Secondary School that doesn't set: any experience?

[Tomatillo]

I was at an open day for our catchment secondary this week and was surprised to find out that they have just moved to a system where there is no setting at all for any subject in any year. Has anyone had experience of this? Does it work, especially for the brightest?

The teacher who is leading this at the school said that the research showed that only the top 10% benefitted from setting and that removing setting was neutral for the middle band and beneficial for the bottom half. They also talked about the benefits for self-esteem, behaviour and teacher expectations. Assuming this is all correct (I've not yet looked it up in detail) then I can completely see why a comprehensive school (which this is) would want to do this for the benefit of everyone. The difficulty is that we're pretty sure that DD is well within the top 10% for the core academic subjects. Whilst I appreciate that things can change at secondary, her primary have made it very clear that they consider her to be exceptionally able. My own schooling was very heavily set, with sets for almost everything and quite finely graded with 12 levels for maths. This meant that we progressed very fast and I've always thought that helped me go from my very average comp to a 1st at Cambridge. I'm pretty concerned that she'll be disadvantaged if she goes to this school. I asked the teacher about the top students and they essentially said that there were issues for the top group and they appreciated our concerns.

Does anyone have any experience of this? At the moment we are feeling that it would be the wrong decision for her.

Thanks!

it meant that the teachers weren't landed with the demoralising bottom set!

Yes, I suspect it's more about the school/teachers than caring about the pupils.

When pushed on the most able they were a bit dismissive.

Which is the main driver for us not choosing our catchment comp. We asked the Maths teachers about enrichment as son was a Maths high achiever at primary, and they couldn't offer anything at all. Just a glib comment that there was a lunchtime chess club and that the brighter Maths students were entered for the maths challenge quizzes. They didn't even do further maths. So, basically, he have been left bored to tears in Maths classes and they weren't even going to give him extra work to do!

my school didn't set for English and a couple of other subjects. it was chaos in these classes much of the time.
setting meant a quieter atmosphere in the top and middle sets.
Maths surely needs setting, in order to use a targeted approach.

without setting it must be more difficult to manage a class, so you would need a really really good teacher and excellent discipline. this isn't always possible.

I'd check out the neighbouring catchment schools! Like others have said, it's the maths that would worry me most. Both my dcs like being in sets. I think with maths, in particular, most people prefer being with students who are working at the same pace as they are. It's no fun being too far ahead or too far behind.

The problem is anyone with a switched on parent of a top set child will be thinking exactly same as you. So you will find the School doesn’t attract the brightest children, parents asking questions about sets and stretching will be clued up enough to get dc in faith schools, out of catchment Grammar or private.
From everything you said I wouldn’t have contemplated it for my dd.

I know it sounds awful, but coming from a school where every subject was decided in to sets, I’m worried to hear that many schools are choosing not to do it any more, at our school the top 2 sets were fully of high achieving well behaved children but as you went down the sets you found the behaviour was questionable , the lower sets had many children who had no interest in learning and were often disruptive, mixing these children together will only ever have a negative effect on those who want to achieve, and the poor teachers are stuck trying to teach one subject to a mixed ability class who half don’t understand what’s being said!

This is like our school except for maths. It's awkward. Overall it may be better but even on this I have my doubts, weaker students aren't supported that well.

Results look ok but there is a lot of outside tutoring for exams. And more importantly imo the texts in English for example are very broad appeal, history skims the surface it's just low on challenge unless you have very self motivated kids. Can you tellI that I don't like it! But school has good atmosphere. Children of teachers do very well!

Access to suitable Texts in English is a good point. We mustn’t have been settled in first few years in English as I recall reading David Copperfield in class. Gosh it was painful so slow and put me right off. I used to be pages ahead then have to go back to read my bit out then there were some girls struggling to read it out st all.

I agree re access to texts in English. DD's set are currently reading / discussing a short story. The top set is doing a full sized novel.

I would be very worried about this system
It is very dependant on Gavin exceptional teachers who can cope with this style of teaching.

DS is in year 6 and exceptionally able in English and maths. and over the years at primary school he has had several Ok teachers, a couple of rubbish ones and a couple of brilliant ones, these brilliant ones were brilliant because they were able to teach the class of 30 as individuals and really brought out the best in all the kids and was able to teach each child at the level they needed to learn and to stay engaged at both ends of the ability scale. If i could have cloned his year 1 teacher o would have she was amazing.

So from my School sample you have maybe 20% of teachers that would be able to do this system justice, 50% who would do an ok job and 30% who would fail both the top and bottom ends of the scale.
Fine if you have a middling child but not good odds if you have a child that is in the top or bottom 10%

Just spotted a PP's reference to ILEA.

Congratulations on your As. Unfortunately I have family who had terrible educational experiences in ILEA run schools.

My DS it at a selective grammar. They only set for Maths & English. All other subjects are mixed. Even with them selecting the more able students in the first place, my son tells me the mixed lessons are problematic, as regards behaviour, different speeds of learning, etc, and that's with a group of far less diversity than your average comp.

I wouldn't send my children there. I was nearly expelled from a similar school because the sheer boredom of being held back led to all sorts of misbehavior. The final straw was being told I couldn't ask for more work as I (and a few others) were making other children feel stupid. Luckily my Father was posted shortly after and I got sent to an excellent school which ran all the classes on ability.

Oh and having to share books with people with considerably slower reading speed was just torture. As far as I can see the system only helped the bottom half as the top half would help them to speed everything up, making us unpaid TAs effectively.

An anecdote here rather than any concrete evidence but at my DCs' school there was no setting until year 10, when English and maths were vaguely set - meaning that there were 3 bands for 11 classes, so there were about 130 kids (so four classes) in the top band, around 110 (split into four classes) in the middle band), and then around 60/70 kids split into three classes for the bottom band - who were mostly children whose first language wasn't English. Science and options were totally mixed ability unless you did triple science - which 3 classes did, but even they were mixed as much as possible (though most of the kids in triple science were B/C grade science students and above anyway).

The school has a tremendous progress 8 score (in the top band) and my eldest DD (a high achiever now in her first year at Oxford) achieved 9As, while my DS who I would say was, at the start of year 10, a middle to bottom of "band 1" candidate (so bright but not exceptional - capable of a string of Bs without any real work), achieved 4As, 1A, 28s and a 9 - well exceeding his targets (1A*, 4As, 28s and a 7).

I think it depends what kind of high ability your daughter is - both of mine are obviously bright, but are also hard workers without needing the motivation of their peers or teachers. They pick up concepts quickly, so it didn't impact them to have people in their class struggling more - DD really enjoyed helping people in her class and it gave her a lot of confidence. One girl always cites her as the reason she got As in physics and chemistry (exaggerating obviously but DD is definitely proud of this and benefitted mutually from the teaching and helping process). Many of DS's closest friends who were in his lessons either missed their grades to do A levels or scraped their Bs/Cs and 4s but it evidently didn't hold him back at all.

I can see the benefits of setting, but personally I encountered no hindrance with minimal setting for my two older children. I do think it depends on your DD - if you think only being surrounded by the brighter children and being constantly pushed by the teacher and by the work in lessons will have a positive impact, then I would be reluctant to send her there. But if you think she's happy to push herself and do her own extra work out of lessons, and might enjoy helping less academic children in lessons (teaching is the best way to learn after all!) then I wouldn't let it put you off.

it meant that the teachers weren't landed with the demoralising bottom set!

Yes, I suspect it's more about the school/teachers than caring about the pupils.

I highly doubt that. Doing it 'for the school' basically means doing it for the results, which is therefore largely to the benefit of the pupils. Anyway, most teachers I've worked with in the past 20 years have been heavily in favour of setting. Sharing out the difficult bottom sets is still much better than all your sets being mixed ability imo. I hate teaching mixed ability.

Fwiw with two boys who are both in the top 10% in all the baccalaureate subjects, is say their poorest experiences have always been in the mixed ability classes. That's where they have made the slowest progress and got fed up quickly - or looked for something amusing to fill the time with in the classrooms.
The fact the school is telling you this up front is an enormous blessing. They could have just left you to find out when it was too late to find another school and send your DD's there instead

When my ds was at junior school they set for Maths, but had a top group and two "parallel" groups, so there was no "bottom" set.

They had originally set for English but moved to mixed ability after a pilot.

DS' secondary (a state comprehensive) sets for Maths, English, Science and possibly MFL but I'm not so sure about the last one.

His year group has 5 sets for Maths, two top, two middle and one bottom.

I am not sure if it would affect your daughter adversely though - every school wants its kids to do the best they can and even though there will still be the C/D boundary issue (4/5 now - or 3/4?) they also want to show progress and if your dd is the old level 6 coming out of primary she needs targets commensurate with that.

But if you are unhappy about the school's approach I suspect there is a local one which does set and might suit your dd better.

Does anyone know how progress 8 works? I'd thought it was meant to discourage schools from ignoring the needs of the more able students which was the problem with the old system of doing a head count of those who got A-C incl maths and English.
I don't know what it is though, only what is supposed to achieve

Can i ask op... is this a school in Bury?

I would be delighted by this.

The problem is anyone with a switched on parent of a top set child will be thinking exactly same as you. So you will find the School doesn’t attract the brightest children, parents asking questions about sets and stretching will be clued up enough to get dc in faith schools, out of catchment Grammar or private
I agree. I think that more people will start to be in favour of grammar schools and pushing for them who weren't previously.

New grammar schools i mean

Why should the brightest be sat all in one room together? Why should the less able be sat all in one room together?

Because in maths at least, they are learning completely different things.
Why do we put people who are studying French in a room together and people who are studying Geography in a different room? Is that arbitrary?

Nof the same giraffe