Can you explain the logic behind not setting?

[Turquoiseskies]

Ds will start at a large ofsted level 3 school in year 7.

A large bulk of the school will come from areas where expectations are low. These children will come in achieving at a lower level. This may be due to ability or lack of parental expectation amongst other things I guess.
A smaller number come from an area where children are likely to have a higher level when going in. Many children from this area will have been sent to private secondary hence why less of them.
My ds is quiet and conscientious and should be achieving a level 6 by the summer.
I have reservations about the school but we have no option. According to ofsted there is a culture of low level distribution in the classes. I had clung onto the fact that ds would be in the higher sets and that would hopefully mean he avoided much of the disruption.
Anyhow I have heard that there is a move away from setting now and that they will be having mixed groups.
So behaviour aside how on earth can a secondary teacher manage for example a class of 33 where the range of ability is so huge. I can't see that benefiting the able , less able or middle children and I'm
Not sure who benefits. Or are the clever ones meant to help the rest?
I'm worried he will get bored or teased for being clever or fail to make progress etc
Any experiences welcome.

[swingofthings]

DD and DS attends such a school, with a mixture of kids coming from very different backgrounds. It doesn't set children in year 7, and only do so for Maths and English in Year 8 (and even then, they have now stopped it, so only set in Year 9). DD is doing her GCSEs at the end of the year, so far as done two sets of mocks and so far, got a majority of A*s and a few As.

Not being in sets properly until year 9 has clearly had no negative effect on her ability. I have to say though that teachers were fantastic and did recognise the more able pupils and did give them extra attention, mainly spending 1/3 of the class lesson with them when they finished the class exercise way ahead of everyone so they had the benefits of both settling basic knowledge and challenging themselves on more advanced learning.

[Witchend]

Interestingly when I did some minor research over setting (with secondary school pupils) the lower end were majorly in favour of setting and the top sets fairly indifferent.
The lower sets said they felt much better at the subjects because although they were placed in a lower set, they didn't find they were struggling with something that others were finding ridiculously easy, which made them feel doubly stupid.

[BoffinMum]

My overarching point, and this applies to the skiing analogy too, is that we are not nearly imaginative enough about how to distribute teaching resources and we often fall into the lazy pattern of setting pupils as a proxy for a kind of pupil typing, as this means teachers don't keel over with the effort of propping up a dysfunctional model.

"We" meaning institutions and Government policy.

[BoffinMum]

Kimmy, it basically says to me lack of resources, Children of all abilities in France speak French (and sometimes a second language) so this is not impossible for any child to do.

The lower attaining group need to have more intensive tuition to get up to a reasonable standard, perhaps a clearer focus on the mechanics of the language so they have a secure grounding, and regular trips to France, etc. Of course that is an ideal and not always easy to do on the average school budget. Interestingly my mother used to have to teach mixed ability French and she had them not only doing that but also got the odd one into Oxbridge to do MFL even though the local area was pretty deprived.

[nooka]

The most disruptive classes I ever experienced was when I went to a public school for sixth form. Some of the boys there were just incredibly arrogant, clearly thought that they were massively superior to the teachers and behaved extremely badly. They were very rude to teachers, blew things up for fun in the labs, threw paper airplanes around in class and just generally pissed about. Got much worse when half of them got EE offers to Oxford too.

[sashh]

Also if the bulk of pupils are from poorer areas with lower expectations and ability I presume the disruption is inevitable.

Not my experience.

Disruption can be from any child, but it is often the ones that think they are better than the others in class.

I'm teaching in a deprived area, we have kids arrive at 7.30am and stay late -they prefer school to home.

[nooka]

My children go to a school with no setting. We are in Canada, and in our area at least it doesn't seem to be a thing at all. My children's school is also relatively small so sometimes they also have mixed year groups. For example this year they are both in the same class for Japanese, it will be ds's third year and dd's second of learning Japanese and there are also a few people in their fourth year. At the beginning of the semester there were also some kids who needed the introductory course and got mis-scheduled into this class. Their teacher was apparently very disappointed when the school said that they would have to do a different course.

There are some downsides to the mixed classes. dd was annoyed today that her study mate in her English project produced two lines when she did two pages. ds on the other hand really enjoys supporting his classmates and has enough peers to still be competing hard for top marks.

[KimmySchmidtsSmile]

Please note I do not think in the slightest it is easy to teach those five subjects to GCSE. Your classroom management has to be above and beyond.

[KimmySchmidtsSmile]

Coral
I am curious as to where you are (clues without outing yourself?!)
I am out the loop now (no longer in UK) but how have you ended up with such small class sizes, did your school invest in more staff? Also, how do you get away with not sharing expected/predicted grades? Every school I have ever worked in demanded target setting, shared levels, predictors and transparency with pupils and parents. Incessant form filling and negative/positive residual evaluations. Not saying at all your school is wrong with its approach (we all know the higher the expectation the better the result) but your SLT must be very strong and cohesive for that approach of not telling students their real estimated grade to work, just wondered how Ofsted have not pulled you up on it. We had to share the realistic grade, such that if it was a negative residual, the kids knew they had to pull their finger out and we had to show we had provided extra coaching, out of school workshops etc
Also Coral..writing frames, TAs, John Malkovich videos aside, how do you teach Of mice and of men to twenty kids ranging from nc levels 1-6. The kids who genuinely cannot read, or with a SPLD e.g. dyslexia how are they being catered for?

Subjects where there is natural ability or enthusiasm which have been chosen by rather than foisted on the students...so, options like dance, drama, sport, art and music, yes, mixed ability will work better in those scenarios. Sometimes because of positive collaborative efforts, often because the kids want to be there.

[KimmySchmidtsSmile]

"Imagine if you had decided to go skiing for the first time this winter and discovered that the ski school had adopted a policy of mixed-ability teaching? I can just hear Pierre the Instructor now: 'Mais oui, le mixed ability teaching c'est bon!' as he leads the beginners and advanced skiers alike in one group over an icy cliff. Well, at least you can't say that you have been labelled as less capable than the other skiers and I'm sure your self-esteem will not have been damaged (even if we can't say the same for your limbs)."

Frank Chalk It's your time you're wasting.

The thing is, my teenager is struggling in one of her subjects and her self-esteem IS being damaged by being in a mixed ability class rather than setted: she is not daft, she KNOWS she is bottom of the class and the others are better than her. It isn't bringing her up to their level, her neighbour feeding her answers with a sigh or trying to explain what they are doing just makes her feel "thick" (her words). Whereas in the support group she goes to and some coaching I am paying for at least she feels she is the same as her peers and can hold her own.
Chalk is not saying sink sets are a good thing for morale or progress but he is saying mixed ability classes can screw both gifted and talented (who get ignored while you deal with all the ones with their hands up or the disruptive ones or they are bored as the work is too easy or they have finished it or they are being used by the others who know they will do the work or they are being used as aides as there are not enough LSAs) and the kids with SEN are drowning also being failed by the system as many come up from primary unable to read.He goes on to say that honest teachers will admit that the less narrow the band of ability, the harder it is to teach.

I used the starter main plenary tri part plans. I had learning objectives up. I did the all/most/some model
(All will be able to name 4 rooms in the house in French, most will name six, some will name eight) differentiation by outcome
(All will label a house, most will describe their own, some will describe their ideal house)
differentation by task

But....unlike primary with coloured tables and different tasks/ongoing projects and the stability of same teacher/timetable (doing an immense and awesome job incidentally although if you divide a class into six different tables by ability with movement between, aren't you kind of setting them?)
to be teaching secondary, up to 240 different kids a week sometimes on an alternating timetable with 480 learning/written weekly homeworks to mark or self mark or peer appraise or give tips on improving or record in some way with red green pen for attainment/effort whilst planning lessons which mean something with four different skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) embracing different learning styles (visual, auditory, tactile,kinesthetic) AND modifying all this by three in a narrow range of ability NOW modify for a wide band range from illiterate to gifted. THIS is why children are being failed and why teachers leave in droves.

[KimmySchmidtsSmile]

I like what you did with the ski analogy boffin
Although I will point out my kid was in group six for skiing (absolute beginner) last month (never been and the trip was obligatory, no, we are not in the UK) and within four days she DID move up to group four. Very proud. And stunned.

Frank Chalk was basically saying you could not and would not teach a group of skiers of completely different abilities at the same time as it would be frustrating, bordering on nigh impossible for both the gifted and talented to be extended whilst providing for students with individual differences.
I taught languages in state schools for nearly two decades, at a time when it was compulsory to sixteen.
You had sixteen year olds, barely able to write or read in English, being forced to learn French, writing je mapple and hwiful towr (Eiffel tower) still saying (if you were lucky) j'ai onze ans (clue: they were no longer eleven) at one end. At the other, you had kids who could write in the perfect, imperfect, future and conditional tense.
Mixed ability at key stage four in that scenario?

[EvilTwins]

I teach drama. I don't have a high performing cohort, I just have high expectations.

[multivac]

I, for one, am glad you're here coral .

[coral653]

I am an 'outstanding' English teacher in an 'outstanding' state school and we don't set in years 7-9 and then in years 10 and 11 (GCSE) we just have two large top sets (30ish students all targetted A-A) and all other students are mixed in classes of 20-23 pupils. Over 90% of our students achieve A-C and our value added and whole school achievement is far above national average.

We/I find that all students do better in mixed ability environments - yes, even (and sometimes particularly) 'top' ability students; they have the chance to shine and thrive and it's proven that the best way of learning is teaching, so if your child is sitting next to a child who can't do something and your child helps them then it is benefiting your child (probably even more than the weak child). Of course, we do have our top sets at GCSE and this is because we can cover complex theories and ideas for those trying to get an A* (particularly in Literature) - respond to that as you will!

The problem with traditional setting is that there will always be a bottom set. And what if your child end up in there? Bottom sets almost always have issues - they're often referred to as 'sink sets' and almost always have behavioural problems.

Not setting allows all children to believe that they are capable. Of course, this needs to be a whole-school message too - it's no good having mixed ability classes and then telling some students they can get an A and others they'll get a D if they're lucky; they shouldn't be bound by targets. I have students predicted Ds but they never know that and then come out with Bs because they work their socks off (as do I!).

Anyway - there it is for what it's worth. This is my first post on Mumsnet; I've just joined the pregnancy board and was having a little look around the site. Be kind! :)

[BoffinMum]

Neuroticknicky, there are lots of subjects which are never set, such as music, art, drama, and sometimes even history and geography. It's perfectly possible to teach these subjects to mixed ability groups with the right set of skills. Why would it not be possible to teach other subjects in this way?

And as for the ski lesson analogy, well, that's just flawed. Imagine if you turned up to beginner ski school and someone said, "Right, what did your father do for a living? Was he a keen skier? And where did you live as a child? Alpine or non-alpine? Oh look, you knocked a cone over on the test run. Right, you need to go over there with the other adult children of families who never encountered winter sports and came from Norfolk. Here's a trainee ski teacher and some shitty ex-hire skis, to be getting on with. Adult children of people whose parents were skiers and who come from Austria, regardless of whether or not you have skied before, you need to come over here. Meet your ex-Olympic coach. Here are some lovely skis and free lift passes. Off we go up that mountain and we will leave the others in the foothills, because they need remedial teaching and they might be disruptive. Come on, you talented lot, let's turn you into champions".

If that was how you were treated for skiing it would take quite a lot of gumption to break out of the first group and get into the second. Now imagine you are 11, potentially pretty good at maths, and that is how you are treated. It would be very difficult to reach your potential, frankly.

David Hargreaves called this 'A Theory of Typing'. It is harmful and divisive.

I say again, the question is not whether to set, it is how to teach groups so that everyone reaches their full potential. Anything else is a distraction.

[neuroticnicky]

Yes but the problem is that in comprehensive schools there is a huge range of ability going from people who can barely speak English on the one hand to students who could get into the top private schools on the other. Noone benefits by teaching them together.

[Seriouslyffs]

Evil that's impressive! But is your subject a self selecting one? Music, second language? You might well have a higher performing cohort...

[multivac]

All teaching, unless you are a one-to-one tutor (or a poor teacher) is 'mixed ability'. Setting merely gives the illusion of homogeneity - and, theoretically at least, narrows the range within which a good teacher will be individually differentiating.

[KimmySchmidtsSmile]

I still do not see the logic of mixed ability teaching except that it removes the 'sink' sets (bottom sets) where pupils can become disruptive/disaffected. Ability grouping benefits higher-attaining pupils but mixed ability means summer born children/children with English as a second language/disadvantaged children are not adversely affected by streaming.
That said, differentiation in secondary is hard to pull off (you are trying to avoid "teaching to the middle" by having different outcomes or tasks/extra tasks for early finishers/extra time or crib sheets for the less able but when one end of the spectrum can write/act out a role play and the other end is struggling with writing a sentence, teaching MFL for e.g. can be a nightmare.
Frank Chalk does a beautiful analogy whereby he asks the reader to imagine ski school mixed ability lessons.

[Iggi999]

Also if the bulk of pupils are from poorer areas with lower expectations AND ABILITY
See there's were you made your wee mistake OP.

[EvilTwins]

So maybe it's time to make teachers' jobs easier instead of just making them harder and harder and just expecting teachers to magically get better or 'man up'.

I've been teaching for 19 years and differentiation has always been part of the job.

I don't think that setting does always make it easier. Because I teach an options subject, I have never had setted groups - my current yr 11 class has students whose Ks2 starting points range from L5s to lower than L1. They're all doing fine.

I just don't think it's a magic cure. Teachers (or indeed anyone in any profession) should endeavour to do the best they can. Saying that making a group mixed ability makes it "too difficult" is ridiculous.

[Traalaa]

Cones, I was going to pick up on that point too; v.well said. Turquoise, that sort of sweeping generalisation is seriously wrong headed. Sorry to be blunt, but Cone's example of inner city London schools is spot on. My son's at one in a v.poor area - real problems on the surrounding estates with gangs and crime, but the school just doesn't tolerate bad behaviour or disruption. There's a clear behaviour code that the kids respect as they know there's no point not to. It's a friendly, calm school, where kids thrive. Not that uncommon round here these days either.

fwiw, the big difference I think is about the Head and the ethos of the school. So how long's the Head been at the school? If for years and no improvement, then that's another thing that would signal to me that they're a bit stuck.

[ConesOfDunshire]

I'm wondering whether the not setting is being rolled out through all state schools now.

Certainly not.

Also if the bulk of pupils are from poorer areas with lower expectations and ability I presume the disruption is inevitable.

So poorer, less able pupils can't behave themselves? Really? I cannot impress on you strongly enough the this is absolutely not the case, as long as the school is effective and very strong on behaviour management. There are numerous London schools where this has been demonstrated; indeed the success of the whole London Challenge programme was predicated on overturning this assumption.

Ultimately, OP, I would share your concerns about the school, but not because of mixed ability teaching or a deprived intake. Persistent low-level disruption is IMHO the hardest behaviour management issue to stamp out, and it doesn't sound like the school has a handle on this at all.

[woodlands01]

Your school sounds like the one I taught in for over 15 years. I teach Maths so I may be slightly biased towards setting. Mixed ability to me just makes the teachers job much harder. Together with disruption in a school which is struggling to recruit (students and staff) it becomes horrendous. There is also another reason for mixed ability teaching - if the school is small and there are not many classes per year then there is less flexibility with the timetable which means mixed ability groups are necessary to make the timetable work. In a large school where there are many classes and many teachers, mixed ability teaching may be a choice, in a small school it is often a necessity.

[pointythings]

I'd be more concerned over the disruption than over the setting. The DDs' secondary only sets for maths and English and then for sciences and MFL from Year 9. It works well - but the school is very tough on behaviour.