How important is setting?

[Bunnycat101]

I’m having a bit of an internal dilemma about private v our state school for secondary. The private’s are significantly better - I just don’t know if we can afford private fees/justify the opportunity cost. The good states near me are at around 40% 9-7 for gcse but the one we’d get into is only 23% - the non selective privates are 50-60%and the selective schools are more like 70% grade 9. My children are bright but I have never been convinced re the bright kids do well anywhere thing- it feels like they’d have to do exceptionally well to get good grades at our state but could be average and do well at the privates.

The thing that is bothering most about the catchment state other than the results gap is the lack of setting for subjects other than maths. I went to a fairly shit comp but was set for the majority of subjects and I'm sure that is the only reason I got through with good results. My classes that weren’t set were awful in comparison to the ones that were. Is the move away from setting common now? I’d be quite worried about the extent to which they can push the clever ones while dealing with disruption etc.

So, the research.

Firstly setting is not a simple word and it can mean different things in different countries.

The research generally distinguishes between three possibilities

1 streaming. This is what used to happen in some schools in the UK in the 60s/70s. You would do an intelligence test. You would then be put into a "stream" based on the test. So you might get put in top stream even if you can't do languages for toffee.

The research shows that this is not an effective way of teaching, largely because it's the worst of both mixed ability and setting. You have a top stream of largely intelligent kids, but some of whom have difficulties with specific subjects - maths, languages, whatever. The lower streams feel like failures and stop trying and you get behaviour difficulties.

Streaming is very rarely used anywhere these days.

2 mixed ability. This generally refers to a lack of selection on academic ability within the particular school. So for example you often get grammar schools which have mixed ability classes but for obvious reasons the ability range in a grammar is mostly only very bright children anyway.

True mixed ability where the whole range of ability is included within a single class is actually quite rare anywhere in the world as most students who are very low ability go to special schools and are not in mainstream.

Within secondary schools in the U.K. there has been a movement towards mixed ability recently for a whole number of reasons. I'm a maths teacher and I have been involved in advising a number of schools on this.

Within maths true mixed ability is very very hard to teach. In most secondary schools the ability range in maths goes from "can't count to 10" and has an EHCP up to "is doing Olympiad problems for fun".

Of the schools I have been involved with that have moved towards mixed ability teaching the most common model is to pull two groups off - a nurture group for the lower attainers which teaches towards the entry level qualification (below gcse) and an express group for the Olympiad types and then mixed ability for everyone else.

3 setting. This refers to the practice of grouping students by academic attainment.

Research on setting shows that
a) students are very rarely put into groups based on just academic attainment. The groups are also based on behaviour (you can't put X with Y they have a restraining order), special needs/disabilities (X is in a wheelchair so needs a ground floor room he'll have to go with teacher Y even though it's not the right group) and also, bluntly, teacher bias. There's extensive research showing BAME kids are more likely to feel in the wrong (lower) set from their attainment etc (this is U.K. research but teacher bias applies the world over).

b) setting impacts how well students do largely through the social impact of the expectations it sets for them. There is so much research showing kids in sets know exactly which set they are in and often can rank their set by attainment pretty accurately. Kids that are in bottom set know they are in bottom set and either want to get out of it and try hard or give up and don't work.

For example this study www.blatchingtonmill.org.uk/assets/Uploads/The-impact-of-tracking-by-attainment-on-pupil-self-confidence-over-time-demonstrating-the-accumulative-impact-of-self-fulfilling-prophecy.pdf
(Please not it refers to setting as tracking which is the internationally used word for setting as setting is both U.K. specific and ambiguous)

EEF have a summary document on setting on their website - it accords either the research I have seen that the impact of setting on lower ability students is negative and the impact on higher attaining students is positive.

educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/setting-and-streaming#:~:text=Impact%20for%20pupils%20with%20high%20prior%20attainment&text=The%20average%20impact%20of%20setting,effects%20do%20vary%20between%20studies.

So logically if your kids are bright and you want the best for them you should choose sets.

I know it can be hard to decide where to send a child to secondary school. If a school has a good principal, is strict, has good pastoral care and good exam results I think it will enable a child to achieve the best results possible for them.
Also stand outside near the school and see what the pupils are like coming out and see how they manage the pupils then.

One of my friends had a poor secondary school near her and she decided she did want her children to go their. The kids were let away with poor behaviour and the results were not good. The extra circular activities and subject choices were poor also.
She got her child into an accedemic school with good extra circular activities that was strict re uniforms, behaviour, absents and kept in contact with parents.
Most of the parents sending their kids to here were educated with good jobs and wanted the same for their kid's.

I would keep an eye on who their friends are. If your child is friendly with other kids who are talking about going to university, want to get good exam results it will encourage your child to want the same.
I know 2 lads that were friendly in primary school and they both went to the same secondary school. One of the lads became friendly with lads who wanted to do well in school and some wanted to go to university. The other lad started to become friends with lads who had very little interest in school. The 1st lad is now finished his 2nd year in university in a good degree.
The other lad is in a min wage job that has no long term prospects re earnings or moving up the ladder and he was good in school.

This is all so interesting thank you. Someone asked earlier if I can afford private, why the dilemma? Really we’re not 100% sure that we can- vat policy maybe the deciding factor. If it was just on results I’d be trying to get them into the highly selective girls schools and wouldn’t be touching our local comp. Local one is also skint, has no 6th form and doesn’t have the best rep. I might not have a choice but I’d have been happier if more subjects were set.

The research seems to reflect my assumptions that setting benefits the brightest. My eldest is certainly top 5-10%- no idea about younger one. I remember trying to hide my abilities at school, some of the mixed ability classes were quite frankly feral compared to my top set classes.

So I’ve gone down a bit of a rabbit warren analysing the school’s results and I do think the focus is on supporting the majority to pass rather than pushing the brightest (which isn’t necessarily a bad strategy) but adds to my concerns re a lack of setting.

eg for English lit in 2023- nationally 74% got a 4 or above and 21% a 7 or above. For our local school 78% got a 4 or above but 17% a 7 or above. Only 1.5% got a 9.

The p8 score was positive for middle ability kids and negative for high ability based on the ks2 results.

"The p8 score was positive for middle ability kids and negative for high ability based on the ks2 results."

I would be inclined to view that as highly relevant information.

Forget the % of grade breakdowns as that could just be representative of the cohorts ability

The P8 score is very relevant though despite how many MN think year 6 SATS are pointless. Now you could be in luck and the school could get inspected and pulled up on this data and then they will focus on it. Or they could just coast. 9s are equal to A** so it's not unusual for only one or two students to get them in a bog standard comp, 21% getting 7s or above would mean perhaps one top class worth of high achievers

I think you found a highly relevant piece of info there. Our school is neg P8 for low attainers (which includes most of our non-attenders), neutral for middle, and +1.5 or so for higher attainers. (Make of that what you will!)

No setting except for maths.

What's the proportion of low/medium/high achievers? And how does this compare to national average?

I think last year's results need to be viewed in a slightly open minded way. The cohort would have been in Year 8/9 in the Covid years which are the ones arguably got the short straw of secondary school provision where schools struggled. Might be worth a chat with the school about what they feel about their results.

@shepherdsangeldelight looks like
low: 17.6%
medium 48.6%
high: 30.2%

I’m not sure how that compares nationally.

I think this also says a lot about why private benefits those in middle and lower sets too. They may be less attentive but you won't get the "feral" aspect in any even mildly selective private school. I think it is often overlooked these days how much children are pulled down by kids who are not being helped with emotional regulation in state schools. Tories and CAHMs have a lot to answer for.

I wouldn't worry about the VAT aspect yet. I think Labour are going to struggle to get in before Sept (Tories seem to be holding on for October) and they're unlikely to start it mid way through a year. They also have said some SEN children may be exempt, from what I hear. I don't think it will be a quick thing for them to put through and schools are thinking up ways to help parents who may struggle. Do remember though that the fees rise appx 5-7% annually with most private schools, regardless of VAT.