example a group of the older ones recently went together to see 'How to train your dragon at the cinema'. This led to lots of dragon slaying, dragons burning down houses and terrorizing villages play in the playground. Some of the youngest ones went on to have lots of questions particularly at bed time/ in the middle of the night.

Overall I think its really good but needs a switched on team who have had the experience of teaching across the age range and are very good time/ task managers.

Thanks for all your posts, have been to the school, they say the are teaching all year 1s as year 1s not reception and are keeping my DC in that class because they lack confidence (which I can believe) and independence skills (which must mean that she is different at school to at home as they is very independent at home except when they want my attention, I guess that I will just have to monitor her progress and see the school again if I am concerned but for now I think its working out all right.