Secondary school does not stream children in Year 7

[musicalfamily]

Hi there, I would really appreciate your opinion on this one...

we are torn between two school places, one at the local comprehensive and one at an independent (we have a place at both!). Both schools get great results, although the comprehensive not as high as the independent - but still sends the same number to Oxbridge and many more to Russell Group universities.

I know quite a few parents with children at both.

The local comprehensive streams in a number of subjects from October of year 7; in maths for example they have classes for L6+, L5-6, L5, L4-5 and so on. The independent school told me that they don't because "they don't need to, as all the children are very able".

I know this is definitely not true as it is only mildly academically selective, and I know close friends whose children scraped a L4 in maths and got in. So there will be at the very least children who are L4, L5 and L6 in maths for example.

I know a number of parents who thought their children were not being stretched and others who had to employ tutors. Should I gauge from this information that the great results are just parents forking out on tutors or am I rushing to conclusions here?

I am extremely worried about making the wrong choice. My DD1 is very able in maths (L6) and so I have concerns around what they would do with her. I asked whether they set and I didn't get a definite answer, nor did I get an answer when I asked if they sent differentiated homework. All I got was "in a class of 20 we would look to differentiate appropriately and set if necessary".....

What would you do?

Working in a comp secondary school and as a HOD who has to make decisions on whether to set Yr7 or go for mixed ability, there's a lot of recent research that suggests all students make better progress in mixed ability (provided there is good differentiation from the teacher).

As teaching styles and assessments can vary so much from primary school to primary school, it also helps schools get a better hold on ability and skills before pigeon going the child in 'top' or 'bottom' set. It also allows the students to focus much more on what they're learning rather than what a artbitrary set they're in. Our students don't know what set they're in if they are set in later years (we change the numbers of the groups).

IMHO I wouldn't overly worry about 'challenge' in yr 7, lots of that can be done at home with different reading material. My key focus would be engagement in curriculum, atmosphere of school (including bullying policies etc) and quality of teaching staff (rate of good to outstanding teachers should be on ofsted report).

www.suttontrust.com/newsarchive/teaching-matters-more-than-setting/

Just to add that DD has been taking on a role of helping fellow pupils, even to the point of providing after school GCSE tutoring to some of her friends, and when her Maths teacher found out, she gave her a lot of praise and said it was great to see pupils supporting each other and was very happy for DD to take on that role.

I feel that this experience has been a very valuable one. What school offer is not just academic, and it is nice to see that Oxbridge and Russell groups Unis are starting to value more and more this sort of experience/attitude to learning reflected during interviews.

Can you work out what extra curricular activities they would be able to do out of school, if you went for the state option? Then you are thinking about the whole package.

That is, assuming you are in a position to become a taxi driver for a few years. Because one big advantage of an independent may be that it's all on site so you don't have to do so much running around. (Speaks from bitter experience of having two children who have a rich and exciting extra curricular programme that requires a lots of getting them from A to B, but is costing us a fraction of the amount of local school fees)

I agree extracurricular is a big factor as it is financials as we have four children.. The girls do a lot of dancing which is not done at either schools so I would have to.take them 3 days a week as I do now.

My sons are just happy with a bit of football and cricket, both hate rugby but really all of them.are more into music than anything else.

I believe they would be able to have music lessons in school and both schools have average music provision.

Musicalfamily,

If it is of any help, we have opted for a comprehensive that sets only for maths in Y7, and then for other subjects increasingly from y8 onwards, supplemented by lots of 'community rather than sxchool-based' extracurricular.

interestingly, both DD and DS increasingly see privately-schooled children coming to their extracurricular activities because the 'in school provision' for their specific extracurricular 'things' is OIK up to a point but not as high quality at the higher end / older ages as is available in the community.

So for example, DS is involved in the county music setup of orchestras, jazz bands, music centres etc, with a mix of state and private school friends. DD dances to a high standard, and her dance school draws from a mix of state and private schools. it is not that the private schools don't 'do' music or dance, it is just that at county / high level dance standard, the individual private schools can't offer training at the same high standard as the county / specialised dance school can.

it depends a lot on you as a family. Some relatives have opted for the 'all in package' of private school, because the sheer logistics of getting their DCs to community-based extracurricular were too hard, and they accepted that they were compromising the 'absolute quality' of some of the provision for 'convenience of all in one place'. Equally, if your DCs' interests align exactly with the school's areas of strength, especially in mainstream private school sport - cricket, rugby - then the best provision can be in school and cannot be as successfully replicated in the local community.

It also depends on your area. We used to live rurally, and community provision was patchy and of mixed quality. We now live in a large town where we are lucky enough to find community provision that is genuinely excellent.

(I would also say for dancing a lot, which is something that I am a reluctant expert on, it can be hard for the private school children because there is sometimes an assumption by the school that 'all extracurricular is done in school'. So school activities cut willy-nilly into evening dance classes at short notice, Saturday sport cuts across weekend rehearsals, permission is harder to come by for time off for competitions and exams etc.

OTOH, DD and DS's comprehensive understand that their pupils are often juggling school and multiple extracurricular commitments and are IME significantly more flexible - DS has been known to take 2 hours out of a school production rehearsal at the weekend, play a football match as the only goalie for his community team, and then return to the rehearsal bathed in mud, for example)

Hi teacherwith2kids, you make a really valid point. The state school is in a large town and we are very rural, so I think we would move so that we would be able to be much closer to all the sports/activities, without having to travel/taxi miles every day. I hope that when teenagers they could even take themselves with a short bus ride or walking, if I am not always available for lifts. I would imagine as well, if everyone is fairly local, they would possibly be sharing lifts.

The setting seems to be just a small factor really, but it just makes me worry in combination with the general feeling that I don't want to be paying for extracurricular only but for much more. e.g. better academics for an academic child. I am getting the general feeling that the teaching will be variable and that parents are propping up a lot, which then makes me re-evaluate.

I will have a very good think. .but it's nice to hear that it can work but also that there are other options out there - I guess I am very lucky to have the choice.

We are starting to look at secondaries, and I have two questions for the schools we look at:

• do you set in Yr7 and if not how do you cater for the most able

• do you read the full text for GCSE English Literature, at least in the top sets.

I'd be concerned about a state school that didn't have good answers to those, and real doubts about paying an independent.

albazavi

It's not exactly what the research shows. My understanding is that most pupils do as well as they would have done without setting, while lower ability pupils do better. However the highest achievers do better when setting is in place.

Looking at this as a parent, it suggests that you should choose a school that opts for setting, if you have a child who is significantly good in the relevant subject.

I agree with chopchop

I have 2 DDs good at Maths and am not in favour of setting at y7 stage. I would select against it if that were the only consideration. I think it adds unnecessary competitive pressure and is unnecessary wrt covering the curriculum for able DC. I would be looking for enrichment activities like chess club, science club, participation in national Maths and Engineering challenges etc etc.

However the highest achievers do better when setting is in place.
Do you mean the research showed they do better at GCSE when they are set in Year 7 (rather than later). How better?

I suppose it comes to how better. If it is only a few points and in the end, all those who finished Year 6 with a level 6 in Maths end up with an A at GCSE but those who were set do so with a point or 2 higher, then it makes sense to consider what the other school offers. If it is a case that those who got level 6 in Maths ended up with an A at GCSE when not set as opposed to an A, then yes, I can see the reasoning behing going for the setting school. Saying that, my experience is that those who got 5As at SATS (as I don't think they did the level 6 papers all those years ago) are all expected A*s, whichever school they went to and whether they were set or not.

D.S school set from year 7 using SAT results. Interestingly ( and now in year 8) there has been no movement in or out of his set, despite re-testing , since they started.
I believe children of similar abilities should be grouped and also wouldn't be happy with a fifth of their secondary school life spent "settling in". My friend is the assistant head at the same school and like it or not, says there are generally far more disruptive pupils with lower aims and expectations of themselves in the lowers sets. For this reason, if your daughter is a higher achiever I would want her mixing both academically (and inevitably mo socially) with those of a similar level.

Personally, I'm a fan of early setting across the board.

I can see that in year 7, there may need to be an assessment period, but an entire year? I don't think so.

I can see an argument that a similar ability year group will find setting less necessary, but OP, you say the independent school is not selective so that's not the case here. Although you also say the academic results are good, so if it is mixed ability something is going right.

The whole point of paying is to have choice. Choice to source an education for your DC in line (broadly - nothing is perfect) with what you want/value.

My DC will soon be entering U6, and I will be embarking on the last year of school fees. I do not regret a penny. But then I used that money to choose the education we wanted (which isn't available in the state sector).

I certainly wouldn't actively choose a school whose policies I disagreed with.

It all depends on what your desired outcome is.

I imagine that the research is based on GCSE results (I've read reports of it, not the original material) but I'm actually not that bothered about that. I'd like a child who still has an enthusiasm for the subject at the end of school. There have been countless threads on here about children who move up into secondary and spend a year, or more, marking time in mixed ability sets, bored and frustrated.

And yes, with a good teacher, a mixed ability set can work, but the truth is that quite often they don't. If a child is way ahead, it means effectively setting entirely different work and, even then, they still have to sit through a heap of explanation about stuff they can do.

The other point worth making is that even an 'only mildly selective' private school will have an ability range within classes much narrower than a comprehensive, and almost certainly also a very much smaller number of children with behavioural difficulties.

If you have a smallish class of well-behaved students who arrive with [in old money] Maths results which probably range from 4C to Level 6, that remains an easy class to teach in mixed ability form. Basically you are teaching children who are around or above national expectations, will be able to read well, and will have no special learning or special behavioural needs. As long as the school still differentiates [don't take this for granted, i have seen non-differentiated private school teaching, so it is worth checking], then the range of differentiation is quite small.

On the other hand, a mixed ability group at a comprehensive would contain children who may well have Level 2 or below in Maths all the way up to Level 6. There will be children with significant SEN affecting either learning or behaviour or both. It is also very much more likely that you will have children whose basic needs - for decent food, a secure home, a secure family, warm clothes - are not being met: such lack of basic care is very rare in private schools as families in that position can't often pay fees. Mixed ability teaching in that context is very different.

If the private school is otherwise suitable, therefore, I wouldn't make it the be all and end all. With a hugely wide ability, behaviour and needs spread, the comprehensive may have decided that setting is a pragmatic way forward, whereas with a much narrower range in a smaller class, the private school may not need to set in the same way.

We had the same problem a few years ago with our eldest ( also have several children).We decided to send her to the local comp.Two years down the line we transfered her to the Independent school.We were pretty unhappy with almost everything at the comp. though DD really didn't want to leave her friends.This is also a ' mildly' selective school.She has done vastly better than her very bright friends she left behind.However our local school is nowhere near achieving the type of results yours is.It does however fib on results day ( and assigns 12 A*'s to children who hit nowhere near that) in the local paper.

I have a DD who is very able in general and very keen on maths. She attends a highly selective grammar school and even they set for maths from year 7: her maths teacher explained that whilst all the kids are generally able, some will have more practise than others in maths and therefore find it easier or do better at it (to begin with).

My point is that even with high ability kids, there still is a range of learning requirements and setting allows them to be taught at an appropriate pace, so I would always choose a school that sets.

If you are in doubt, then always choose the state option, otherwise , you will always think about is it worth for the money. I am doing this, especially to think about if we should send DS2 to private school with our local comprehensive is going up.

We don't have the choice of the good state school with DS1, so we send him to a private school, a selective but not the top one. DS1 really enjoyed it. They didn't set on Y7, and only set in Math from Y8, not on any other subject. DS wasn't challenged very much in Math from Y7-8 in the class, but he did have the opportunity to go to math club( which is not popular, DS stopped going in the end), doing math challenge, attending team math challenge in London etc.

The atmosphere in the school is nice, the classroom is calm( I think you can find this in a good state secondary as well). There are lots of clubs, but DS1 only attend 2 of these plus orchestra. Sports is strong in the school, DS1 in in the middle range of the sports ability, he enjoyed the sports as well. He has attended a few weekend math, tried hard to fight for his house.Overall , he has really enjoyed his school.

But think about the university fee ahead, I really wish we have chosen a city to settle down with a good state secondary.