Mixed ability teaching vs sets

[redskybynight]

Just wondered about people's opinions / experiences of mixed ability teaching versus using sets at secondary level. Our catchment secondary where DS (currently Y6) will likely go next year does not set at all except for maths. Our 2nd closest secondary (that'll be the one shouting about its great results) sets in everything from day 1.

Having gone to a selective school myself I'm having a bit of a wobble about how mixed ability teaching (and this is a genuine range of abilities comp, not MC leafy enclave) will pan out. Reassurance (or otherwise, I'd rather know the worst!)?

Singapore maths books are not rote learning. There is plenty of problem solving. In the early years they have a lot of practical learning.

Saying that Finns or Singaporians cannot problem solve is plain racist. There is no evidence that these countries are weak at problem solving.

www.oecd.org/education/PISA-2012-PS-results-eng-JAPAN.pdf

England came 9th in problem solving skills. We were beaten by loads of Asian countries and Finland.

Rather than being racist, we should look at what these countries are doing with their educational policy. Most high achieving countries use mix ablity teaching. (Along side special schools)

ReallyTired. I am not being racist. I use such books and daily talk to friends in Singapore. There education system is set up for bookish tests. It is not sep up for out of the box thinking. I have compared our system to their having used both sets of books, in Eng and Maths since Nursery school to theend of Primary School!

Their education system. Sorry for typos I type too quickly.

Reallytired, they used SATs as well, but the cats showed he had the intelligence to cope with a top set. DS school look at the overall picture, which include CATS. The sets are not rigid and they do move around, ie I got ds moved down a class for MFL and my dd was regularly moved in maths. She performs better at top of class 2 than bottom of class 1.

But I cant see any benefit of mixed ability for him. He was a benefit to the rest of the class because he opened up conversations, same for history etc from what the teachers told me.

He did take a btech engineering for year 11 and his teacher was pleased because he would "pull" the rest of the class up.

Show me some evidence that Singaporians, Chinese or Finns are worse at problem solving. By evidence I don't mean anecdotes. Unless you can show me, strong evidence like PISA results, it is racist to say that these countries are weak a problem solving.

Portico clearly you are using different singapore math books to me. The books I have used have plenty of real life examples.

reallytired.....just look at the TIMMS results. I used to bemoan UK scores on PISA tests. We should also look at TIMMS performance. UK youngsters are more functionally literate and numerate than cohorts of the previous few generations.

Btw, i have spent a fortune on books from SG, Australia, South Korea, India, Canada and the USA. SG are good at Maths, I will grant you that. What about the English books. They are nothing but very good drill down versions of the First Aid in English. I can pm you my titles. In fact, I have fairly frequent conversations with the authors of many of the books my dc use.

Racist really
I am talking about my experiences working for a major Finnish employer, I have no idea what the Chinese or Singaporians are like to work for/with.

I have never used singapore English books. I used the singapore early bird kindergarten text books by Yeap Ban Har. They have activities at the bottom of each page to cement practical understanding.

www.mathsnoproblem.co.uk/mathematics/foundation-maths/earlybird-kindergarten-standards-edition/earlybird-kindergarten-mathematics-standards-edition-early-bird-b-textbook.html

I feel that the new national curriculum goes too fast in year 1. Working at the basics like counting pays off later on. Activities like grouping objects into ten help children understand place value.

It is very easy to use the bandy the word racist a round. For the record, I have only spoken about East and South Asian countries. Their education systems are highly rote, a great parental value for education and out of hours tuition. Do not confuse Maths with problem solving. Problem solving occurs in all subject areas. This is one area we excel in, in the UK. Back to my previous point, if the emphasis is on rote then problem solving in all subjects will not be so visible. UK educations up to the late 60s was rote. Other than at the top end, most children did not fair as well as kids today in problem solving and out of the box thinking.

Reallytired. I have used books from Nursery throughout the SG primary years and into the Lower secondary years. I have them for both English and Maths. They have served a particular purpose for me at a particular point in time.

OP - if your child is currently a 5a in reading, and a 3a in writing you absolutely want to go for the school which doesn't set.

Because otherwise whichever set he's in it'll be the wrong set.

I disagree with killadandra. My DS had almost similar results, yet he was in top sets. Writing is always the harder if the two to score well in. Your child will catch up with the writing top scorers in a couple of years. Mind did.

Being devil's advocate why should a child with poor writing skills be put in the top set? Good writing skills are vital to sucess in life. Surely its better to put such a child in a small nuturing group where writing skills can be developed. (Aka a low ablity set) It does not matter how high a child's IQ is, they need good writing skills. In the world of employment a TA is not going act a scribe.

However I suspect that most people are in favour of ablity sets provided that their child is in the top set. Its rather like campaigning for the return of grammar schools.

I prefer setting. Ds2 was not in top sets, but is now. Ds1 is in top sets.

Campaigning for grammar schools.........that would be a dream come true...

My son's junior school ran a trial with mixed ability/sets teaching. They decided to stick with mixed ability sets for English, but have sets for Maths. But there was no "bottom" set, but one top set and two parallel sets. But they had "tables" for all subjects so that children of a similar ability were broadly sitting together (sometimes they were moved because of personality clashes or chatting too much etc).

My son's secondary school sets for English and Maths. Not sure about MFL, which my school set for.

I think that ablity sets/ tables/ streaming is a sacred cow that the UK needs to have the courage to slaughter. Sometimes well meaning differentiation puts a ceiling on children's learning.

I reckon the real issue is how well a particular school teaches your own child to the right level based on their abilities. A good teacher, probably with a smaller class, would be able to do that with or without setting. I reckon maths is a bit exceptional due to the astonishing range of ability levels within the population, so that is probably best set, and indeed with more emphasis on problem solving rather than rote. I'd try to be more open minded about the rest. I had a ghastly experience at my school in Bedfordshire, where we were forcibly comprehensivized (OK, probably not a word) by mixing the boys from the grammar with the girls from their secondary modern, and another school did vice versa. When you've seen the humiliation and frustration in the resulting mixed ability English classes (girls of 14 not able to read with boys reading Shakespeare), you long for setting in English and everything else too.

Going back to the OP

Redskybynight
I wrote a similar post to you back in 2007 [grin}

Your ds sounds very like my ds ie 5B comprehension, 4c (by one point) writing, high 5 for maths, and a very high 5 for science (96%) no level 6s in those days. As I said above school sets from day 1. From what the Primary school said, DC school were the only one to ask for raw Sats scores and the only ones to do CATs before they started.
At his school the band into 3. The top band has 3 sets and the middle band has 3 sets, bottom band has 2 sets. There is also a cross over set between top and middle band. So 8 sets. DS was top set for maths, humanites , science and mfl. English he was in the second set, so still top sets. The first thing his English teacher said to me at the first parent evening was "please don't worry about him being in this set, he can more than cope with this class" The school saw him for what he was a very intelligent boy who struggles in some areas.

I think the issue is that anything that suggests competition or setting is bad as you will gave those at the top, those at the bottom and those in the middle. Parents of those in the top will want setting. Parents of those in the bottom sets won't. Those with kids in the middle sets will be predisposed to setting based on their aspirations for their kids.

"Setting. All day everyday.

In as many subjects as possible. And early..."

What happens to children like mine who are crap at writing, but very good readers and quick learners in relation to other aspects of the curriculum? My ds is in the bottom set for literacy at school because he struggles to get things down on paper, and because his writing is so slow he's simply never got to the point of writing enough to be able to craft how he uses language in school writing. However, he's got a high reading age, and a good vocabulary - much better than the majority of children in his class, and is creative and imaginative. Where would you put him? An intelligent child who is struggling with aspects of learning? He would die of boredom at the pace of learning in the lower set English groups I've observed.

Would you set children according to their perceived intelligence and ability to access the wider curriculum, or would you set them by attainment?

Mini fingers. I worked with my children in whatever subjects they were weak in. You cannot just leave it to the school. If their is an issue with your child's writing, and this is the reason for being in the bottom set, do something about. If you don't who will.

The problem with "percieved intelligence" is that you end up with the children of pushy middle class families being in the top sets regardless of attainment.

Being devil's advocate why should a child with poor writing skills be put in the top set?

Because there is far more to education than exam results. My dh had similar problems to ds, he was in remedial classes all the way through secondary school. He is just as intelligent as ds, but had to catch up his education once he left school. Do we really want to go back to the dark ages when children who had SEN were treated as if they were "thick"

Agree with Word setting all the way, with movement up/down at teachers' discretion at end of each term.

No setting was a fad in the early 80's and as a student it was horrendous. I spent hours just staring out of the window in English/history etc bored rigid. I didn't resent those who were actually being taught something but did wonder why we were all lumped in together when that was not the case in maths.