Year 10 - sets for gcses?

[Redshoes2]

Hi, day 1 of year 10 and my dd has discovered that her year are not in ability sets for their GCSE option subjects - they have been for the past 3 years - seems daft - is this normal??

I assume Maths English and Science are still set.

The others may not be set because of timetabling issues and the number of children taking up each option.

Was the same when I was in school, it's not really possible due to timetabling. I'd assume most schools are the same.

As AllThebest said.

There might be 90 doing history, but at out school that could be 30 from column A, 30 from B and 30 from C, so unless there are 3 history lessons running simultaneously they won't be set.

Certainly when DD1 GCSEs

• Spanish not set, only 1 class doing that option
• French not set as only one class doing the French option in the non-MFL column
• Drama not set, but the two classes split by who would work well together rather than pure ability
• History, might have been set, can't remember.

For my dc's school, maths, English and science are set, but very few other things-I think languages is, but not sure.
Hasn't effected my dc.

core are set - option subjects are very difficult to set as it depends on how many groups are running at the same time; in my school if we have two or more groups running in the same option block then we do try to set, but if it is just one group in that block then we can't set - but we do know how to differentiate!

No sets here for anything except maths.