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!

darceybussell
I went to a secondary school that didn’t set and it was bloody awful to be honest.
You went to the Royal Ballet School, surely?

I work in a school that sets for maths and science but nothing else. We are a leading school, outstanding in all areas and have many high achievers going to top universities etc.

My last few schools have all set for maths and languages. Other subjects it has varied.

As a Pp said, Mixed ability doesn't work if you teach to the middle, but that is a teaching issue not a grouping issue.

Toffee - ah yes, you’ve outed me!

I definitely agree English can be taught to mixed ability - we do this in FE and we get results from 9 downwards so it's absolutely possible. We have one tier for language.
However, the issue about setting seems to be about behaviours or attitude to learning, not about children's ability to learn. DS1 and DS2 both comment on the problems in mixed ability classes of those who don't want to learn distracting everyone else. If this problem is dealt with then that reason for setting is removed,

Personal experience of not setting at school was disastrous. I literally did nothing. I was very bright and well behaved which put me at the bottom of the teachers priority list.

As a teacher I have found setting very helpful for staff and students alike. I would suggest that those who suffer most in a complete mixed ability system are the very brightest. They will probably get on anyway but not necessarily be happy. If your child is very bright maybe you should see what the other options are available. I think mixed ability schools might work best where you have the least disparity in intake so it might be worth working at midyis bands for the school in year seven historically.

This is very much based on personal experience though.

Dc1 is in a school where they set quite late in in secondary and only for very few subjects.
It's a disaster for him TBH.
Because yes he is on the top 10% and as the HT mentioned, itdoesnt work for those children.

I wish I had released how important it would be for Dc1.

Dc2 is more middle of the run type of thing is much happier (and doing better) than Dc1.

O no, in retrospect, I wouldnt send my DC to a school with no sets.

And yes I can also confirm that the issue is not just about ability and at which level a child is working
It's also and foremost about the attitude to learning, attitude to those who do well (aka being good at something isn't just being a nerd and therefore a source of jokes) and attitude to putting the work in (who make an effort to do extremely well when you can do very well with no effort at all?)

I deeply regret the school Dc1 is at.

MA helps that attitude IME.

Setting often means previously well behaved children stop making the effort as so much teacher time is taken up with behaviour in 'sink sets.'

My dd is bright, and at a school that refuses to set at all, in any subject. Except that in yr8 they have put a small number of very low achievers into a separate maths class.
I spoke to the head. He said that not setting is fine for all except the top 5 %. He was clearly happy to sacrifice them. Told me to remove my dd if I didn't like it.
The teachers don't differentiate much. What seems to happen in practice is that the less academic struggle and the academic aren't stretched. Loads of children get private tutoring. So exam results are good and the school takes the credit.
I am doing a lot of home tutoring of my dd. Otherwise she would never learn how to work at the right level for her.

The message of the thread as a whole seems to be that setting vs mixed ability is a "zero sum game" between the most able and the middle and less able.

OP, it sounds like your DD would be better off at another school, if possible, given that you say she is in the top 10%.

I remember doing a bit of investigation after a previous thread along these lines, and finding some fairly solid looking international comparisons that showed amongst other things that at secondary level maths essentially pretty much all developed countries either (a) set, or (b) have a system where re-taking years is not only possible but relatively common, or alternatively (c) have more than one secondary 'track' - so eg vocational vs academic highschools (not necessarily competitive to get into, sometimes 'self-sorting' of pupils) I guess the latter would be similar to choosing an applied math class in Nooka's example above.

Having said all that, dd (99th percentile plus on all the various tests ed psychs carry out, so definitely in the high achiever group) is in a very small rural secondary with 80 in her year hence by default there's no setting of option subjects as not enough pupils.

This means she's in triple science classes where there are pupils sitting foundation, intermediate & higher papers. In contrast the school has pulled out a set '1a' for maths of pupils aiming for A* at GCSE.

Result - science is fantastic, she's totally engaged and never bored. Maths - crawling up the walls at the slow pace as it seems are 3/4 of the class as the teacher pitches every lesson to the slowest / least engaged pupil in the class. So it does depend an awful lot on the teaching . . . .

How can this possibly work in maths? i can see it working for sciences, arts & English especially in y7-9 but even in those there are going to be pupils who are ready for much more than the others--will they just have to wait for a-levels where they can specialize?

I'd love someone to explain how it's possible to teach a wide range of abilities for maths without leaving anyone out.

MA classes are fairly hellish for bright children IME. Boring, easy work. Get bullied for being smart or get used as an unpaid TA. Just one more way to keep the class system entrenched--those that can afford it will pay for a decent education and those that can't will learn just how joyless learning can be.

I think saying it works for English ignores those pupils who need a lot of repetition of the basics.

Fascinating. Our closest comp is MA for all subjects. Head was very dismissive at open day and told me setting was only happening in our area and MA was normal everywhere else. This thread suggests otherwise. I am less concerned about other subjects, but just can't see how it works for maths.

MA classes are fairly hellish for bright children IME. Boring, easy work. Get bullied for being smart or get used as an unpaid TA. Just one more way to keep the class system entrenched--those that can afford it will pay for a decent education and those that can't will learn just how joyless learning can be.
Brutally put, but spot on (sadly). Every word is absolutely how it is

Several schools that i know near us don't set except for maths but do use the flight path idea. This seems to be increasingly popular for ensuring pupils are working at differentiated levels and meet their potential.

My (secondary) school is fully mixed ability in all subjects. This is because the school is tiny so 1 class per year. They move into different levels in S4 (Scotland - Year of first exams, all courses 1 year) but are still, often, taught in one class. So I might have 2 different levels in an exam class, but overlap between what they are doing.

In practice it means I have bands in lessons, much like primary. Easier in English, but they work in groups (sometimes mixed, sometimes ability). I don't teach many whole class texts but sometimes have, for example, 3 different autobiographies bring read by different groups but the lessons focus on the features of a typical autobiography with examples drawn from all three texts. We would all study "Romeo and Juliet" by watching the film and reading sections - but the most able would be working on imagery while others might just have a more basic grasp of plot.

They are all learning and results are very good.

Maths struggles with this. They have no choice but results are poor.

Other subjects manage as I do.

but do use the flight path idea

That reminds me of a thread I once posted: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/2979988-School-reports-which-give-your-kids-GCSE-grades-or-flightpaths-are-bollocks

Mixed ability in all subjects does seem to be an idea whose time has come. It's probably because the EEF toolkit says that the evidence for it is negative: educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/resources/teaching-learning-toolkit/setting-or-streaming/
But as I said way upthread, I'm extremely dubious of the evidence for maths, and as the EEF toolkit says, the studies are mostly from the US where they make students repeat a year/class if they fail.

I've certainly noticed that some people who think the maths should be setted don't understand that maths should be treated differently to other subjects - it's a completely different difficulty model to e.g. English where work can be improved upon by including more detail. That's why maths also needs a completely different marking policy to the rest of the school. You cannot assess a piece of maths work and say that a good student can go up a grade by improving an existing piece of work. To go up a grade they have to answer a different question correctly.

So it does depend an awful lot on the teaching
Of course it does. And that is the same for setting too.
Sadly lots of people on this thread just want to mope about and say mixed ability never works, it's all about ruining the futures of their bright children.
The same argument could be used against setting because there's a danger of sink sets.

In both setting and MA, it is how it is taught that matters.

Pengggwn
You and me both, and most of my colleagues in my last few schools. But hey, let's not let people with experience of multiple schools get in the way of 'my child had a teacher who... therefore MA is about sacrificing and holding back bright children'

I think saying it works for English ignores those pupils who need a lot of repetition of the basics
No it doesn't.
The students who often need extra work with the basics have a TA in with them, or they have additional intervention with a small grpup tutor acroas the timetable, or they don't study a language and that time is allocated to working on thr basics.

Then in class, a teacher might want to pull a group of 5 and do some work with thrm on thr basics whilst the rest of the class do an independent task. Then next week, the top end might need some small group input so whilst the class get on the teacher gives them small group teaching.

I enjoy teaching sets. I enjoy teaching mixed ability. I enjoy teaching somewhere in the middle. There's pros and cons to all. All can work well.
I don't get the tiny violin playing about an entire grouping strategy.

I did say earlier that its perfectly possible to teach MA in maths but I didn't think about the issue of separate papers in the GCSE system - that would make it much more difficult. Here all the children learn the same maths so there's no need to set as you don't need to be teaching different things to different ability groups but I had forgotten about the difference between the papers in the UK.

@Natsku but how do you decide what maths to teach the class? The most able child will either be doing endless repitition of long-since mastered skills or the least able child will be constantly moving on to new topics without having developed a secure understanding of the preceding one.
Or both will apply, if you set at a pace appropriate for the median child.