Are children streamed in secondary school, or does it depend on the school?

[jellybrain]

I thought that each form was mixed ability but, someone told me today that their forms were usually nothing to do with the groups they were in for individual subjects. Surely by streaming so early on in secondary school you would be placing those whose primary school experience wasn't so great at a disadvantage.Have child going into Y7 in september.

I think there's a difference between streaming and setting--the latter tends to be for individual subjects, and is what happens at our local comprehensive. SO forms are mixed but maths, English and science are set by ability.

Thanks Bridie - have also noticed a similar thread so will go and read the info on that too.

It does depend on the school, at my presnet school they are streamed according to SATS but quite a bit of movement as the SATS can be unreliable. It is going to full mixed ability except for maths, english and science.

IN my new school there is a grammer stream and everone else is mixed ability.

DS1's school sets, but the students are reviewed regularly.

DD's old school had everything in tutor groups for the first half term while they did their own tests for Maths, English & Science & then they went into sets for those after half term. The other subjects went into sets for Year 8 - almost all subjects were in sets, including PE, which I thought was a great idea - those in the running for teams could do things seriously, while those in the bottom set could just have fun & get some exercise without getting in the others' way.

In our school the forms are generally not setted. However from this year we will have a 'grammar' stream with the most able 3rd in 3 forms in one band. We stream them in science and I think they do in english and maths also. For some subjects like history and languages and also PE they are taught in form groups though.

Ds's school used SATs and did Cat tests in the July before they started. They were set for separately for maths, english and then all the other subjects as one group.