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!)?

sadly scope to and 'will' to are not the same thing. also communication and management (and classroom teachers influence over senior management) are very different between a small primary and a big secondary with say 1500 pupils and ten subject departments.

I think mixed ability teaching works best for those who respond well to being challenged by trying to outperform students who are more typically able.

It doesn't really do the most able many favours, unless they need to work on their patience.

I don't think it does the least able much good either as they can find some of the teaching over their heads and they can begin to feel hopeless.

Ds1 is both incredibly able in some subjects and scrapping along the bottom in others. He's bored and frustrated listening to inane questions 10 times an hour in the subjects he finds easy. Whereas in the subjects he cannot do even averagely well in, he's so down on himself about his lack of ability and the low quality of his work compared to the others, that he gets quite distressed about it, and sometimes almost depressed over it.

Going to read the thread now to find why people think its a good idea to mix abilities into one class!

Hi var123

DD1 (Y7) mixed ability all classes - about half her form group are in each class other half different forms, often including old primary school friends.

GOOD POINTS:
clean slate - no decisions made yet on ability of any pupil (although they'll have primary record/ KS2 SATs and in house CAT testing from visit day)

meeting lots of new people

with some old friends (so feeling more secure - helped a lot in first weeks)

given teachers a chance to get to know kids/ good & bad points

given DD1 a chance to learn new system and settle in

giving DD1 a lot of confidence (she's doing really well and getting praise)
knows that working hard now will mean she's placed in top sets later

BAD POINTS:
hasn't escaped mouthy friends from old primary school (often disruptive)

can find class pace a bit slow

can be asked to explain method a lot/ called on by teacher a lot

often finishes work in class so has no homework (school assigns homework frequently as finishing work started in class)

Our view is that settling in right now was more important. I get the impression that the school is closely tracking all the kids - not just in terms of results on tests (SATs/ CATs/ class tests/ class performance) but also in terms of attitude/ effort.

The school is entirely mixed ability Y7/ partly Y8 (MFL/ Sciences are set) and then gradually through Year 9 pupils are placed in sets.

I think in general although I'd like DD1 doing a bit more work - I am over the moon that she's so happily settled in school. The lack of homework (because of the homework policy of finishing work started in class) does mean she has plenty of time for her sports interests - which is a good thing.

They get very good results at GCSE/ A-Level - very stable team of teachers, minor staff changes as people retire - HT/ Deputy HT quite young - so in general I do feel I can trust that this is about letting every child start fresh/ no preconceptions/ no limits - and see where they go with that freedom.

So so far so good - as far as we're concenred. But I will say that what we're doing at home is pushing DD1 not to do the bare minimum on homeworks (we have a lot of school support with that) - I know others have posted (BrendaBlackhead for example www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/a2204126-mixed-ability-for-English-just-why) that asking to do extra/ doing something inventive just isn't done (I think her words were 'would be deeply weird') at their school. And I think that really is a shame.

So like anything - I suppose it depends on the school and how they handle things.

That's very true Brenda re. language evening classes - though I think it is again an issue of how they're taught. I gave up on a class for the same reason, as it was just progressing ridiculously slowly. The teacher taught to the pace of the slowest student - particularly frustrating in a programme that ran 4 hours per week and was meant to be relatively intensive.

I'm sure that it could have been more diversified, though, particularly in that instance where all students are there of their own choice.

Oh, dear, there's my old thread named and shamed. I didn't say I thought asking for extra work was weird, I said it would be seen as maybe weird, maybe swotty by the other kids and possibly even the teacher.

Actually in the case of the English I was unable to see the teacher at parents' evening as she wasn't there, but I asked the school to get her to ring me and since our conversation dd has noticed an improvement.

But as PastSellByDate notes, it has to be a constant struggle to get it into dd's head that at this school she will need to push herself and do her best, not just better than other people in the class. I mentioned French, where the expectations are spectacularly low, so it's no good dd thinking, "Oh, I'm top of the class therefore I am doing well," when if she were plonked down in, say, Tiffin School she would have a rude shock.

PastSellByDate - I should clarify that I think children should be set once the teachers have had a chance to form an opinion of their work ethic and ability. Then setting should be fluid, not set in stone.

I think this addresses a couple of the pros you list for mixed ability setting. I can't see why doing this would take more than 6-8 weeks though. So, why not put DC in sets just before the first half term holiday in year 7?

My kids senior schools did mixed ability for one term in Y7 then they were set.

I fail to see how you can teach SEN and near Mensa level kids in the one class

I guess it depends if the children can move from set to set easily? I prefer mixed ability as research has shown that lower achieving children seem to rise to the level of the higher achieving children, and the higher achieving children carry on achieving anyway. I think children of any ability has something to add in group discussions, and can force others to reevaluate their viewpoints and strengths. It depends if you just want your kids to do well in exams.

DCs school set based on CATs at the start of Y7 in the core subjects.
The sets were jigged every half term right through year 9
each subject doing its own thing
ten or fifteen kids changing set each time - per year
such that a kid who started year 7 in set 4 was in set 1 by middle of year 8 as their potential developed late (maths)

I want my kids to do well academically at school and enjoy the experience, which ds doesn't seem to when he has to listen to repeated explanations.

There's still form time, friends, lunchtime and every day life to learn other non academic stuff.

tbh I'd question the independence of a study that found that mensa kids benefit academically from sharing lessons with very weak students. Not sure how anyone can say that they still make the progress that they would have done otherwise. Maybe its not saying that though? Maybe its not saying that though. Could it be more the it-will-do school of thought?

How do teachers plan schemes of work if the pupil composition of sets changes every half term?!

bonsoir
All the sets are following the same curriculum just at different speeds.
The top of one set will have had extension work that makes them overlap with the bottom of the next set up.
The slowest in the set will benefit from the recap that will happen when they move down a set.
The scheme of work will not be affected in any way.

I can hardly see the point of the sets...

Because over the course of the years the gap between top and bottom turns into
single science at the bottom through to triple science at the top
or core maths at the bottom and higher plus further plus stats maths at the top
its about speeds of laminar flow of learning

Bonsoir, do you mean how do teachers plan for individual students when the class list keeps changing? We just go round in circles, same as when the specification is changed after we had finishedthe scheme of work, same as when the topics are changed after we had finished writing the scheme of work, same as when the subject is changed, same as when the ofsted criteria are changed, same as when the timetables are changed, and believe me, a change every half term is pretty conservative. Last term my tutorgroups maths classes changed every single lesson. Last term my timetable changed completely ever single time a teacher fell to pieces or walked out. Don't worry about it, we are used to 3/4 of our paperwork being chucked out before it becomes relevant, anyway. and there is no material difference between writing it and throwing it in the bin, and writing it and handing it in to be filed. Neither or likely to ever see the light of day again, ofsted just wants to measure the weight of the file, that is all.

Thank you for spelling it out, hijk.

All I can say is that setting is great. My DD is in set two for maths but outperforms those in set 1. She is in set 5 for English and yet again outperforms some in set 1.

I was quite upset at first. I felt my daughter was being held back. Then my daughter explained that each set has their own characteristics. How the teacher teaches and how pupils respond to that type of teaching. So in Maths its more fluid in my DD's set and more rigid in set 1. Whereas in English she is in set 5 and is there as she needs more individual support. English not being her first language.
So I don't see anything wrong with setting

Kenlee
Second language is an angle most of us forget - I'm glad her school are making it work so well for her.

In this area we have lots of Polish kids who have grown up multilingual and setting for them will be essential.

you're quite right bonsoir and no they won't necessarily follow the same curriculum - if say it was ks4 maths they could be taking entirely different papers from one set to another. and individual student planning is huge - you have a folder with all the data for every single student in the class, what level they're working at, what level they should be at, what targets you've set and evidence of what you're doing to get them to that etc so having got all of that in place having them switched for another student would be fun. not to mention if they have a learning difficulty that you've planned ahead and tailored resources for all for nothing and they get swapped for someone with a different problem that you've now got to do all that for once you've got head round what the issue is and how you can plan for it.

or if say, joy of joys, they're being moved down not for ability but because they can't be bothered to work so now will be both disruptive and mocking the abilities of the kids around them and you'll have to plan more advanced work for them knowing full well they won't do it and justify why they're not achieving the level they should be and fill out the extra paperwork for their behaviour etc......

or let's say 6 kids need to move down and only 1 child needs to move up - how does that work in a full school do you think? it's a nice idea being fluid but capacity and reality are different matter.

and great fun if you have a big switch over just before parents evening and have to write reports for children you don't know and can't find even five minutes to talk to the teacher who was teaching them up to last week because they too are flat out writing reports and trying to catch teachers of the students they just got at the same time as a deadline to get all your student data files up to date and handed in plus panicking that they haven't ordered their repeat prescription because they haven't had time to make a phone call and if they run out of valium this week the world just might end

sorry facetious maybe but that is a bit what it looks like on the ground.

It sounds absolutely mad!

Two points:

• at my DD's schools sets are "set in stone" for the year, except during the first year of secondary (there is a big intake from other schools at that point) when changes may occur six weeks in to the beginning of the year.
• children who are not MT are no more or less likely than those who are MT to be in the top sets in MT.

it's utterly mad and of course all of that 'background' stuff is aside from having to actually plan and teach lessons lol. it's just.... it's crazy.

English teacher here and I'd always go for sets above mixed ability. A good teacher will teach high and support the lower ability in the group (and there will always be weaker and stronger students in any class regardless of setting) but with all the will in the world, no one can teach targeted A* students and F students in the same class over an extended period of time and get the best results possible for every student in the group.