School sets

[Cartwrightandson]

My DC has just year 7. In the first week they have done CATs and another type of test (sorry forgot the name) and DC has been put in a set.

It's an 8 form year group, divided into 2, so in their half the year there's 4 sets..DC has been placed in set 3 for all subjects. I think this is fine for maths where he really struggles but English he performed really well in his sats..I know sats are different and don't possibly reflect his true ability

I just think it's very quick (9 days) to put them in sets where because of timetabling he can't move up a set in a single subject because the whole of set 2 have a different timetable is you see what I mean.

What ability is set 3? Low mixed ability? And will that mean only sitting the Foundation paper where the top grade is a low C?

So many questions..
Sorry

if he proves himself to be too advanced for set 3, they will change sets at half term alongside many others

It’s early days don’t be worrying about things like which set he is in. Schools will have set points in the year when they look at the classes and make changes if needed.

If he can't move up in English because whole timetable is different he has been streamed not set.
Probably 1. High ability, 2 & 3 mid ability, 4. Lower, on average.
Easier to teach mixed ability English than maths, so streaming may well have been biased towards maths ability. Lots of places don't set for English in y7 anyway.
They may have looked at sats as well as cats.

So probably not an issue, but a shame they stream rather than set.

Schools more likely to adjust true sets than streams due to disruption to all lessons rather than just 1 subject.
Doesn't mean they won't however.

Thank you, I think that's what has happened

Do schools generally share what sets (top/middle/low) the child goes into? DS did an arithmetic and creative writing test on Day 1 then Day 3 they all got moved around into different classes. I am assuming this is based on the test result but he isn’t sure.

For DD it was visible via timetable coding eg 07AEng2 = Year 7 , half of year A, English, group 2.
However you would still need to know if groups were actually set or were mixed ability.

What is the difference between streaming and sets?

Streaming they put children into bands/streams, eg top stream, middle stream, bottom stream. You are in the same stream for maths, science, english, whatever. You can't change just for maths, you change for everything.

With sets they group into sets for each subject/related subjects. So you can be top set maths bit bottom set English. Moving set for one thing doesn't impact classes for anything else.

So pupils with a spiky profile are better served by sets. But it probably makes timetabling harder.

(Bigger schools may also stream and then set within the stream.)