Does anyone have experience of mixed ability for ks3

[lindsey077]

My daughter is in y5 and we're starting to visit secondary schools - we live fairly rurally and only really have one school in catchment along with a girls grammar which she is sitting the 11plus for in September.
We viewed our main local school yesterday which seemed fine but my worry is that they have all classes as mixed ability, including the core subjects until ks4. She's a fairly bright girl and her teacher seems to think she has a good chance of passing her 11plus but we've not been able to afford regular tutoring which in our area I'm worried will disadvantage her. With this in mind I'm concerned that being at the brighter end of a school that has had all of it's brightest pupils skimmed for grammar will mean she will not get appropriate teaching, especially in maths.
I'm hoping I'm wrong and that it's more common than I think, the head is new and seemed to think it works but didn't inspire too much confidence!
Any experience/advice would be appreciated greatly.

[PastSellByDate]

Hi lindsey077

I've posted about my niggles regarding mixed ability & my very able DD1 (only in maths I hasten to add - very ordinary otherwise) - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/2329423-state-comprehensive-secondary-schools-stretching-able-pupils-opinions

Earlier this school year (2014/2015) I got involved in a really interesting (although sometimes heated) post with BrendaBlackhead about mixed ability in English: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/2204126-mixed-ability-for-English-just-why

So this is a question that I've been really thinking about. DD1's school (DD1 is current Y7) starts mixed ability and gradually sets until by Y10 it only has sets.

So that got me researching and I found this:

Understanding and using Progress 8: creating an integrated curriculum to raise grades in GCSE English by Laurie Smith, King’s College London

link to full text here: www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/education/research/crestem/Research/Current-Projects/CogAcc/files/Understanding-and-using-Progress-8-final.pdf

Now there is a bet of self-serving advertising going on in this report as LTE (Let's Think in English) is a research programme the author (Laurie Smith at KCL) is directly involved in - so writing a paper saying my approach is the way forward is kind of the usual thing amongst academics...

but Laurie Smith was a school teacher for 22 years in London and has quite a track record: personal web page here: www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/education/people/academic/smithl.aspx - so she may well know of which she speaks.

What I will say is having read this document I now understand several things about the upcoming changes to GCSE - which are interesting in and of themselves....

...but....I've linked to this paper because on page 19 there is a long discussion on the advantages of mixed ability teaching & why it is the way forward and what research underpins this viewpoint - which I think links well with your post -

It's one viewpoint - and as I said the Let's Think English scheme is being heavily promoted as the solution for the English Language & Literature GCSEs - but just as a lowly parent reading what was suggested as the scheme of work for the Jekyll & Hyde example - it's more what I would expect from an academically ambitious school and I think it would be more interesting for pupils.

Anyway - there's a lot of food for thought in that report and more importantly I think it's the first thing I've stumbled across that really sets out the changes and the logic behind them/ implications fairly clearly.

From a parent's perspective I think the comments about schools taking the option of setting aside 1 lesson a week specifically for targetting work to improve ability levels - so extra time to support low ability students and perhaps stretching classes for middle ability & extension classes for high ability would I think satisfy much of the concerns raised in my post & Brenda Blackhead's posts.

There are disadvantages for more able pupils in a mixed ability setting but there clearly are huge advantages for low and middle ability pupils. Nonetheless schools need to consider their intake and the outcomes for their high ability group as much as other ability groups. I get that the Progress 8 figures will not reward above expected achievement as well for higher attainers as low attainers - but Progress 8 figures for high attainers will look very stark if schools don't put some effort into this cohort as well and in light of the DfE threats regarding coasting schools - there is the pressure there to ensure that all pupils of all spectrum of ability make at least their targetted achievement and most interestingly this report explains what will happen from 2019 (the year current Y7 pupils from 2014/2015 intake will sit their GCSE's) - when the government will issue targets for GCSE Progress 8 score for each pupil based on their KS2 attainment in English/ Maths.

HTH

[clary]

I teach MFL and would find it much harder to teach unsetted classes in yr 8 and yr 9.

Unsetted for maths is very unusual - is that definitely the case OP?

My school doesn't set for English at all tho there are some "groups" and it seems to work OK.

I would be most concerned about maths and MFL tbh, and maybe science. I would double check with the school.

[Noodledoodledoo]

LL12 if I am honest I would rather be the brighter one than the one who struggles. If you are aware you can make sure she is pushing herself, asking for extra challenges to supplement work NRICH website is good for self study problem solving.

I feel for those who spend their lessons feeling 'stupid' when I teach bottom sets it's easy to boost their confidence but if it's mixed the kids point out they are doing 'easy' stuff.

[lindsey077]

Thanks again for all of your opinions, reading them all and thinking it through we won't be putting this school in our three choices at all and hope that either she passes her eleven plus or that one of the out of catchment schools have a place for her.
I'm so glad I posted, it has really helped me to have confidence in my decision.

[LL12]

That is what I'm afraid of when my dd starts a local secondary school in Sep Noodledoodledoo.
I live in a county which has a farce of a new 11plus test, now there will be a much higher number of children having to go to secondary school that are working at L5 if not L6. Her head teacher has said she will be at the very top but I am worried about how it will work if they do mixed ability.

[OldBeanbagz]

DD was setted for Maths in Y7 and then Maths, English & French for Y8. The rest of the subjects are taught in mixed ability classes which she has found quite disruptive at times. Certainly in a couple of subjects i feel she's being held back as others are way behind her.

We are really lucky that she's managed to work through this but she's really looking forward to the sciences being setted in Sept and then onto GCSEs the following year.

[Noodledoodledoo]

Another maths teacher here who hates teaching mixed ability. My school used to not set until half term but I pushed to bring it forward earlier.

We have a very wide ability cohort even with local grammar schools so in one group you could have level 6 students down to below level 2 (where they should be by yr 2!).

Unless they are set up and very effective at this style of teaching there is a high risk of boring the high ability and making lower ability feel really bad about there ability - I have tutored lots of adults who 'hate' maths due to bad experiences at school.

Maths is often different topics at different levels - teaching algebra techniques to students who still can't count (and yes I had to teach a yr 7 this skill) is a recipe for disaster.

[thehumanjam]

Think it's. Stupid auto-correct.

[thehumanjam]

I thinks the SMP books that I remember. Over time my marks got lower and lower and I left secondary school with less skills than I started with.

[noblegiraffe]

Yeah, the problem with Jo Boaler (I wrote an essay on mixed ability teaching in my PGCE) is that it's very difficult to actually implement in a classroom of 30 without kids having to do a lot of self-teaching.

Remember those old SMP 11-16 booklets that you just worked through at your own pace? That's what you end up with.

[mummytime]

There are ways of teaching mixed ability Maths, that I would love my DCs to experience. You need to look at the work of Jo Boaler and Carol Dwerk. (I think I got the names right.)

[thehumanjam]

My sons school sets for everything except art, drama and PE from year 7. Ds has been set for Maths since year 3! I would worry about a school that doesn't set for Maths. One of the secondary schools that I went to as a child got around this issue by giving us workbooks by ability. It didn't work. We had no teacher input at all.

[redskybynight]

Lots of schools had lower results for 2014 - due to the late change to English GCSE. Our local secondary has a similar blip for last year. As OP only has a Year 5 child, would be interesting to see if this year's results have reverted to the former level.

[Millymollymama]

Thank you for the link. It makes interesting reading. The high attainers are doing ok based on the 2014 information but the middle and low attainers are worse and will be causing concern at the school. They did get a Good from Ofsted just over a year ago but Science and English are in the 4th and lowest quintiles and the EBacc, largely applicable to the high attainers, is not very good either so it would not fill me with confidence. The children making expected progress is not good either but better for the higher attainers where a much higher percentage make expected progress but these are the only children in the "plus" column for value added and not even then at the lower confidence level. The maths progress is the best! I would be more worried about the English and Science if I were you!

You cannot really compare year on year results because cohort mixes are different but I would like to see healthy progress results and they are not, for 2014. However this is a very small school and I wonder how much this contributes towards teaching methods and the inability to be creative. I would expect the 23% of higher attainers to be put in sets and the lower ability children also. This leaves the majority of children in the middle and they would be 2 sets. The higher attainers GCSE average grade is a B so this compares with our secondary modern schools where I live. The grammar schools are A or A+. I would suggest this is not a comprehensive intake in the true sense of the word because the high attainers are not achieving the grades you would see in a grammar school (our small number of middle attainers get B in our grammar schools). The middle attainers in this school get C-.

I would look at the pupil progress data for other schools you may be able to access, especially for the higher attainers, what their EBacc profile is like, their exam results and attendance. Persistent non attendance is also a problem here. I suspect the 2014 data is worse than the 2013 data and it is really difficult to know if 2014 was a blip. I am never over keen on schools without 6th forms and with only 550 pupils, is sport, art, music and drama up to scratch? There are so many private schools around this area, I think a lot of brighter children are just not in this school.

[redskybynight]

Interesting as my DS is starting at a school that has mixed ability classes, in September. His school does "roughly" set for maths though (i.e. the top third of the year are put into "higher" groups, the rest are mixed ability).

I'm also a bit uneasy about it, but prepared to "suck it and see".

In terms of overall achievement, our next local school which has a broadly similar intake sets in everything from day 1. The two schools results are virtually identical.

[pollyisnotputtingthekettleon]

Just googled it... it is down to gov who see an improvement in middle/lower attainment at the expense of higher achievers - not good reading if you have higher ability child.

[lindsey077]

This is the school
www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/school.pl?urn=126447&superview=sec&qtype=LA
The grammar is obviously the best choice, attaining 100% a-c for all but one of the past five years and 99% in the other. This one has 49% last year, the results have dropped in the first year that the new head was in charge for a whole year. Not looking good really.
The school used to be known for not being the best but it's reputation has been improving for the past five or so years, I wonder if they began mixed ability as they had more below average children and this way of teaching is better for them. The head seemed to brush my queries off and said studies show no difference in mixed ability classes but I'm struggling to find much evidence to support his view.

[sunseeker66]

Yes my dd's school are all mixed until year 9. I didn't know they streamed until dd started.

It hasn't worked very well. She is coming to the end of year 8.

She is very bright at all subjects apart from Maths. She was placed in set 1 , then moved to set 2 because of her Maths, but because she is so far ahead in other subjects she is back in set 1 again and struggling with the Maths.

We had so much trouble with her Maths teacher, he put so much pressure on her and it only stopped when I went in and had a go at him. IMO he is rubbish at teaching mixed ability.

I wanted to move her, but she begged me not too as she was so settled.

I don't understand why the school do it, they only have an intake of 120.

I would avoid that secondary school if you can and choose one that sets from Year 7.

[Millymollymama]

There can be huge differences in English attainment on entry to secondary school. As wide as maths. If children struggle to read they are disadvantaged in many subjects. I thought Ofsted were pushing sets and were not happy to have all ability teaching. It almost certainly slows down the bright children. I am sure the Head is looking at his middle attainers when saying pupils benefit. How do the high attainers do at this school in comparison to ones that do set, or even the grammar school?

[lindsey077]

Thank you so much for All your replies, I will check the above website for expected vs achieved results but the majority of posters have echoed my concerns. It is our catchment school but there are two reasonably close alternatives that we have a good chance of getting in to, it would mean a second car and a bit of commuting but I think it's important she gets the best education we can manage. I was sent to a failing secondary and have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about it!

[pollyisnotputtingthekettleon]

I agree they teach to the middle,. 3A and 6 levels is a big difference ... so middle some 7/8 sub levels ... how do they splits the work/ groups because it wont be an evenish split.

[cansu]

I am a teacher. This will not be good for your dd. Regardless of all the platitudes about differentiation, this takes an exceptional teacher to make this work. I don't think it's good for the children at the top or the bottom, although it may help the middle ability group.

[woodlands01]

I am a Maths teacher and have seen various models. Mixed ability in year 7 works in most subjects but not Maths - Maths needs to be set immediately or at Oct half term for effective teaching.

[littlesupersparks]

I'm an English teacher. We don't usually set until year 9 but we sometimes set in year 8. We often mix up the groups in year 8 but keep them mixed ability. We take each year group separately and discuss as a faculty exactly how we should do it. So I'm not against mixed ability in general. I don't really like blanket policies in either direction though. I'd definitely speak to the head of maths though as I think it's quite rare not to set in maths as I understand that different levels do very different work. I would argue that that's quite different in English though.

[TheFallenMadonna]

Mixed ability Science at KS3 is fine. Obviously it depends on good teaching, but that's true of sets as well.