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!

Our Maths department (1.6 teachers, soon to be just 1) does something similar. Because we have no KS testing in Scotland, levels are determined by teachers and the levels are so broad (Level 3 can encompass three years of secondary school) they take the first 8 weeks to sort them out a bit. Now it is a bit of a swizz if you want them in clear ability groupings as they end up in 2 classes which, clearly, (remember we have 1 class in each year) are very small. So, all the advantages of personalisation come from the small group sizes and they can't really be called sets as they are 2 broad bands across the ability range. But, they do this. No one else does because we can't - I a, the only teacher of my subject so get the lot, together.

I had to change the way I teach, a lot. I came from a very academic and selective school with very rigid sets for every subject. It takes some doing, having so many competing needs in one class.

And we are very lucky - kids are beautifully behaved all the time so I can work with small groups, letting the rest get on with something.

I agree that if you are going to set, there has to be plenty of opportunity for movement between groups, and it should be based on how the student is currently working, not any fixed notion of ability set in primary school (GCSE targets!). But we cannot also pretend that prior attainment doesn't matter at all in maths - it's a hierarchical structure of difficulty and weak foundations will cause problems as the difficulty level builds.

Noble,

However, lower SATs results aren't necessarily an indication of weaker foundations - intensive test practice fr much of Y6, private tutoring geared to the test, lack of class distraction / disruption, EAL etc etc.

Which is why the first couple of months in Y7 are taken up by securing the foundations, then testing all children, then dividing them into fairly broad-brush ability groups. if you set too early, a child who has greater potential may simply never be taught enough content to enable them to move up to the top group.

If we are going to set, then we have to be absolutely clear about giving all children the opportunity to progress if they have the ability - not fix them in their ability groups because we teach the groups different content.

As an anecdote, when we moved to non setting, a child who had been in the lowest set scored amongst the top children in the class after a year of mixed ability teaching. Why? 'None of the questions were things that i hadn't been taught, which was what always used to happen.'

Which is why the first couple of months in Y7 are taken up by securing the foundations

And you can see the threads 'My kid who got 120 in his KS2 maths SATs has spend the last 2 months going over stuff he did in Y4'

If the foundations are already secure then we must be careful not to waste those two months. See Ofsted's report on KS3 'The wasted years'.

My school used to set at Christmas in Y7, then we moved it forward to November half term because teaching proper mixed ability was such a nightmare. We don't set simply based on SATs, we also do a baseline assessment (the results of which can be very interesting compared to SATs results - seeing who has been hothoused an immediately forgotten everything!) and class teachers also offer input. We also shuffle massively throughout the year and into Y8.

'None of the questions were things that i hadn't been taught, which was what always used to happen

Children being put in the wrong sets (or having a learning spurt, learning isn't linear) does happen, which is why there should be opportunity for movement. If this pupil was getting everything correct on the work that they had been taught, then they should have been moved up. There should be an overlap on what is being taught between groups.

What is the theory of Growth Mindsets?? My children's former primary school have started talking about it, but I was given the impression it just had something to do with self-belief and resilience - that a learner who is scared to make mistakes or thinks they are stupid won't do as well as one who sees mistakes as part of the learning process and believes that if they put the effort in, they will see results and improve. It seemed relatively harmless to me explained that way, but clearly it goes along with radical changes to teaching!

DC's secondary does exactly the same.

All its feeder primaries do not set, so tbh the experience the children have in secondary for those first weeks is exactly the same as they had in primary. I am not quite sure why it is felt that what is entirely acceptable, commonplace and successful for teachers to do in Y6 - teach a mixed ability class - is suddenly impossible for teachers 6 weeks later in Y7? If the teachers in Y7 are unaware of how primaries differentiate for wide ability ranges, including challenging the most able by problem solving based on the basic concepts, in 11 year olds at the end of Y6, then perhaps they should come and do a little observation in upper KS2 classrooms?

can't as far as I can tell, our local primaries group by ability for maths.

They might pretend that they don't, but sitting kids on the hexagon table and other kids on the triangle table and giving them different work is pretty much what goes on in secondary, we just do it in different rooms.

I'm aware that the whole mastery thing may change that, but for the moment the spread of ability coming in from KS2 doesn't suggest much effect yet.

Novble, it was common for a bottom set not to be taught the most complex concepts within a year group curriculum - e.g. calculation of percentages of number, or whatever - but to spend more time consolidating 'the basics'. However, in mixed ability teaching, all children accessed all parts of the curriculum, with support and challenge differentiated for on a day by day basis on the back of daily making of work. That made a difference to the final performance of many children, who would otherwise have e.g. lost say 10% of the available marks in each end of year test simply because they had not been taught the material.

Noble, happy to have you come and visit any time! We genuinely don't group by ability by seating or otherwise. Work is differentiated ONLY based on performance in that lesson or the previous one in that sequence, Children move daily, sometimes between different parts of the lesson, based on what they have understood or not understood. In most lessons, most children access exactly the same work, though those who need it will use manipulatives etc or have adult support.

Haven't read the whole thread but what will happen is the school will not attract the bright kids with supportive parents so even if you send your dd there she might find she has very few peers of a similar ability. I read somewhere a school needs a minimum of 30% bright supported pupils to thrive.

I am not going to counter anything noble says about maths : wouldn't dare!

But there are some very ugly things about setting. I work in a department which sets 'rigidly'. In practice, especially in the intake year, the sets are a joke. We spend a large amount of time discussing misplaced students, do little , if anything about it, field endless fretting emails from parents and ghettoise PP students and boys into small bottom sets : we NEVER discuss the pedagogy of teaching in sets - NEVER discuss how to stretch the able or support the weak. I'd be willing to bet the schools that have actively chosen a MA policy have been engaged in discussion and training.As a result of our policy of small bottom sets, even set 7 of 9 is 28 -30. Behaviour issues dominate in set 3 downwards . Girls dominate top sets. In year 10 we have single sex groups as an experiment : but they are still set. Guess what the set 4 boys are like to teach... I would say the bottom sets aren't given to the best teachers : it would be heavily resented if that were the case. in fact, over the years the - let's say favoured rather than - best staff have had set 1!

On another note, my DSs go to a school obsessed with setting in everything and , as a parent, I hate it. DS1 was placed in set 2 when he arrived there. This meant ,because he was set 2 English, he was set 2 for everything (no sense of flexible abilities , apart from maths which had its own sets), There were 33 students and 2/3 were boys. The change in his behaviour and attitude to learning was instant. DS2 who is more studious, but not brighter than, DS1 has squeezed into set 1. He is getting a much better educational experience. Why should the just below the most able suffer on the altar of the high (and allegedly low) achievers? I predict now that DS2's GCSE results will exceed DS1's.

DS1 took Spanish GCSE - was bunged in set 2 and got full marks. This could suggest he should have been in set 1- or, more likely, it suggests his aptitude for MFL was never recognised by such a rigid school.

I teach a MA GCSE option subject which has students from grade 9 to grade 2 ability. It is a haven. I could argue the weak students are maybe a bit confounded at times, but that will always be the case for them. The same boys are in my set 8 English group and are doing better in the option subject. They are very similar subjects in many ways. The grade 9 girl is absolutely soaring. In idle chit chat the other day, her English teacher hadn't even noticed she existed really and just said she was 'quiet'. She has got lost in her set of 30 high achievers and isn't being pushed other than at the same pace as the rest of the class....

Lastly, I notice newer teachers into the profession are horrified at the notion of anything other than rigid setting and say they couldn't teach anything but. So they have clearly been ideologised and institutionalised! And deskilled.

Finished rant!

round there are a lot of variations in what people think growth mindsets are about. Some people think it means 'giving up when you make a mistake is bad, so you should always try to improve' which is blatantly obvious. Actually the theory (from what I can tell) splits people into two groups - those who have a fixed mindset (think ability is fixed), and those who have a growth mindset (think hard work means anyone can succeed). The research showed that people with a fixed mindset were more likely to give up at failure, avoid tough problems and so on. People with a growth mindset were more likely to see challenge as the route to improvement and not give up.

Then there are little questionnaires about finding out whether you have a growth or fixed mindset and working with people who have the 'bad' mindset to try to change them to someone with the 'good' mindset in order to improve their attitude to learning.

When this didn't actually improve results, it was then proposed that it was because people who were presenting with a 'growth mindset' actually had a 'fixed mindset' but were pretending that they didn't for questionnaire purposes. This was called a 'false growth mindset'.

We also force all our teachers to teach exactly the same things , to different sets, at the same pace , so we can a) meet data points and b) move them between sets ! (which we do onc ein a blue moon). Not much point in setting then really , is there??

noble some of the growth mindset stuff related to gender is genuinely very very interesting. I certainly think staff should be aware of it...

We also set early in y7. We put them into broad ability groups based on the KS2 sats results (which we do take with a pinch of salt and give a bit more leeway to kids from certain schools), then do a baseline test within the first few weeks which can show up some quite considerable differences from the sats results and do a fairly big reshuffle at October half term. Then we teach the same topics to everyone for the whole year 7, obviously the top sets go further with those topics based on their prior knowledge than the bottom sets, and we do another major reshuffle going into y8. There are chances to move up/down as necessary throughout the years they are with us.

I teach 2 y7 classes, one top set and one middle set. Both have covered long multiplication(amongst other things) this term, the top set are now regularly getting questions like -5.68 X 4.96, whereas the middle set are still practising the method for 7.8 X 9.4 as it is taking longer for the method to sink in for them.

In most lessons, most children access exactly the same work

But in maths, students need to access different work. At some point, giving a weak kid a times tables grid or cuisinaire rods isn't going to be enough to help them access the content that the brighter kids will be working on.

Then we teach the same topics to everyone for the whole year 7

That's interesting, we don't. We split into a higher and foundation SOW. Obviously there's the argument that we can't then move between foundation and higher groups, but we do anyway, because the spiral curriculum means that the topics will be re-encountered by end of Y9.

Indeed noble but I wanted to move the conversation away from maths where it seems most agree setting is necessitated.

That said, I remember being moved up a set in maths once, promptly coming bottom in a test because I hadn't done some of the content and then being moved back down again!

piggy have you got any further info about growth mindset and gender?

I've not read anything about it. My first guess would link fixed mindsets to girls - maybe that's a maths thing?

DS's school does not set with the exception of Maths and PE , both of which make sense to me. I think it would be night on impossible to teach mathematics well with children making good progress without some sort of ability streaming/setting. PE makes sense as well and helps to avoid children feeling inadequate if mixed with others more talented in sport. It is very important that even less able/for children are not put off sport/activity for obvious reasons.

wanted to move the conversation away from maths

I've been trying to talk more generally than maths too! Maybe I'm posting too much....

Our children are in a school that teaches mixed ability throughout; it works, because differentiation is entirely personalised - and it seems to me, that's the only way it can work. It's not easy, but the school has been working on delivering this kind of education for very many years now, and is rather good at it.