Should I be worried?

[ReinettePompadour]

I've had a letter sent home from DD's and DS's high school and from September they are going to stop setting students and move to mixed ability classes in all subjects previously set by ability (English/Maths/Science/Geography/History).

The reasons that have been stated are that it gives lower attaining pupils access to the same curriculum as high achieving and will encourage them to do better/aim higher/be inspired by high achieving students in their class etc It also states there is little/no evidence that mixed classes do worse at GCSE than streamed classes.

I'm already suspicious of the schools intentions after they announced they were going to offer 8 GCSEs to only the top 10% highest achieving students and anyone considered below that 10%/middle/low would be offered GCSE's in only English/Maths/Science and BTECs instead for the remaining options.

A school Governor has mentioned there are no specialist staff available to teach English/Maths/Science and this way by mixing the classes they can give every student the benefit of a specialist teacher but the downside side is the larger class sizes that will now be created (up to 40 students I believe).

Is this something I should be worried about? I have already been looking for alternative schools due to the GCSE reductions but we are stuck on school waiting lists with no movement this year as it is.

Do mixed classes achieve the same number of passes at GCSE? Does setting improves grades? Will high ability students now be forgotten/ignored? Should I be worried about this because I am ?

Id love to assuage your concerns - and i speak only from personal experience - but in "mixed" classes the more studious kids are used as unpaid teaching assistants for the lower-attaining/poorly behaved ones. I was always put in a group with the most poorly behaved students and ended up doing the work myself.
Like I say though, this is just my experience, not a broadly applicable fact.

potatoscowls this was also my experience back in the 80s. Hence me worrying about this

I'm an English teacher and would be pleased with this. Mixed ability leads to much better dynamics and more challenging texts in English. At a recent conference we had a big session on sets or not and very very few schools persist with it. Haven't got a reference to hand but evidence was convincing.

Mooncupdotcom that reference would be good.

I cant find anything positive online anywhere. And obviously personal experience of this wasn't great.

I'm happy to read anything that will reassure me that my top 10% performing student will continue to receive appropriate work and that it wont be dumbed down to accommodate the other students.

As a maths teacher, I would quit and find another school rather than work in one that taught mixed ability maths. I definitely wouldn't choose to send my child to one.

It is, I understand, possible to teach maths mixed ability, and indeed some maths educators I respect actually prefer it, however they admit that it requires a huge amount of specialist training and a very different way of working to your normal classroom. I really doubt that the teachers in your school would be getting this training.

The evidence for mixed ability maths teaching is contentious, when I researched it for my PGCE, Jo Boaler was a prominent figure arguing in favour. She has, I believe, been accused of making up her results because she has never released them and since then has done some exceptionally dubious work in the realms of maths and neuroscience.

Maths works differently to other subjects, it is hierarchical, you cannot access the more difficult work if you don't understand the easier work, so giving lower attaining pupils access to higher levels of work before they're ready will not motivate them, it will confuse them.

That they are combining this new approach with larger class sizes is alarming.

We have mixed ability and it works great. High achievers attain just as high and middle and low do better.
However the 40students in a class would worry me. We have a max of 28 and that seems big to me.

A blogger does a brief review of the evidence for mixed ability teaching in maths here:

teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/2015/11/29/why-i-am-against-mixed-ability-part-2/

I'm English by the way. Maths may be trickier.

I believe that the best performing comp in Hants, Thornden, does a lot of mixed ability teaching. (Not everything, so I suspect not maths). So it clearly can work.
However the large class sizes, lack of GCSE options sounds terrible. I would be moving heaven and earth to find a different school I think.

Thank you noblegiraffe. I do agree with you.

The question is, what can I do about it?

As I said before we are already on several waiting lists and although its the best option I can no longer afford private school.

Would it be worth me finding a tutor to keep them progressing perhaps?

If your DC are bright is there the possibility of a scholarship to a private school or at least some help with fees?

I'd definitely get a tutor for maths as that's likely to be a disaster from the start. The less hierarchical subjects like English could be less urgent.

Are they definitely going total mixed ability for maths? Not a top set, bottom set and mixed in the middle? (which I've heard of before, which wouldn't be so awful).

Mixed ability is said to be a good idea, but deffo not in maths, as Noble says.

But I would be very concerned about all those BTECs (is that even possible or good for the school's results?) and the big classes, lack of teachers.

Have you had all this confirmed by the school op? I would be looking for a new school. How old are DC?

coragreta how do you know that high ability students do just as well and middle/low do better? How are you measuring it?

Yes noblegiraffe I believe its including maths.

Have you had all this confirmed by the school op The school sent a letter home Friday informing us of the changes. All academic subjects will become mixed ability from September. Students will now attend all classes with their form group and no longer be split based on academic attainment levels.

I know a Governor (neighbour) they said its due to the staffing issues. Currently specialist maths (for example) teachers only teach high ability and GCSE/A Level. Mixing the groups will now give middle and low attaining students access to those specialist teachers where before they had non-specialists teaching them (PE teacher teaching Geography type scenario).

To allow everyone access to these teachers at least once a week they have had to increase the class sizes otherwise they would still be limiting the number of students who have access to the specialist teachers.

I spent months fighting to get them into this school and then the Head retired and a new one came in. The new one is full of bright ideas but none of them appear to be geared up to helping my children do better. If anything its made things more difficult for both of my current high school age children. I have 1 more to go through high school but Ive looked at other schools in preference to this one.

Blimey, I know it's hard to recruit maths and science teachers but the idea of students having to be in classes of 40 to have an actual geography teacher once a week... that's really not great :(

Students will now attend all classes with their form group and no longer be split based on academic attainment levels.

If students are to be taught in their form group why will there be 40 students in each class?

I find a lot of schools are going mixed. I teach MFL and we have been told we cannot set in September. This is ok, but we have some amazing linguists top end and some children who struggle with spelling their own names or writing sentences in English with capital letters and full stops. With reduced funding we just don't have TA support and I worry about successfully supporting that bottom end while still stretching the top.

Teacher here, worked in both. The idea of the high achievers pulling up lower achievers is a fallacy. It is a way, as a PP has mentioned, of sorting support. Whatever my child's needs or abilities I would be worried as none can be met. Learning is almost impossible to personalise and gifted kids get bored. Those who are quiet just slowly begin to underperform.
Nightmare.

Lack of specialists is also a concern. I would be seriously looking for an alternative, sorry.

Clavinova Forms are in houses rather than an individual form group.

Its basically year 9 red house is 1 form of around 40 students.

Year 9 yellow house, blue house, green house.

So 4 forms (colours/houses) made up of 20 boys and 20 girls each (approx).

These houses will be the new classes where before they were set by ability so smaller groups of around 24.

I thought it was commonly accepted that mixed ability teaching does tend to benefit those of lower/average ability, but not the more able? I'm sure someone will set me straight!

My eldest two were taught in mixed ability groups to year 10. It was ne ear an issue really and they both got excellent academic results. The only issue was finding peers that were like themselves - they had to work harder to find friends who had same aspirations.

Gosh, it sounds like there are a number of issues at that school! I'm surprised they're allowed to enter so few for GCSEs; that the classes are so large and that core subjects are taught by non-specialists!

Mixed ability teaching could work well if behaviour at the school is really good and there are strong systems in place to maintain it, as well as TAs to support the class.

I think you are right to try your best to find an alternative school for your children.

My school did this back when I was in comp and it was absolutely terrible. I teach now and if I was still in secondary I'd leave a school that ditched setting.

I'd definitely be looking to move my kids. The mixed-ability classes probably are better for lower-ability kids, but no way do they benefit high achievers. And a class of 40 is crazy.