Any teachers here? Do mixed ability classes work?

[SpoonsAndForks]

I need to hurry up and decide whether my DS takes up his state school place for September or stays on at his private school.

His state school has mixed ability classes for all subjects apart from maths and English.

I'd like to know (especially from teachers) how this works with 32 children of very different ability. Is it really possible to differentiate and offer the right amount of challenge for each child?

How does it work in language classes where some children have already had 2 years lessons on the language and others are beginners?

Do the more academic kids suffer and end up not reaching their full potential or can they still fly academically?

I think they do, but I’ll be shot down ...

Hope you're not shot down ariana! I'm really looking to hear both viewpoints.

I'm assuming the school I'm sending my DS to thinks they work or surely they'd reconsider. But I'm just a bit confused about how it works in practicality as I don't get it.

I think they are great for slightly lower ability students who benefit from hearing responses / better use of academic language and so on but I would worry about the progress of a higher ability student being limited.

I think taking the children with the poorest literary and numeracy levels from the main feeder primary schools who often (but not always) have erratic attendance, unsupportive homes and chaotic lives and putting them in a room together at secondary is a recipe for disaster.

I think behaviour is slightly better (in my experience) in mixed ability groupings - some schools (not all) use the bottom set for behaviour problem students who often play up even more then they would in a top set due to boredom / lack of challenge. Mixed ability done well (so with an even spread of ability / girls and boys / behaviour needs ) are some of my favourite groups to teach

Are these like composite classes with multiple year levels in one class? I was in one for a few years in (private) primary school and it worked very well. One with three year levels and one with two.

I was educated in a mixed ability state school and achieved very highly (all A*s at GCSE) so it absolutely can and does get the results for the top end students.

I am a teacher and prefer mixed ability classes. Yes, planning does take longer with more differentiation but imo it works well for pupils on every level.

I currently teach in a school where the pupils are set. It works very well for bottom sets where classes are very small (around 10-15). It works ok for top sets who have much larger classes (32/33) but are challenged, work at a fast pace etc. It does not work for the average middle set child. Middle sets are unmotivated, plagued by constant low level bad behaviour, often dislike school and ime often struggle to meet their targets. It also doesn't work for the hard-working but not naturally bright child who is able to just about keep in the top set at key stage 3 but can't cope with the increased workload/difficulty at GCSE and is moved down into the more problematic middle set.

There is so much heartache over setting and a real stigma attached to being moved down. I personally would rather my child be educated in a mixed ability setting.

Mixed ability can work, but it's very hard work for the teacher. I prefer to teach sets. I'm an mfl teacher and have not really taught classes where there have been properly two years' difference in experience between pupils. Even if some have learnt the language at primary and others haven't (usually because they learnt a different language), they usually learnt such a limited amount at primary that it doesn't much matter. Even when I was at school and had done no French at primary, I caught up very quickly with the prep school kids who had done it for years.

I did quite a lot of research on this when my daughter went to a mixed ability school. The findings show that everyone except the very very brightest are better off with mixed.

There's a huge weight of evidence behind mixed attainment teaching as beneficial for overall progress. Setting, if you are one of the pupils in a high attaining set, feels lovely and HA pupils benefit from the self-fulfilling prophecy of high expectations and well-established work ethic; for the vast majority of other pupils, including HA pupils who believe they are 'not good enough to be in the top set', it's largely detrimental.

Teaching mixed attainment requires better teaching. If the school is in the process of moving from one model to another, it's likely that they will be running lots of training and focusing on improving pedagogy. That's a good thing.

I much prefer them. Better for almost everyone in my opinion, and backed up by most research I believe.

32 is a big class, I thought avg. secondary school class size was about 26 still.

In my experience as the student it depends how well they are run. My English classes weren’t set, I spent one teachers lessons paired with a girl who was keen but not that great at getting stuff on paper, we were really good for each other. For the other I spent it paired with a boy who spent most of his time trying to stop me working including one memorable lesson that I spent having a basketball bounced off my head. I didn’t do quite as well in that subject as those that were set but that might just be related to my own abilities.

It can work... but equally ive had amazing set classes. I think for the absolute brightest the set works Better

We have about 25 as class size when mixed abilities but when set the top sets are bigger and 32 plus. Another advantage of mixed ability.

good point... lots of schools I've visited the top sets are largest class sizes & lower sets smaller. This has been fine for my kids in high sets, btw.

In every mixed ability class I was ever in, I was bullied for being clever. I disagree with them massively, and I don't think the wellbeing of the high achieving few should be sacrificed to The God Of Everyone's The Same. I don't think my son, who needs a LOT of extra help in English, would enjoy receiving that extra help in front of students who may be 6 or 7 levels higher than him in ability.

maybe in an education system where grading and measurable achievement aren't so highly focused, but that's not our education system is it? We now teach our children from a young age to grade themselves, be graded by others and to pin their fragile self worth on a 9 at GCSE

The Education Endowment Foundation toolkit which a lot of educators look to for the evidence about mixed ability teaching has fudged the results to make it look like setting only has a negative effect.

Actually the evidence shows setting has a negative effect for the least able, and a positive effect for the most able.

The evidence should also be taken with extreme caution as most of it is based on international studies from different school systems where they say a class is ‘mixed ability’ but because they hold children back a year if they don’t meet standards and promote them if they are very bright, or they use a mastery system, then their classes are nowhere near as mixed in ability as they are in England.

I am governor at a school with mixed ability classes. We use a lot of TAs to assist with the differentiation.

Teaching mixed attainment requires better teaching. If the school is in the process of moving from one model to another, it's likely that they will be running lots of training and focusing on improving pedagogy. That's a good thing.

Teaching mixed attainment requires different teaching, and it certainly places a higher workload burden on teachers (this is not a good thing), but I don’t think that necessarily means better teaching.
I know a school that has moved to mixed ability, it was at the drop of a hat, teachers had no training or support and were just expected to re-write SOW and get on with it. So don’t assume that what has been said above would be the case.

What did the MFL / Science / Humanities teachers at the allocated state school tell you about how the mixed ability teaching works there? Presumably you asked about setting etc at the open evening, if it is such an important issue to you. Or did they tell you that it works fine but now you are having doubts?

His state school has mixed ability classes for all subjects apart from maths and English

Common for Y7 - some schools only set for Maths initially. Some teach mixed ability English all way through to GCSE.

Do they set for other subjects later on - Languages and Science are common areas that are set in later years.

With Humanities and Arts many schools have few GCSE classes so therefore can not set because of numbers and by default mixed ability teaching.

Many private schools can only broadly set due to numbers. Local private school top and bottom set for Maths - there is a massive spread of ability. Maybe high flyer better in large state school with top set Maths out of 7 sets (14 classes split into 2 halves).

I'm glad my dc were mainly in sets tbh. I worked in a secondary school where they were only set for maths.

I am a Maths teacher, I would never work in a school that didn’t set for Maths from Year 5 upwards. That tells you my views on setting in Maths!

Other subjects I can see that there is less of an issue, but I think that by secondary age English and languages should also be settled, but humanities don’t need to be. Science can wait until year 9 type age.

I've just done some research on this. They work well with strong teachers who are able to differentiate effectively and manage behaviour well. Middle and low ability students will benefit in this context. High ability don't benefit but neither is it to their detriment.

With more inexperienced teachers who haven't developed these skills enough mixed ability classes are detrimental to all students' progress.

So it depends on the quality of teaching in that school and classroom.