Who teaches in a large, or very large, secondary? 1000+

[roisin]

Is it effectively split into two or more separate units (zones) that function like small schools? (As recommended by this Teach First report?) I'm especially interested in a school of about 1200 divided in this way.

Can you tell me about the mechanics?

a) What are the advantages and disadvantages of the overall size, and splitting in this way?

b) Is it split on a complete mixed ability basis? i.e. 'parallel half-year groups?'

c) Is there any attempt to put in one zone the lowest 5% ability students and/or the highest 15% ability students?

If not, are there issues affecting the effective targetting of teaching to these groups? (i.e. if you cannot have true top sets and bottom sets across the entire year group)

d) Are the teaching classrooms separated - i.e. you do you have half the labs in one 'zone' and half in the other? Doesn't this cause a nightmare for labtechs and so on? Are there other issues around this?

e) Are teachers allocated permanently and 100% of their time to one 'zone'?

f) If you've put yes for d) and e) is there not a huge risk of an 'us' and 'them' mentality developing? How has this worked out in practice?

Thanks for your time.

I'm not a teacher but my children's school has about 1700 pupils so I'm going to answer your questions as a parent, those I know anything about anyway, and you can ignore them if you want!

Our school has parallel half-year groups. So each year group has a left side which studies French and a right side which learns German.

Completely mixed ability split, so high and low achieving pupils on both sides. Each side has up to 5 sets for each subject, sometimes parallel sets depending on the ability range within that half of the year for that subject. Obviously I can't comment on any issues this generates!

Teaching classrooms and areas are not separated, and teachers are not allocated to one half - they will all teach pupils from both sides (except for the modern languages teachers obviously!)

So at our school I think the left and right side thing works more for timetabling purposes (right and left side have no lessons together until Year 10, very occasionally Yr9 for maths) and supposedly to promote two strong foreign languages. There is definitely no sense of it functioning like smaller schools within one large school. There is a strong year-group system however, so in that sense there is a feeling of smaller units.

Thanks portonovo.
Anyone else?

I teach in a large secondary and from a teaching point of view it makes no difference as I teach across the two populations. Each population is mixed according to social status and ability. It is possible for pupils to move between populations if there are issues to do with bullying etc.

The main issue with the large schools is that teachers have no idea who the majority of the students are. It is a bit tricky when a teacher is trying to resolve issues and the toe rags are lying or have ran off. Even the kids have not idea who is who. Obviously the key trouble makers are known by everyone. It does mean that there is an amount of low level disruption etc that goes unpunished.

Portonovo is right in that it is done for timetabling purposes.

That's what I don't get. I can't see how the logistics would work unless classroom teachers just teach as usual.

But my main gripe with huge schools is exactly the anonymity you describe. (We have 210 per year group (11-16) and that's already too big IMO, and the proposal is to get considerably bigger).

I taught in a 1200+ school and we were on one site.

i know of smaller secondaries that were on 2 sites due to geography and tbh the teachers i know who taught there hated it when they had to teach at the other site to the one they were based at

we are a school of 1300
We don't split into micro schools
We do divide each year into half, some subjects also set, so this means there are two top sets, second sets etc

The school is divided into houses, and each house has a director of studies....a sort of pastoral head. tis is done across years, so there are 2 yesr 7 classes in each house, two year 8 classes etc etc

We couldn't divide up geographically, as out lay out wouldn't allow it.

I have worked in a school that hd a split science depatment (not by design, a historical issue) and they had one tech in each part of the school, rather isolating for them

We teach across the houses. I think that if you did divide by ability there could be real resentment among the staff, and also a feeling that this was a selective school by any other name. And many teachers would find that a retrograde step

I don't teach in a large school, but I have done in the last couple of years. The two schools I spent a lot of time in that had large schools were both on single sites (actually overcrowded because the populations had grown over the years without new buildings).

Splitting the school into two populations is a standard timetabling tool - even for smaller schools (my first school was around 500, and there was an A and B block).

My problem with teaching in those large schools was of not knowing my colleagues, not knowing the kids I didn't teach, and not knowing those I did teach (I did a 6month stint at a grammar school, and had 330 pupils on my books). At the 'outstanding' comp I was at last year, each faculty had their own base where the teachers had coffee and lunch. There was very little coming together of the staff. The only way to compare notes with other faculties about pupils was to put it into writing and liaise with the form tutor.

absolutely bang on scienceteacher! Not only do I not know most of the pupils others than those on internal or external exclusion, I couldn't name a lot of the staff. Ok I know heads of year and the senior management team but lots of teachers have come and gone and I have only ever known them as Sir or Miss.

I used to despair of being in the staffroom and being asked by a pupil if Mr Such&Such was in - would never know anyone other than Science faculty, and they would all be in the prep room.

hi Roisin!

Just got my net back and this was one of the first posts I saw!
Well I can guess what you are thinking about, have you been to one of the meetings?
I am going on Monday , but from what I have heard so far it seems def that 'that' plan will go ahead BUT even if I wanted to send my kids there I couldn't cos we will be out of catchment.taking bf to meeting cos he wants to compare his professional knowledge with what we are being told.

The only school that I know that uses micro schools (and vertical forms ) has just been recommended to be placed into special measures, one of the reasons being the lack of cohesion in all areas of the school.

It was a bit of a surprise to those not in the know as it's meant to be one of the best comprehensives in Manchester!