Dropping down a group in English

[curiosity]

DS1 has just gone in to Yr8. Good general all-rounder in top groups and received a good report last term, with a few minor negative comments, most noticeably in English, but marks were reasonable so no concerns. From comments made throughout the year, there did appear to be a bit of a clash between teacher and DS1, but nothing major.

He found out yesterday that he has been dropped down a group for English, along with two others pupils. We've talked to DS about this, and we're not unduly worried, but we are a bit surprised that we have had no communication from the school to indicate there was a problem before he was dropped down a group - is this normal at secondary school?

Very common, particularly in KS3. We do it on the basis of the end of year exams. We sometimes re-set to split up some children.

quite normal lots of our sets have been moved about, we do tend to let parents know but we are small for a secondary and are very good at keeping parents informed

Thanks.

Think I'm irritated at not being informed (and at one point thinking there must be a problem, why haven't they discussed it with us first iykwim), but think maybe we've been spoilt by having excellent communication with the primary school.

We put a sticker into the homework diary, but that is after the event IYSWIM. I'd estimate that about 20% of our kids have been moved in ks3....so that is about 45 kids, quite a lot to phone in the first manic weeks of term.

If you are worried you can always contact the form tutor and ask for clarification

DH has rung and left a message for the form tutor to contact us. We've had no official communication from the school of any sort but I do take your point about numbers (20% at this school would be about 32).

Thanks MB - you've clarified the situation a bit for me, hopefully the form tutor will say something similar when he gets back to us.

Glad you feel a little better. Re the numbers thing, remember that it wil also be happeneing in all 'setted' classes. so in our school that is science, english, maths and mfl. dt has also moved kids for behavioural reasons, as have geography!so we will have around 100 children moving in one class or another!

lol, and that's more children than were in the children's primary school altogether.

The logistics of it all take some getting used to.

Form tutor rang and spoke to DH today. As we (eventually) thought, nothing untoward.

Interestingly, form tutor said he didn't like the way the system worked.

Many thanks MB (and TAP) for responding and letting me know what goes on in your schools. I was just a bit concerned that a problem had occurred and we had not been informed in order to try to rectify it before it became an issue iyswim. This apparently does not seem to be the case and I'm grateful for your input which eased my mind before we got to speak to the form tutor.

A minor issue all round, I know.

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I am glad that thengs have now been clarified.