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!)?

Teaching in forms (whether streamed or not) does not preclude re-mixing the year group every September. Indeed, IME sets are very stable throughout school which can lead to the dysfunctional dynamics you describe.

The problem I have with bottom sets is they are often a mixture of children with low academic ability, and children who's behaviour has left them badly educated. These two groups can have a very bad influence on each other. ideally, the two bottom sets will be level, and one will contain the hard workers, and one will be effectively a EBD class. The EBD class is actually easier to manage alone anyway, and the hard workers to better without the disrupters.

Obviously, a badly behaved child who is achieving should be in a higher set.

I also routinely timetable children with actual MLD in with the top set. The top set children and the MLD children in general can have a very good influence on each other's behaviour and learning. MLD children need very differentiated work, so in fact it doesn't matter which set they are in.

not in theory no bonsoir but i've never seen it done ime. mind you i've never seen streamed form groups either.

hijk imo students with consistently 'bad' behaviour should be off timetable having their behaviour addressed rather than consistently disrupting the education of others - it's a bit of a common sense yet shocking opinion it seems.

In France forms are re-mixed every year as a matter of course!

in england they've barely even got the new intakes class registers sorted by september sometimes ime let alone got the timetable properly sorted. disclaimer - maybe all the schools i have worked for were exceptions to an otherwise marvelously ordered rule

In France forms are re-mixed every year as a matter of course!
Glad I live in England then.
Stupid idea.

Why do you think that is stupid? It works rather well.

I have plenty of experience of both systems.

honeybadger, it depends to what extent, and in what numbers. You can't take 60-70 children off timetable to address their behaviour every day....

Here we get a little card through the post mid-July telling us which form DD will be in for the next academic year.

Quite a lot of state schools pin a list outside the front door on the first morning of term.

60-70 pupils whose behaviour is not fit for the classroom tells us something though doesn't it? and how many children's education is that disrupted on a daily basis? so do we just suck it up and keep going? if three of those children are in your class do you just accept a large chunk of your education is going to be lost to being stuck a passive witness, stuck in your chair sat being an audience for them?

60-70 is about an average, I have worked in schools where the number is far higher, and you could confidently expect 15 or more in each class. Yes it does tell you something, it tells you the standard of behaviour the parents have brought their children up to. There is NOTHING a school can do in the face of such numbers. There is very little a school can do anyway, children find behaving badly a lot of fun, and there are no sanctions we can apply.

you can if you have more than one set up on site i suppose - re: a central school for those able to be in a mainstream classroom set up and another facility for those who aren't staffed by specialists trained to deal with that and fluidity between the two with the objective always being to get people back into the mainstream classroom. schools need to change imo if they are continue being 'inclusive'. the specialists, pscyhologists, social workers, occupational therapists, cahms, youth workers etc don't need to be reached via referral somewhere out there they need to be on site in the place where kids are and where they are most needed - not in little offices somewhere away from where the lives of children and young people are actually going on.

yes, this is what I mean by wanting to set according to behaviour as well as achievement.

I do despair at the sheer number of problems that schools are expected to deal with. We are supposed to be educating children. Parents are supposed to do the parenting.

it's ridiculous that teachers are expected to be all of these things and that are 4mx4m classroom is considered the site to deal with all of these things on a 30 to 1 ratio. it is crazy that all the specialist earning vaster wages are sited off somewhere where there are no kids and they see them one on one whilst teachers, at a lower wage and with less specialist qualifications, deal with it all on mass.

if they're determined to make schools the site of dealing with everyone, no matter how complex and volatile their needs and the site of managing all of societies ills then school needs to be the place where all of the specialists and resources are sited too.

sorry - it just seems like common sense to me.

I do agree with you, but I also don't really believe that there is necessarily all that much a "specialist" can do anyway, in many cases.

their share of the work would be a start

a social worker, for a kid under the care of one, would be on site dealing with them rather than occasionally bothering to communicate with the school. a group of kids all suffering with behaviour issues stemming from domestic violence in the home could be having workshops with a youth worker trained in helping them process that and cope with the feelings and behaviour it's known to trigger in young people. kids who are kicking off suddenly in year nine and just being treated as separate incidents could have an early intervention with someone who has the skills and time to talk to them and look into what is really going on and put together a plan to try and stop it just cementing into the rest of the school life rather than dealing with the cause of the issue and diverting it's path. etc.

kids whose literacy levels were holding them back could be having intensive support classes with top literacy support workers in a full classroom rather than a minimum wage support worker sitting next to them in class chewing gum (sorry i know there are great support workers out there but it's hit and miss and getting 20kids at once with someone shit hot at what they do would be better). kids with delayed social skills from say autistic spectrum disorders could have twice weekly full classroom sessions with someone really good at assisting that rather than parents lottery luck on trying to get extra support via a gp or wherever at expensive one on one rates.

it just make sense in all directions whether it's economic, ethical or resource management etc. even down to use of building and land space.

I guess the answer depends on the ability and personality of your child. Personally, for my children, I agree with the poster who said sets in everything and as soon as possible.

DD1 is extremely able and didn't want to help the others who didn't pick things up as quickly (as a teacher suggested). She just wanted to learn things faster, and DD2 is much the same. However, my bright but super kind and patient niece, loved mixed sets and did very well in them.

hijk fair play to you btw that you are still teaching.

i had a brief dip back in last year and i just found the level of abuse and aggression i was expected to put up with and deal with 'professionally' in the classroom was.... just more than i deemed worth a salary iyswim. hopefully your school is better than that one but it seemed like ever other ks4 class had at least 3 or 4 extremely volatile abusive/aggressive students in that all staff knew were like that and reassured me it wasn't me and that was standard fair and they were in and out of internal exclusions on a weekly basis. to me that just seemed unworkable conditions for any standard of good mental health and dignity or sense of actually 'teaching'.

i'd had a good 6 years out of the classroom but hadn't expected things to have gotten that much worse given i was working in what was considered a problem school prior to leaving the profession last time.

fare not fair sorry!

My DD's school sets for Maths from year 7 and then sets for MFL, science and music based on their maths ability. So top set for maths, also means top set foo these other other subjects. Works for my DD as these are her strongest subjects - but I know that some of her friends are struggling in top set MFL, whilst finding the maths easy.

For English, geography and history there is no setting in year 7 but then set from year 8.

No setting for all the other subjects.

I think that the school gets this balance about right. Certainly based on current levels and KS3 targets, my DD is doing equally well in those she is set in and those she isn't.

That just seems like a stupid approach to me. What has ability in math got to do with ability is languages? I assume they have set it up that way in order for easier timetabling. I was top set math and bottom French, and I needed all of the extra help offered! Science I can understand, music again I'd expect little correlation.

Still better than in my dh's school which assigned every child into a stream and even limited subject choices (ie A stream took Latin, C stream had computing). I went to the sixth form of a school that streamed and attitudes were pretty intrenched by then. The 'A' stream boys thought they were incredibly superior (they were extremely privileged anyway) and some of them behaved appallingly as a result. In fact my experience of bad classroom management comes from this time, with children who thought that they were the social and academic superior of their teachers and did whatever the hell they felt like (paper airplanes, explosions in science etc).

I go to an evening class in a language. It has given me some insight into mixed ability teaching!

Some of the students (all ages) are absolutely useless. We all started at point zero and whereas some of the class are shooting along, others are completely flummoxed by everything... and as for grammar... It is frustrating for everyone and now the teacher has just divided the class in two and tries to teach us simultaneously.

I asked dd about her French at school and she says it's terrible as if they do anything beyond labelling worksheets with vocabulary there are kids whining that they don't "get it". Dd said they did "er" verbs and there was a storm of protest so that was it. No "ir" or "re" verbs ever appeared! There are many, many threads on MN about language teaching in schools and I am now just teaching dd at home.

Setting worked well for ds. Ds was always strong in Maths/Science and being set meant that the lessons moved at a faster pace and they were able to extend into other areas of the subject.

Ds was weak at English/Humanities and lacked confidence in these subjects. He would compare himself unfavourably to others. In year 7 he was in set 3 out of 4, setting increased his confidence and he made lots of progress. In year 8 he was moved up to set 2 and in now in year 9 he is in set 1. I don't think ds would have made the same level of progress if he had been mixed with the higher level ability kids from day 1.

Just a parent - but as Bonsoir has suggested - I do think there is scope for little minor changes to improve dynamics in a class:

DD1 has most of her classes with same half of her form group (they split forms in half and mix them in classes - in this way friends from old primary are likely to have at least 1 or 2 classes together each week). She says several changes were made after Christmas.

Seating was rearranged - chatty/ mouthy people were separated. Trouble makers moved right up to the front of the class. She was moved right to the back of the class. In another class she was with a very chatty girl and ended up being a bit too chatty herself. They were separated after Christmas.

In one class 3-4 kids (including DD1) were suddenly asked to leave that class and join another class meeting at the same time - 3-4 pupils from that class were moved to her old class. DD1 says that all the kids that were causing problems were separated out amongst the 5 classes.

I think this worked because this class meets in the same block of time for all 5 forms of Y7 - so they can easily rejig the balance.

I admit this would be much more difficult if you only have say one lower ability class for maths that meets at a specific time - you have to teach whoever is assigned to that group.

We also are definitely at a Leafy secondary - and it's clear the kinds of problems elsewhere are more extreme (in area we fled from to avoid for secondary options) and I suspect probably harder to manage.