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 ?

OP, I feel for you with this problem. So each child, in say Maths, gets access to one lesson a week with a trained maths teacher but in a class of 40? This is surely the quickest way for a school to lose specialist staff through stress and overwork. No child will get the appropriate attention and it will not be the teacher's fault. The GCSE reductions alone are disgraceful. This school clearly has major problems which can only get worse. You say you are on waiting lists and that you can't afford private school but there are many indies who give very generous scholarships/bursaries in any entry year. Is it worth approaching a couple of indies just to ask?

Hi, OP, I haven't read the whole thread, but could sense your concern from your first post. I'm a teacher in a secondary school; I teach English and we have switched from setting to not setting at IGCSE. The reason we did it was because the class sizes of the upper sets were growing enormous, as the number of students was increasing but no new teachers were hired. Not setting meant that all class sizes were equal.

In my opinion, this has been a positive move and has meant that weaker students are "pulled up" by stronger peers AND the teacher is able to differentiate to stretch the stronger students because of the slightly reduced class size compared to previous top sets.

Do mixed classes achieve the same number of passes at GCSE? Does setting improves grades?
As far as I know, (I would not consider myself an expert on this, but have researched the topic in the recent past), setting has not been proven to improve grades. However, this is always going to be difficult to pin down as every cohort of students is different, as is every teacher, and there are other influential factors too.

I would suggest that you meet with the Director of Studies or similar in your child's school and discuss how differentiation for stronger students will be delivered.

No matter what spin the school put on it about possible outcomes etc, given the current financial funding cuts being imposed on schools, it will be a money saving exercise. It may be the only way the school can give all pupils access to a specialist teacher in that subject and hence tick the right box should Ofsted come to visit.

A few years ago Ofsted however were very critical of a local secondary school which did not stream by ability early enough after pupils started the school. The cynic in me thinks that Ofsted will be put under pressure not to criticise schools where such measures are now taken for cost saving purposes.

I too would be looking for another school (as a teacher or as a parent), especially if your school doesn't realise how difficult it will be to teach a mixed ability maths or science class.

Mixed ability sets are much more logical and it is only the stupid, damaged English system that has led us to think streaming normal and indeed right!

It actually infuriates me that late bloomers are doomed to taking a foundation paper because they haven't been taught parts of the curriculum necessary for the higher paper. Even if someone notices that a student is in fact very capable and bright when they start GCSE years, it's almost impossible to catch up in the state schools system.

What is sad is that the children are put into the boxes very young and taught a different curriculum for a very long time.

Awful English system of education that is obviously not working!

Interestingly at my DC school there are mixed ability sets and then lower or higher sets. The mixed ability sets always get the better teachers. I'd say a more sensible idea would be mixed ability sets and then focus groups for the higher or lower achievers.

When DD was in years 7 and 8 and still in mixed ability sets she found that the lower achievers were the most disruptive, and it affected everyone in the class. I'm not a teacher, so I am sceptical about mixed ability working for some subjects like maths.

The OP's posts clearly illustrate how underfunded education is these days.

It actually infuriates me that late bloomers are doomed to taking a foundation paper because they haven't been taught parts of the curriculum necessary for the higher paper. Even if someone notices that a student is in fact very capable and bright when they start GCSE years, it's almost impossible to catch up in the state schools system.

I disagree with this statement. In as much as it has not been my experience in my DDs' comp, so I wonder whether it is just that some schools aren't very good?

At DDs school the decision Higher v Foundation was made late on for the middle achievers for Science and MFLs (final decision after y11 mocks).
Yes, for maths not everyone was taught everything, but realistically a set 10 child cannot go at the pace needed to cover (or even grasp) the Higher topics.
My DD started in set 7/10 in y7 and by the time she was in y10 was in set 4, then set 3 in y11. So in y7 you might have thought she would end up doing Foundation, but as she progressed she moved up the sets.

They've got funding issues.

How mixed? Pupil ability spread might prove narrow and not be too much of a problem. At GCSE level, however, a teacher who is not a mathematics specialist most certainly is a worry.

If I've understood this correctly, 90% of their students will leave Y11 with only five GCSEs (Maths, English language, English literature and combined Science). That seems a bit limiting. In our local area, all of the sixth forms offering A-levels ask for six GCSEs.

It actually infuriates me that late bloomers are doomed to taking a foundation paper because they haven't been taught parts of the curriculum necessary for the higher paper

In maths hardly any kids actually learn the whole curriculum for whichever paper they're sitting, higher or foundation. In maths there's no point in teaching 3D trig to a kid who can't do 2D trig, or solving complicated equations to a kid who can't solve basic ones.

I was at a selective school and top of the top set in maths.

Thankfully I had a teacher who was totally happy to accept that I was better at maths than she was, and happy for me to work ahead. I'd work ahead until she'd say she wanted me to pause, and either give me some extension work or sometimes I'd say I wanted to investigate something that had caught my eye.

But there were times when both my classmates found it frustrating that I was zooming ahead easily and they were struggling to understand the concept and I found it frustrating that they couldn't understand something that was so obvious there wasn't anything to understand

I can't imagine how you'd do whole class teaching to a full range of standard. So what it would basically mean is either streaming within the set (group 1 does identifying 1/2s and 1/4s, group 2 does equivalent fractions, group 3 does adding/subtraction in fractions and group 4 does multiplication/division of fractions) or each person working on their own.

For both of those I cannot see any advantage over setting the year. If they stream them within the set, then streaming the year gives a closer group. If they work on their own then you're potentially having to explain every concept 30 times.

OP, the only positive spin I can see is if your dc are about to start GCSEs - at which point by definition they'll be in classes with the top 10% at least for their option subjects.

Otherwise it sounds dreadful, particularly with the large class sizes :( DDs school doesn't set at GCSE level other than for English/maths (and only for core subjects in KS3) because it is very small, but the upside is smaller classes.

Separately, regarding pros/cons of setting, this OECD report is fascinating & shows that academic selection isn't in any way a peculiarly British thing.

The report above suggests approx 75% of pupils across OECD countries are set by ability within school for maths, and several of the countries that don't set (eg Austria) have streamed school systems with selection either by exam or primary school recommendation.

Thank you for all your input.

Having experience of mixed classes I cannot see anything positive about it. Theres little I can do with regards to the school other than support my children through this. I'm going to approach some private schools locally and enquire about bursaries but I'm not hopeful.

I feel that everything we did to find the right school for the children has been wasted with a change of headteacher. So many parents are unhappy about it but no one knows what to do. Several of DDs friends are being moved and a good few of DSs friends have gone already. This school used to be oversubscribed with a waiting list but they are expecting to have spaces for the first time in over a decade from September.

I agree with all of your most recent post, OP, except for I feel that everything we did to find the right school for the children has been wasted with a change of headteacher. The headteacher doesn't have a money tree and seems to be trying to do the best with the very scarce funds available to schools now especially in rural areas and those that are undersubscribed, exacerbated by the shortage of qualified subject experts in some areas such as Maths. Blame the government, not the Headteacher. I strongly doubt the old HT or any other could improve the situation.

LockedOutOfMN

I get its probably funding issue but some of the changes dont look like funding decisions. Recruiting new staff to teach new subjects for example. It looks like he is trying to put his own stamp on the school but to me and other parents its to the detriment of a significant number of students.

DS's school does mixed ability teaching in all subjects apart from maths (where it splits the year into foundation and higher groups, so still not fully set). School has chosen to do this, having taken into account all the research about mixed ability teaching vs sets. The school/teachers are very good at organising work/classes so everyone works to their potential.

tellingly its results are basically the same as the local school that has a similar overall demographic but sets in every single subject from Day 1.

I would worry about maths, and Iwould worry about how long it will take the teachers to adapt to the new teaching approach, but I don't think you should worry about mixed ability teaching per se.

Plenty of valid research to show that streaming by ability has no impact except for a small percentage of the highest achievers and often negative impact. Google Setting and Sutton trust or setting and education endowment foundation to see the research outcomes yourself. The school is forward thinking and breaking out of outdated teaching styles that are shown to help hardly any pupils at all. Personally I applaud them and only hope more follow their lead.

DS & DD are at a well-regarded comp with excellent results, who use quite limited setting.

For GCSE, setting is only used for Maths. English and Science, because they manage to maintain 5 option blocks to enable as wide a range as possible of GCSE choices, and thus have to forego setting in, say, History / Geography / MFL so that they can instead be offered in multiple option blocks for greatest flexibility.

I was an academic high achiever at school in late 70s early 80s. We were streamed for Maths and English only.
I often felt like an unpaid class room assistant where my job was to bring on the low achievers. It was a waste of my time. My OLevel results )yes I am that old) were affected by my not having the chance to work on more challenging things. And I got bored and lost interest. I was too used to coasting and not being challenged.
Ironically, we were set for Maths according to how good we were at English. I could've done being in a lower set for Maths because I wasn't as strong at it as I was for English.
Now, my dd is about to start secondary school. I would move schools rather than have her put up with unchallenging lessons.

I would not be happy with this op. My school in the 90's streamed from English/maths and science and thank god they did.

Lower sets was like riot control and often the teacher didn't get them to sit down at all for the whole lesson - let slo e teach them anything. But sure how my presence would have helped that.

Sorry - not sure how my presence would have helped.

I just looked at the evidence the Education Endowment Toolkit used to decide setting had a negative effect and the first link was to Jo Boaler, so I'm unconvinced.

We don't set Y7 on entry to school but take some time to do our own assessments first. Those first few weeks teaching mixed ability are hugely frustrating. You teach to the middle to try to catch as many kids as you can, then chuck extension tasks at the brighter ones while scooting around frantically trying to help the weaker ones who are sat there incapable of starting. The teaching assistant who would normally be assigned to the bottom set for all lessons is now shared between all classes so most of the time there's no support.
We used to set Y7 at Christmas, but we pulled it forward to half term because it was so difficult to do.

In primary, we have moved from sets to no sets very successfully - our data shows no decline in results of higher ability children, huge increase in performance of middle and low ability children, in particular those who used to be at the 'borderline' between sets. Combination with the change in primary curriculum has also seen a huge improvement in ability and willingness of higher ability children to explain their mathematical reasoning, not just 'do'.

However, that's in an environment where everyone sits the same end of Y6 SATs, not where children are facing different levels of GCSE and where the highest levels are hard even for the most abl. I can see that mixed ability primary teaching and increasingly finely setted secondary teaching for Maths (DC's school uses a diamond model with lots of parallel sets in the middle of the ability range but a - large - single top set and a - very small, high staffing ratio - single lowest set) may be the best model.

'The school is forward thinking and breaking out of outdated teaching styles' - no, the school doesn't have enough specialist teachers and is moving to huge mixed classes of 40 in order to plug the gap.

As with pretty much everything in schools now, educational ideology can't be pursued because funding issues are so critical.

Not against mixed ability per se, having taught English in both types of grouping, but would be against it for maths. Strongly against this policy of GCSEs only being for the brightest, and the large class sizes. I'd be looking elsewhere.