Setting for Maths in Year 7

[lucyanntrevelyan]

Can anyone tell me if their DC school does not set for any subjects even Maths at Year 7 ? This is a change the school have made for this year which I have just discovered at Open Morning. (Previous DC at school have all been set for Maths from this point in Year 7 and for other subjects in Year 9) I am not clear if there will be setting at all for the current cohort. My DC is very able at Maths and my research has suggested that not setting for Maths is a disadvantage for higher ability children. The Maths department told me 'research suggests mixed ability is better' but didn't give me any indication which research? Can anyone /teachers enlighten me with what research this was so I can be better informed and reassured this is the best thing for my child.

I can accept that mixed ability may work for subjects such as history where content doesn't build, and questions can be answered at differing levels of sophistication.
I just really struggle to understand how it can work well for maths & science, where grasping and remembering concepts is so key.

Have the 35% been failed? Or have they just left school without a grade 4 in Maths. To me that isn't failure. It just shows there will always be some students for whom a grade 4 isn't achievable no matter how hard they (or their teachers) try.

The percentage of students who achieve a grade 4 at resit was 22% this year.

After further explanation of the French system it seems the 80% isn't a true figure.

The Finnish system gets all students through a basic level, no challenge for the top end. Is that fair?

The evidence against setting is ropey. The annecdata for setting in Maths is overwhelming YES!

You haven't dealt with teens conundrum above either.

Maysy, but you 'find' any argument that challenges the outcomes and goes against the conventional wisdom 'incoherent'.
Far from it.
I've said that there are pros and cons of setting and pros and cons of mixed ability teaching. I've also said there's room for improvement in all education systems.

What I refrain from doing (because it is ridiculous) is taking a position, repeat the same assertion multiple times, illogically compare across international systems in a selective way to prove my own axe grinding opinion.

The idea that children achieve different educational outcomes because of setting, as opposed to because they have differing abilities (which is why they were set in the first place), is so bonkers as to strain all credulity, even in this credulous age.

I do actually believe there is a very good argument for not setting formally or rigidly in infants and lower juniors. This is because differing attainment at those ages can be massively impacted by home experiences and general maturity. And being labelled as less able at that young age can impact self esteem and willingness to try. (cf Outliers by Malcom Gladwell regarding sports people and other topics). So fluid groupings per topic can work very well.

But by later primary and secondary innate ability and work ethic show through and setting allows children to learn at a general pace appropriate to them. imo.

I agree teen.
The nature of the subject matters too, and how the curriculum is structured, what the cohort is like, and what the department staffing situation is like.

Personally, I like loosely streamed groups for my subject but not full sets (I can't stand the idea of moving groups every term because one child got an 8 on A Christmas Carol but this term was transactional writing and they got a 6 even though next term we are looking at Love and Relationships poetry so they'd be better judged by their last literature exam than language... it's a nightmare. But if you have sets and don't move then that opens cans of worms as well even if it's a non tiered paper and all classes are studying the same scheme of work).

If you're in a position with a strong department with the right training then mixed can work really well. If you've got a team half staffed with non specialists and you're struggling to recruit then mixed ability is probably going to hinder the top end whilst saving a non specialist or weaker member of staff from what may become a sink group. But then again, setting makes it easier on the differentiation front (even though sets require differentiation). But saying that, how do you allocate staff if you have sets because the top end need a strong subject specialist to stretch and the bottom end need a strong subject specialists to help boost them to where they need to be.

There's so many factors which influence what the best decision for grouping is.

I think cakes is spot on . . I'm not going to engage with the detail - 35%, 98%, maths teaching, whatevs - but her general point that an education system for all built around classroom selection done as early and as much as possible is a contradiction in terms. Notwithstanding Teen's experience, setting is basically done to benefit the already advantaged at expense of everyone else; Teen is one of tiny minority of engaged parents on MN or elsewhere relieved to see her DC allocated to a lower set/secondary modern; most would be frantically tutoring to get their DC moved up as far as poss.
Cakes is absolutely right that the gap between the most/least able can only be exacerbated by the already-ahead (top sets) capitalising on their existing advantages, which are very significantly linked to social background.
To use a personal example; my now Y7 DC gets a load of expensive music lessons courtesy of general taxpayer . . Why? Well, largely because as a pushy and relatively time-rich parent I was in a position to exploit his primary school musical education to the max in a way that less advantaged parents couldn't possibly. The gap in respective musical progress between their kids and mine can only widen from here on . . and the same happens with academic ability; the well-resourced push their already advantaged kids from "top" primary tables into "the best schools" etc etc.
Those kids (of which mine is one) wouldn't be significantly disadvantaged wherever they went; but the "left behind" would greatly benefit from more general, better resourced inclusion rather than abandonment in "sink" schools/bottom sets.
And I think everyone's (parents, kids . .) mental health would benefit from a less ongoing-competitive environment . . . without compromising standards. Standards might even - hey, there's a thought! - rise with an increase in general well-being.

I’d love to see these armchair experts teach and show us how it’s done. So easy to pontificate from the sidelines. Not engage with the detail? Of course not.

Imagine an NHS surgeon failing 35% of operations and telling patients to show how it is done...

Well Noble, you are the expert, you figure it out, I am the customer, I want the result... it is done in other countries. You said it's about training to teach mixed ability, so train, and stop now all forms of hidden setting in Primary, a when teachers are trained, in secondary. And teach more Physics from early age to help to understand and apply maths as in this link. And maybe perhaps going to uni at the age of 19 like in Finland is better - you have time to learn all the advanced maths and there are fewer NIETS.
There.

fillingmymap.com/2015/06/08/the-three-real-reasons-for-finlands-high-pisa-scores/

TeenTimesTwo, with respect, I think the specific example in your conundrum is artificial. Young children have an attention span of a few minutes, about 11 mins in year 6, I suppose 15-20 min in Y7-8. Nobody can stay 100% focussed learning a concept for 2 hours solid, especially DC with SEN. The actual useful time when the concept is learned is 10-20 min for any child. Even for those with lower processing speed.

For DC with SEN the key point is their needs must be met. It is in the how, not for how long. The setting is most damaging for DC with SEN and normal ability. They are left behind early on, because their needs are not recognised, because of absence of provisions, inadequate provisions and delays in provisions. They lose confidence, fail to develop some skills at the appropriate age. The gap with the peers in the top sets becomes too big, like jumping onto a speeding train.

The problem of your DC-B is not the two hours which you quote for the sake of argument, it is how she is taught / her needs are met, and the gap created due to setting. She wouldn't be there had there be no sets. A child feels more confident in lower set because their confidence was damaged by the setting system, because she feels left behind. The key point of no setting is to not let that happen, so they all can progress at similar speed.

Teen, was it you mentioning your DC is very bright, but is better in low set? If your DC is bright, she should be achieving grades 5-9, right? Do they teach the chapters for grades 5-9 in bottom set?
What are GCSE results in your DC school low set? How many get grade 4 and above? How many get 7, or 9?
Low prior attainers are placed in lower set. Last time I checked, nationally, only 0.5% low prior attainers got Ebacc, only 10% got English & Maths at grade 4, where progress 8 is above average. You can check your DC school.

The problem with lower set is that they are locked out of better grades after SATs.
In schools with below average progress 8, zero % of low prior attainers get GCSE at grade 4, so their chances are set at the age of 11.

The specific example is not artificial and is so close to my experience of teaching mixed ability maths. There comes a point where the content being taught isn't appropriate for all. If you can't add decimals, why would I try and teach you trigonometry?!
Why would I teach grades 5-9 content to a child who will take a foundation paper? How would they access the Higher content? I'm better off using regular retrieval and helping them achieve the best possible result for their ability.

The difference isn't how students are taught (in a lot of cases) instead it is students ability to retain and process information.

You've clearly had a bad experience cakes. That doesn't mean that all setting is bad.

Students most definitely aren't locked out of higher grades due to setting. If they are achieving well, they will move up sets.

And let’s be aware, there are many that can’t deal with decimal fractions, don’t understand place value, can’t round to one or two decimal places. I see plenty of them.
And ordinary fractions - the most common question I get asked in my (retirement) job in FE is, “how do I find a third of something?”. When I ask them, how do you think you should do it, they generally respond “halve it and then halve it again”.
It’s not that they haven’t been taught. They just don’t get it.
If you don’t get decimals and fractions, just about everything in Maths is a closed book to you.

cakes I disagree.

1. My DD2's self esteem was 'damaged' in primary where there were no sets.
2. It doesn't matter whether the 2hrs is solid or broken up. DC-A still needs 20 mins to grasp and embed, and DC-B still needs more like 4 hours. DC-B might need 12x20mins but the total is till the same.
3. relieved to see her DC allocated to a lower set/secondary modern; most would be frantically tutoring to get their DC moved up as far as poss. I'm not sure that is accurate. Nor is marytuda's concept of abandonment in "sink" schools/bottom sets at least for her. - I am pleased to see my DD in appropriate sets where she gets a correctly paced learning experience. I can then choose to supplement at home as much as DD is capable of doing (which isn't much), and slowly but surely, dd2, like dd1 did is progressing upwards.

Maybe I'm lucky because our comp is good. it doesn't abandon people in lower sets. It works damn hard to help everyone progress. Everyone from the straight A / 7-9 pupils to the strugglers gets opportunities to do well.

Neither of my DCs will get Ebacc. DD1 didn't - she did 2 MFLs but dropped History to 'save' her English Language result. DD2 won't either as she won't do an MFL. Many prior lower attainers will, for whatever reason, be struggling with English, and thus doing an MFL well will be beyond them. (NB better MFL teaching at primary could improve this but would need a massive change). If I'm going to spend time coaching my DD on spellings it is going to be English ones not French.

Finally The problem with lower set is that they are locked out of better grades after SATs. In a good school that isn't the case. However, you could rephrase it. 'The problem with lower sets is they are generally filled by lower ability children with lower prior attainment. This makes it an extremely tough task to expect them to make the even faster progress that would be needed to get them to the same grades as brighter-higher attainment kids'.

The problem of poor schools won't be solved by forcing mixed ability teaching. However, the problem of grammar / secondary modern which prevents top secondary modern kids from having access to the same opportunities could be solved by going fully comp.

noblegiraffe
I'm with you.
I taught a low set and had 100% A*-C and a great value added one year. The sad reality is that the impact of my children exceeding expectations meant someone else elsewhere didn't get that grade. That's the trade off. Then you get into the fact that schools need the results to shut ofsted up, but there's not enough grades going to shut ofsted up. Add in the demand for all schools to be good or outstanding (understandably), but that can't be squared with the fact statistically it can't happen as there's not enough outcomes to get every school good/outstanding. Even if overall performance went up in exams then the boundaries would change.

Equally, there's a difference between having a literacy and numeracy level to make your next steps at level 3 and the new requirements of the reformed GCSEs. They are not the same (to anyone who knows anything about the new specs). It came up on another thread recently.

There's issues in the system (as with any system) which most teachers will acknowledge and do their very best within, but we don't mindlessly throw around but what if 35% of digestive biscuits never had the chance to be chocolate digestive?

Ahh yes Maisy, every school must be "above average" we have Mr Gove to thank for that statistical impossibility.

I truly love teaching and the pupils. The system is part broken in terms of funding and retention of staff. However my job would be a million times harder (and not benefit the pupils) if they were mixed ability in Maths.

For reference cakes, my bottom set last year made on average 1.2 grades of progress in year 11. This was unheard of in my school. If those pupils had been in a mixed ability class they would have got lost.

Anyone who uses the expression “teach the chapters for grades 5-9” is confused as to what constitutes the teaching of mathematics. No one teaches “chapters” (I hope). What is taught is subject content - facts and skills - which may or may not be supplemented by the use of a text book in which said content is structured in sections.

Dermymc
I absolutely agree with you.

Choosing how to group students is a complex one. Schools have to make the call with the cohort, subject, curriculum, staff etc they have.

Armchair experts deciding they know it all & know so much they have the solution and the answer to everything, but then changing their mind when asked how it would be implemented by deflecting saying 'yeah but but you wouldn't ask a patient to tell a surgeon how to fix operations would you so nerrr' is somewhat infuriating. For a start, I don't honestly believe the likes of cakes would even begin to tell medical professionals how to do their jobs or that the obvious solution is their non specialist' s opinion.
Non specialist - the thing is medical staff your rates are awful. You honestly think it's ok to have a 35% failure rate on surgery. You should (insert opinion here)
Specialist- not really, but you see there are other medical factors which will tend to affect surgery outcomes, not just the quality of the surgeon
Non specialist - I don't care. You should be sorting all those medical issues. You don't even take responsibility for them bevause it's too easy for you to accept 35% failure rate. This just proves (insert opinion here)
Specialist - but you see there's other factors, so the surgery might be good but...
Non specialist - you're just after an easy life and are happy to let people die to avoid having to change how you do things and accept that (insert opinion here)
Specialist- far from it. Actually there are the following medical variables and the following systemic variables and together the picture is more complex than it is from your armchair
Non specialist - nonsense! 35% of people are being failed by your surgery and I think it's to do with (insert opinion here). I can't believe you're STILL saying it's fine for 35% of people to be let down by your surgery. As if you're saying it's totally ok.
Specialist - I've already there are a number of variables but your opinion is simplistic and doesn't take those into account. Your argument is illogical.
Non specialist - you won't even deal with the problems and are just laughing at me. Why won't you accept (insert opinion here)
Specialist - so... lovely weather we are having here.

I still want to know what you do with the fact that some DC will pick up and retain a concept in 20mins and others might need 4hrs total (even if spread out into lots of chunks). What does DC-A do with that 'extra time' ?

It won't happen.
By getting rid of any ability teaching then no parent will do anything educational.
Children will only get educational stimulation for 25 hours a week during term time only.
Consequently, other than a couple of outliers, the rest will be about the same.

Welcome to the new world. It's differentiation but not as we know it. Low expectationsfor everyone!

You said it's about training to teach mixed ability, so train

No, I said that if you wanted teachers to teach mixed ability you needed to train them and resource them to do it, not simply inflict it on them. I did not say that this was the way to improve results. You could train all these teachers, have them work their arse off for no net benefit and to the detriment of their workload. What’s the point?

You keep insisting that Finland does better on Pisa because it teaches mixed ability despite the research evidence being weak. Finland has a lot of other things going for it - being a very socially homogenous society is a big one. And your link about Finland suggests that their high achievers are not pushed, and that this is a problem.

I think that there is an argument for a reasonable 'halfway house'.

Due to the size of most primaries, setting is relatively uncommon, and with the exception of very extreme outliers, mixed ability teaching (current common practice) with good lesson-by-lesson differentiation is a) what primary teachers are trained to deliver and b) the most likely to deliver solid foundations for all.

As far as possible, primaries should ensure that (again for all except the most extreme outliers), all children possess the basics, absolutely securely: key number bonds, times tables, efficient written methods for 4 operations, place value and what fractions mean. Interventions as well as daily Maths lessons should address any gaps in these.

Then on starting secondary, there could sensibly be a period of predominantly mixed ability teaching. I say 'predominantly' - my picture is of a large number of parallel classes of mixed ability, with one or more groups for those with SEN that affects their maths performance, and perhaps one or more groups at the 'extreme high end'.

My reason for this is that secondaries take children from a large number of different primaries, with different teaching, different approaches to SATs and different intakes. This will mean that children of similar 'raw ability' may well have different SATs results - and will also have retained that knowledge more or less securely. Some schools have daily Maths lessons right to the last week of Y6, some stop teaching entirely immediately SATs are finished, and this will affect the immediate performance of pupils in CATs and in class on arrival at secondary.

I then see the 'diamond' of sets gradually elongating over time - so rather than having a very large number of middle sets that are exactly parallel, there will be several 'layers' of parallel middle sets.

(I work, btw, in a primary that was large enough to have sets, and has abandoned them .... with the result that results have hugely improved. What is most interesting is that high performers have continued to excel, while 'upper middle set' and 'upper lower set' pupils have done MUCH better than previously. Yes, as Noble said, this has involved 'working our arses off' BUT it has meant improvement in the experience and performance of pupils... You could argue that it is the hard work and total re-planning of the curriculum and resources that has resulted in the improvement - ie that amount of thought and hard work put into setted Maths would have had the same effect, but it is interesting and, actually, not what most of us predicted )

The school ds used to go to didn’t set until year 8. However it was a selective school to start off with so it was fine.

Dds school was non selective and I believe her maths education suffered in Year 7 & 8 because she wasn’t set.

I teach in an all through 4-18 school that does setting in Maths like what you described cant.
I would pay a good amount of my own money to see anyone who can teach mixed ability to teach my year 11 top set and make sure all of them make good progress.