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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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Original poster

GCSC Sets

26 replies

jackandjill123 · 11/09/2021 18:00

My son has just started year 10. He is doing combined science, and CS, History for his options. My question is to all other parents. Does your school have sets, eg top, middle and bottom? Can your child be in two different sets, eg top set in maths, middle in English.? Thank you in advance for all your comments.

OP posts:

Gazelda · 11/09/2021 18:03

Yes, of course a student can be in different sets for different subjects.
They may have great logical thinking which is suited to maths, but not as strong in language skills so be in a different set for English.

RampantIvy · 11/09/2021 18:05

What Gazelda said

Jigsawprison · 11/09/2021 19:03

Our school set for maths, English and science. Ds1 was top set maths, middle for science and bottom in English. He is dyslexic and struggled in English but is good at math he'd struggle if he was put in top set English and it would be a disservice to be put in bottom set maths.

UserAtLargeAgain · 11/09/2021 19:08

DC's school only set for maths, so your scenario doesn't apply. But I would think it quite common (and indeed preferable) for students to be in different sets for different subjects.

clary · 11/09/2021 19:25

Yes for sure, that's the point of setting and its advantage over streaming. Many students will be good at one and not so much at the other,; they demand many different skills.

Hellocatshome · 11/09/2021 19:48

Yes they have more than 3 sets though I think about 4 or 5 and yes they can be in different sets for different things. Has your school only set them at year 10? It seems an odd time to be asking about this I thought most schools set at some point in year 7 or at least by year 8.

lanthanum · 11/09/2021 19:56

Not all subjects will be set - particularly options, since there may not actually be enough doing each subject at the same time to set. DD is set for maths and science, and nothing else. (I think French is a naturally strong group because those doing it in that block are all doing either two languages or two humanities, so they're all pretty academically-minded!)

Occasionally in a small school it may be impossible for someone to be in the top set for one subject and bottom for another, due to timetabling constraints.

Lordoftheties · 11/09/2021 20:26

Selective school here but the only setting was for Maths, PE and MFL. Those were all set separately from each other.

Original poster

jackandjill123 · 11/09/2021 22:24

Thank you everyone

OP posts:

plumatwork · 28/09/2021 13:30

Can anyone help me to understand a bit more regarding to different sets?

For example, if someone is in top set in Maths, they will take GCSE in 9-1 set? How about a student in bottom set, but get 100% with their GCSE lower set, would they get a grade 9 in lower set? I don't really get the concept....

Does the set affect their chances to college / uni?

Lougle · 28/09/2021 13:34

@plumatwork sets relate more to the speed of teaching and demand on the students. A top set student may thrive on being slightly pushed and pressured, but a student who isn't quite as confident/able may get stressed and fall behind.

At DD2's school, they teach maths to ½ the year group at the same time, so that they can move students up and down sets throughout the year as needed. Same with science.

sashh · 28/09/2021 13:45

@plumatwork

Can anyone help me to understand a bit more regarding to different sets?

Does the set affect their chances to college / uni?

The set just determines where children are in the school not their GCSE grade.

So in most school there will be several sets for English and maths because all students study English and maths. The best in the school will be in the top set, or top sets (some schools have 2 top sets in some subjects.)

For options there might be only one class per year so no set, just one class.

So if you have 100 pupils in a year you might have 4 sets of 25 in each group, which group is usually determined by internal assessment or exams and can have input from teachers, sometimes a student does better with one particular teacher.

So if you give all 100 students the same test you would either put the top 25 according to their score, or you might put everyone who scores 80%+ in the top set, so your set might be less than or more than 25.

In theory every student could pass at grade 9 or they could all get a 1.

MrsR87 · 28/09/2021 13:50

It will totally depend on the school.

At my school for GCSE, the core subjects have sets according to ability. It is entirely possible to be in different sets for these. The option subjects are generally in mixed ability.

I teach languages and for us we group our pupils according to whether they will sit the higher or foundation papers in year 11. All pupils start on the higher path and then after Christmas of year ten we regroup so that pupils can focus on the different skills they need according to the exams they will sit. Lots of pupils teach languages in mixed sets for the whole two years though, usually due to a lack of resources.

clary · 28/09/2021 14:08

@plumatwork, the sets, as others say, are more about the pace and perhaps complexity of work covered.

Most people will take GCSEs and will gain a grade according to their ability, effort, interest- ranging from 1 to 9.

For maths, sciences and MFL there are foundation and higher tiers. The foundation tiers are more accessible but carry a top grade of 5. The higher tiers have a bottom grade of 3 (was going to be 4). So the more able students who are more certain of 5-6 and up will take higher.

In some schools this is decided by sets, especially for maths ime.

I hope that's helpful.

clary · 28/09/2021 14:10

I meant to say most colleges and unis are happy with 4/5 in maths (assuming you are not taking it further) and the GCSE certificate doesn't say if you took H or F.

plumatwork · 28/09/2021 14:31

Thank you all for your input! It is very clear

Hersetta427 · 30/09/2021 12:45

My daughter is set for science (she is top set do doing triple), english, maths and languages.

She is top set for everything but her best friend is top set maths but set 2 English so they do differentiate.

maofteens · 03/10/2021 09:49

There was some odd sets in our school - if you were top set in one subject you were automatically top set in another, sometimes seemingly unrelated subject. But my daughter was in top sets for triple science, but only third set for math, but I think the sets for history and language were linked (though in my daughter's case, German, there was only one set).
I wouldn't get too het up about sets, as long as your child is in the right one. My daughter did struggle in math (she got a 6) so her lower set was appropriate, but that didn't stop her getting an 8 for Physics.

lanthanum · 03/10/2021 20:05

You do occasionally get those links between subjects because it makes timetabling easier. For instance, in one school I taught in, everyone did some IT in KS4, and they did it in maths sets - because that way they timetabled the "maths & IT" lessons for certain slots in the week, but a different set did IT in each of those slots (which meant the same teacher could teach IT to every group). In another school, KS4 PSHE was done in English sets, for similar reasons.

IglesiasPiggl · 03/10/2021 20:10

They are set for pretty much everything in our school : Maths, English, Science, It, RE, Modern Languages. There are five sets in each subject. It's a large school though. They can be in any set in any subject, ie set 1 for maths but set 4 for French, etc. Those in sets 4 and 5 for maths sit the lower level paper.

Comefromaway · 05/10/2021 13:05

My son was in top set for maths and bottom set for English!

plumatwork · 05/10/2021 13:27

Mine is the same Comefromaway. He is in top set for maths and science.

He hates writing, he is at the bottom for all subjects require writing skills. Afraid he won’t pass GCSEs English at this rate.

Comefromaway · 05/10/2021 13:51

It was touch and go plum. We did get him a tutor. He's autistic which complicates matters.

anchorbuttercakes · 05/10/2021 14:04

I would say (ime) that you are unlikely to achieve a 9 in Maths from a lower set as you simply won't have the same exposure to the stuff you need to know to get the higher grades. This happened with DS who was very happily trundling along in set 3 getting 90%+ in assessments, he then decided he wanted to do maths A level - cue a panic to drag his learning up to grade 8/9.

Newoneagain20 · 05/10/2021 14:13

Our school had sets for English, maths and science. (For ones taking individual sciences they weren’t in sets)
For science and maths sets it then impacted to which paper you sat. For the 5 sets the top 2 sets definitely took the higher paper (1-9) the lower set took the other paper (1-5) the middle two they aimed for them to take the higher paper and had support to do so but usually only half of the class from set 3 did. The lower sets are usually smaller classes as well aiming to achieve 4/5 grade.

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