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?

So, you do seem to think that anyone below 7 doesn't need to improve and doesn't need feedback. The expectation on teachers these days is that very child meets (or exceeds) their indicator grades, not that the lower end sit like puddings being taught how to behave or being taught by some patient , kindly helpmeet.

And , once more, the assertion that the most able don't misbehave!

Oh well.

I understand the point you are trying to make but it doesn't chime with what teaching is to me.

Educational researcher here. Lots had been said. In my experience, mixed ability works for overall performance and can work for lower ability. The high flyers however lose out. Sets work well for the more able.

I moved my own child from a school that changed to mixed ability to a private school with 5 sets in each year, even Reception! It was the right choice for us.

Disruptive children (and anyone who shares a classroom with a disruptive child) need teachers who have a strong personality and can hopefully inspire them to want to behave and listen.

I disagree with this. What disruptive children need is an effective behaviour management system and an SLT supportive of its teachers. Behaviour in a class should not be reliant on how strong a personality the teacher has, or how inspiring they are. That’s just throwing kids to the lions.

Late to the discussion but with some questions for the many teachers here:

When you say mixed-ability, do you really mean ability or do you really mean achievement? I.e., would your schools actually put a "bright", quick-learning child who, for whatever reason, was missing some chunks of KS2 maths into the top set? Would they start a child who was a slow at grasping new concepts but whose parents did a lot of extra work with them in the bottom set?

The children who go private have on average:
- richer parents
- more educated parents
- more involved / pro-education parents
- less SEN / behaviour problems

Are these things not also true (on average) for children in top sets?

Piggywaspushed no, that's not what i am saying. What I am saying is that this the thing that 7+ need this more than anything else.

I think you knew that though, and you are just nit-picking. Otherwise you really didn't understand which is interesting.

user149799568 not at my DC's comprehensive, mixed-ability, mixed income-range school, but there does seem to be a clustering of DC of professional parents in the top set. Maybe intelligence has an inherited component?

Some parents can afford private tutors, others can't. Some would think to organise them, others wouldn't, even if they could afford them (they see education as the school's responsibility). The DC who I know to have had private tutors tended to be in the middle to bottom sets.

But that's only my knowledge of the DC I am aware of in one school, I'm sure someone else knows of a proper research paper on this.

noblegiraffe you are right, that has to be there too. However, from your experience when it is there, would you agree that the levels of class disruption still vary from classroom to classroom, even when its the same 30 students (eg a form in KS3)?

Very good questions user. I suspect that in most schools it is achievement, not ability. There are many pupils who end up in top set because they did well in tests due to hard work and consistent effort, which is a good thing but it does not mean they are very good or really enjoy that subject. In the not so clear cut cases, ie the ones could either be placed in bottom of set 1 or top of set 2, it is more difficult to decide. It is up to me, I would always go with ability in these cases.

For your second question, the answer is yes IME. We only need to look at grammar schools, in theory, the top 25% or whatever it is and we can see, on average, all those points apply.

When you say mixed-ability, do you really mean ability or do you really mean achievement? I.e., would your schools actually put a "bright", quick-learning child who, for whatever reason, was missing some chunks of KS2 maths into the top set? Would they start a child who was a slow at grasping new concepts but whose parents did a lot of extra work with them in the bottom set?
An able child who had missed parts of school (for whatever reason, often medical) would tend to be placed in a higher set. Probably not top set as it can dent their confidence when transitioning back to school, but probably a set 2 and then once they were all caught up and settled then move to top set if that was best for them.

Equally, I've taught lots of 'less able' (hate the phrase but you know what i mean) students who do loads of work at home in lower sets.

In terms of social criteria for private abd top sets, I think there's some overlap, but not perhaps as noticeable differences between comprehensive setting and comp vs grammar. Mainly because the impression I get from MN (I'm not in a grammar area so am happy to be corrected if I've got it wrong) is that there's a certain amount of system savvyness to get your child to grammar, lining them up in the right prep, right 11+ tutor, discussion of 11+ prep as a norm with peers etc. Whereas you can be in a top set in a comprehensive without all that (I know I was a top set child and never had a tutor or half the stuff mentioned on here).

mmzz, no I wasn't nit picking. That is genuinely what you appeared to be saying! There really is no need for the snide which is interesting comment.

mmzz,

Tbh, I would say that someone teaching those who find a subject difficult actually needs really, really strong subject knowledge - at least as much, though slightly different from, those teaching those who are potentially very able in the subject.

Say you are teaching a child to multiply. An able child can be taught it quite superficially, and will almost certainly grasp it and be able to do the algorithm quickly, as well as acquiring and recalling the key facts without difficulty. Yes, their teacher then needs a factual knowledge of 'the next steps' - and of the breadth of the area of 'the maths world' that this new skill opens up to them.

However, a child who struggles needs a teacher who knows about multiplication in great depth, who understands all the ways it can be represented and all the misconceptions that are possible, as well as different ways to teach and recall all the underlying facts, to be able to teach multiplication, and the understanding of multiplication, successfully.

So teaching the 8s / 9s of this world may does not call upon the really deep subject knowledge that teaching those much lower down the ability scale needs.

It is a common misconception that better teachers with better subject knowledge are needed to teach higher sets, and thus parents tend to accord them higher status - in the same way that Year 6 teachers in primary are often thought of by parents as cleverer and of higher status than those who teach Reception.

Just clarifying - I am not stating that good subject knowledge and understanding isn't required to teach the able. Just that good, in some ways deeper though perhaps less wide, subject knowledge and understanding is ALSO needed to teach the less able.

I'm having trouble imagining that, cantkeepawayforever. Everyone eventually understands multiplication inside out and back to front so i can't see why you'd especially need a "good" teacher for it, rather than just a patient teacher.
Could you give an example from one of the GCSE Arts/ Humanities / sciences subject i.e. not maths where it is learning a skill, please?

Teaching a child at grade 1 or 2 GCSE English to access exactly the same texts in GCSE Lit as a grade 7-9 student requires not just patience but enormous pedagogical skill and knowledge. The brighter student has the abilities to read and access study guides to support learning. Nothing other than the teacher, and/or a skilled parent or specialised tutor will enable the very weakest to progress.

Good enough example?

But English is a (predominantly) skills based subject as it goes...

Everyone eventually understands multiplication inside out and back to front

They really don’t.

Mixed ability works when your distribution of ability is limited. It's a disaster for DC like my DD who is exceptional at languages (professional testing put her in the 97.5th percentile). It works well for those who are average and slightly below. I've heard from parents who have DC who are well below average that it's a disaster for those DC too.

To give you an idea, DD is completing work 3 grades above her current grade and is racing through her current grade work and will probably be 4 grade levels above her peers by the end of the next academic year. This isn't a boast. She has a diagnosis of ASD, ADD, anxiety and oppositional defiance. She is an extremely challenging child to teach and as a parent I would be very upset if my child was in class with an average child. DD takes a lot of time away from other DC which is why as a responsible parent we have pushed for pull-out for DD.

Piggywaspushed yes, I suppose it is when i think about it.

Noble I am surprised at that! You mean people who are older than 10? Are you saying that there are adults who don't get that 2 x 6 = 12 means 2 sets of 6 and that you can break the 6 into 2 sets of 3 , so another way to work out how many you have is 2x2x3 or 4x3?

Or does "understanding multiplication" imply something a bit deeper than that, because that's all i know it to be?

mmzz I’ve taught GCSE students who struggle to add on their fingers (e.g. get 7+4 wrong), and lots who see times tables as a series of facts to memorise who give up when they can’t remember a particular answer.

You mean people who are older than 10? Are you saying that there are adults who don't get that 2 x 6 = 12 means 2 sets of 6 and that you can break the 6 into 2 sets of 3 , so another way to work out how many you have is 2x2x3 or 4x3?

I would say my 19 & 13yos don't really 'get' this. I mean, they understand it, but would never think to use it, and may not remember they know it unless reminded. They would never think for example that to do say 3x16 they could actually do 6x8.

noblegiraffe I don't want to derail but how does it get to that stage?!

Also, I mentioned patience previously and may i just say how much I admire you facing trying to teach DC doing GCSE who arrive in your class like that and not just giving up and finding a new career?! That right there is the reason I wouldn't want to be a teacher.

Ah, do you see 'understanding multiplication' as simply being 'able to perform the common arithmetical algorithm to get the right answer?'

I can see why the example wouldn't work if that is the case. I would see someone who understood multiplication to be able to, for example, solve missing digit problems in multiplication (and division, because the skill of multiplication is required to solve the problem using the inverse) calculations, solve multi-step problems in context such as missing sides in compound area questions, be able to approximate, be able to select effective methods based on the numbers involved etc etc etc - and I teach 9 and 10 year olds.

I can't give GCSE examples, because that's not who I teach. Learning to read would have been my other obvious example - for the 80-odd % of children who will learn to read whatever method and whatever pedagogy is used, then a fairly superficial knowledge of 'what we actually need to do to teach reading', and plenty of time for practice, is all that is required. For those children who need explicit, in-depth, precise teaching of reading, for example the real introcacies of how phonics works in English both for decoding and encoding, MUCH more subject knowledge is needed.

Just because the vast majority of people DO learn to read eventually (my grandfather was 14), doesn't mean that teaching it effectively to very young children is trivial, by the way...

Sorry, x-posted. the obvious splitting of a calculation into factors as outlined above would again indicate an understanding of multiplication, not just the ability to 'turn the handle and get the result'.

I suppose the point am making, does it take more pedagogical skill and understanding to teach those who see obviously that that 3x16 is 6x8, or those who don't?

As to the example of times tables that noble gives, that's an obvious consequence of 'drilling for memory' rather than 'teaching understanding' - ie what times tables really mean, and how you can work them out through e.g. repeated addition, how you can represent them through arrays etc etc etc. It's why teaching the less able is a very, very skilled job which needs deep knowledge and understanding as well as 'sympathy and patience', because just doing it again and again exactly the same way as has failed in the past is never going to improve matters...

Other things I would expect someone who understood multiplication to be able to do, for example, would be to describe the true value of an exchanged digit in a written calculation, to spot and explain concept errors (rather than arithmetical slips) in a calculation, to say whether an estimate was going to be larger or smaller than the calculated answer. If someone cannot do that, what is it that they don't understand? What needs teaching (very probably not the arithmetical method again)? Where is their misconception?