Teachers. Come and talk to me about streaming, please.

[Bubble99]

We've been looking at secondary schools for DS1.

Classes in our local schools are only streamed (is that still the correct term?) for maths and science and I wonder why this is.

Can a teacher really teach a mixed ability English class? Does it work? I'm wondering how, in a school where a high percentage of children have ESL, this can possibly work.

Any thoughts/experience would be appreciated.

Our schools sets for maths, English, science, humanities and languages. Setting starts in October of Year 7 for maths, and other subjects follow suit over the following 6 months.

Faculties review sets every half-term.

Our school sets for Maths and Science.

Mixed ability for English.but they get outstanding results. When I asked Head of English how they managed these amazing results, she said it is because we do mixed ability.....

I have taught mixed ability all my time as a teacher. You do get used to catering for all different levels, and they all seem to end up with the grade they are expected to get

How will my sons secondary school stream if they do not get the SATS results in time. Do you think they ask for teachers predictions.

We used to set from year 8, fashionista (based on SATs being a dreadful waste of everyone's time).

If your ds's school does set in year 7 it might well be in recommendations from primary teachers.

Lots of secondary schools don't use the SATS tests for streaming but do their own ability tests. Dd's school will stream for maths and literacy (not sure about science) but not for all humanities.

Might add that I was educated in the Swedish system when it was top of the world: there was no streaming in primary school, and in secondary school only for foreign languages and maths. My school was out in the sticks with mainly children from non-professional backgrounds, but I don't remember this being a massive problem. Perhaps we just got on with it.

Am currently teaching mixed levels (not just mixed ability!) at university level, due to financial restraints. I have everybody in my class from complete beginners to students with A-levels in the subject. The juggling is entertaining, but they usually do very well. Not recommending this one for secondary school though

we set after our first test, which is at the first half term.

SATs are so misleading because so many of the kids are taught to the test.

I had one child who got a level 5 in her SATs, in our test get got a 3.....a true reflection of her attainment as she found science very difficult and couldn't follow simple instructions