DD has been put in a year 7 class with two of her namesakes, would this not be considered at all when dividing children into classes?

[MadreInglese]

In a year 7 intake of 250 children there are three other children with the same name as DD. Out of these three, two are in the same form class as DD and the other one is on her own in another class.

I know there'll be much more important criteria for separating children into the different classes but it seems a bit odd there will be three girls with the same name all in one form group together.

Not going to kick up a fuss about it or anything, but does anyone else think it's a bit daft?

Does seem a bit odd, yes. Do they all have different initial surnames?

I think it's daft. In DS1's class (primary) there are 2 Alexandras and an Alexander. I don't think there are any in the other 2 classes!

I thought this when my friend's DD who is a fairly unusual name is in with another girl with the same name and one other which is very similar.

Mentioned it to a friend who works in a school doing admin and she sighed, pointed out they've got so many things to take into account that this was the least of their worries.

Yes all different initial surnames

Just seems a shame that they couldn't be in individual classes and just be (eg) Mary, now they'll be Mary T, Mary P and Mary D.

How are children divided in year 7, is it totally random or is there a system?

I have thought this is odd too at dd's school - some forms have several girls with the same name and others none. I know our school divides them up so that children from the different primaries are spread out between the different forms, others try to keep them together if there are only a couple from each primary.

It'll only be for their tutor group though. In their core subjects, at least, it is likely that they will be in different classes anyway.

I agree with WBN, believe it or not, it isn't random picking! It'll be for other social/accademic reasons. I had 5 Sam's in my yr 11 tutor group this year!

Academic has one 'c', I know!!!

I would have thought it would have been way down the list of priorities and they spend very little time in the group anyway.

It could be worse if they had the same surname. DD was in a class all the way through secondary school with a girl with the same surname - and DD is Amber & the other girl was Amanda.

There were quite a few mix ups - the worst was when DD got the other girl's Maths result on her report - especially as it was about half her actual mark...

Rusty that must have been a right pita

I teach in a class with 4 girls called Paige, a boy whose surname is Page, two boys called James, 2 called Jack and a Jake.
It's set academically for my subject, and this is just how the results have fallen! Very, very confusing at times.

When in Primary, my son moved from a school of 425 where he was the ONLY Robert in the whole school to a small village school of 57 and there were THREE Roberts in his class of 18!

See, this is where the cultural bias kicks in. I used to teach in a school where the majority of the pupils didn't have surnames, just a personal name.
So Hasna Begum was Mohammed Abdul's sister, and the parents' names were different to the children's.
You could have 5 children with identical names in a class. The office filed family details by address, and when referring to a child in conversation with another member of staff, you'd tag the name with the address:
Hasna Begum, Waterloo St.
or
Hasna Begum, 117 Waterloo st if there was more than one child with the same name living in the same road.
Perhaps we need to be more imaginative in the naming of our children? Cornelius, Eudora and Phineus rarely have to worry.

It does seem a bit silly, madre. It will be really confusing for her teachers for a while.

When I was a new teacher, there were two boys with identical names - first, middle and last - in my form.

In the first few weeks, we referred to them by the primary school they came from. After that, it was clear by the context which one you were talking about as they were diametric opposites.

I've got 40% of the girls in one of my Y9 sets next year who have the same first name. Makes it easier to learn their names - look vaguely in a pupil's direction, say name and hopefully one of them will think you mean them .

I am actually suprised you would think they would organise classes by name.

There are some names that are so popular they would never be able to split them up.

Surely if you choose a fairly well known name you will expect to come across more than one in your child's class?

That should be surprised!

Why don't we have a surprised smiley, shocked just seems to much sometimes iykwim.

Agree with MIA.

I have the most common popular name of my age group and have never been in a class, club or office with any less than 2 others of the same name. It's fine. Really. Your DD will cope.

There were 6 Catherines/Cathy's in my class,
the GCSE french teacher thought I couldn't understand him when he asked me the name of the person to the right of, to the left and then infront,
it was very funny, when he then moved on to someonelse who sitting beside another Cathy, he thought we were taking the piss!

Similar experience to PlumBumMum.

In my year at school there were 7 Julies and they put 6 of us in the same form. I.e. out of 15 girls in a class, 6 of us had the same name!

Common sense doesn't get any more common does it?

I'm sure it will be fine and I'm sure DD will cope (didn't suggest otherwise )it's just more of a musing thread I suppose

It's not that common a name, there were no others in her primary school, and when I named her I didn't know of anyone else with that name, but of course I understand there will be others of the same name.

I don't think that they should organise classes by name, as I said in my op I'm sure there are other more important criteria that they work to. I just would have thought that when they looked at the class list and realise there were 3 DD's in one class perhaps they would have considered that it might cause confusion.

LOL @ the Catherines story

There were 4 of us Christines in one of my primary classes and we all sat at the same table!

Lol, bruffin, reminds me of the 4 Marys in Bunty comic. My post's similar to 5foot5's: there were 7 Amandas in my year at high school and they put 6 of them in my form and one in another form.

I have been a Head of Year and i/c putting new pupils in form groups. I worked with Deputy HoY & SENCo and we wanted a mix of boy/girl, able/less able, ethnic backgrounds (it was in NW London),different primary schools and at least one other pupil they were friendly with. First names didn't come into it! Though I say so myself, the time, effort & thought we applied paid off. The form groups worked out very well.