The broom cupboard 2 - just for when we get briefly stranded without a staffroom

[TheHoneyBadger]

I'll pop a link in the old one so you know where to find safe haven. I have tried to clear out some space by getting rid of the ohp and vcr trolley and gin is hidden behind the sick sand bucket.

We tried top, bottom and mixed middle one year and had the same problem. I think that mixed ability absolutely can work - and I know it does for some schools - but without really understanding what you're doing (like me this year with ks3) it's never going to be good. I know I've failed a lot of students this year 😔

We're entirely mixed in English.

I prefer the approach one school I worked in had: either a top set or a bottom set per year group, based entirely on the profile of the cohort and the rest mixed.

A bottom set is definitely needed as there are students that just can't access the work and they're being let down. I wonder if places teaching mixed ability maths at secondary have a more consistent cohort ability wise. Students arriving under 94 on SATS need a curriculum for them that targets their weaknesses and doesn't leave them drifting.

I've failed students with mixed ability this year. I know I have but there is so little I can do about it.

I have no idea how mixed ability gcse works. Foundation and Higher content is totally different. It's like teaching physics and chemistry in the same room.

We are mixed now which is fine. Had lots of variations. Top and then mixed was my favourite (but huge tope sets not massively supported by research: it is something like the top 1 - 2 % they say benefit from being creamed off)). Not a fan of bottoms sets. Always heavily gendered in my place. In fact, girls were excluded from them . Became behaviour sets, essentially. My least favourite was definitely rigid sets. It didn't improve results, decreased aspiration, was problematic in terms of gender and created behaviour ghettos. So many quite new teachers though are pretty unthinking about setting having had it (and been mainly in top sets) when at school and/or feeling untrained/inexperienced in any other way. They always say they were 'glad to be kept away from naughty children'. That shouldn't only be privilege for the more able or the nice students who have been put in a higher set than they probably should be..

I find the debate a bit ideologically problematic : many teachers support comprehensive education, and many parents, but then create a grammar school within the comp. But just my view and the view of a lit/media/soc sci teacher. Always happy to accept that the majority of maths teachers think differently.

I do also think setting in Eng/ma/sci only reinforces the idea that those subjects are more important.

When we had rigid sets we then created A level groups that had a wider ability range than teachers and students were used to!! That was definitely a problem.

How much does primary history look at source material and evaluating it etc? I imagine it varies so much from school to school?

I introduce this in Year 3, and I love history so find it very easy to get enthusiastic about.

The middle are fine, but the top aren’t being stretched. Some of the bottom are floundering badly

We are always mixed ability in maths due to being a one form entry school (used to be mixed age!). This is the first year where I haven’t felt the above - that the bottom especially are lost and the top just have challenges thrown at them without guidance because we’re trying to help the bottom.

This is because the cohort I have now are the first that we’ve had in a decade that don’t have four or five SEND children in. They all get place value, can calculate fairly accurately and can read and comprehend reasoning questions.

In an ideal world, we’d all have a funded programme like Reading Recovery but for maths, with sessions taking place frequently by a highly trained professional. That would make an enormous difference to the bottom end being able to access, for example, year 3 level fractions when they still don’t fully understand two digit numbers.

I think I’ve encountered every variety of setting/streaming/fully mixed ability.
In Maths, the only option that worked for everyone, and especially students, was setting that allowed minor movement between sets based on end of term tests and more substantial movement yearly. It worked because it was at that time a particularly well organised department with carefully designed schemes of work based on some very good textbooks. We even did a proper survey of students and parents. It lasted about four years and then the DfE (in one of its earlier incarnations) and Ofsted apparently decreed that textbooks were the work of the devil and we were forbidden from using them, and some unsatisfactory semi-mixed ability model came in. It was rubbish but of course everyone said how wonderful it was, a very good example of the cognitive dissonance that pervades education.

Out sets are never rigid, movement happens quite often.

I think bottom is different in maths because those students need to learn different skills. I can see how mixed is far more beneficial in English etc.

Sets mean that my year 10 group this year have been drilled in the skills needed to get 3/4 at gcse and hopefully will go on to get 4+ next year. Had they been mixed, they would have got lost in the crowd.

It's a similar argument re differentiation in maths vs English, history etc. You can set the same question to all students and differentiate how they answer. We need completely different sets of questions.

Fascinating discussions!

Seen this - big trial of replacing isolation with lateral flow testing, for anyone:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56958885

While lateral flow tests are not as accurate as the PCR swabs used at testing centres, their use by schools to safely reopen has shown they can be effective, Dr Cannon said.

Too early to tell, Dr Cannon (a random GP)!

The weekly ONS graphs clearly show cases rising in the 10-19 age range (and to a lesser extent, 0-9s) then dropping at Easter, then starting to rise again! Cases are low at the moment.

Movement happening quite often though : isn't that quite disruptive to the kids and teachers and the dynamic? Doesn't it mean every group has to do everything in the same order at the same pace? DH often moans when kids move sets because of either a)resentment from the child and parents or b) the kid not having done some of the work with previous teacher. Generally though, I do accept setting in maths for my own DCs although I think it affected their self belief.

I am adamant that we should maintain teacher text choice in English at our school so moving groups can cause chaos.

Also worth pointing out that maths (and MFL) still have tiers at GCSE .

By quite often I mean termly and it can mean a missed topic/part of topic. We generally try to maintain kids in the same set, means they have a relationship with the teacher etc. However there are probably 5-6 per year per term that need to move. It's important for the students they see they can move up (and down).

Do you think your DC was set too low piggy? I accept there are students whose mindset around maths becomes fixed due to setting. I don't know how we combat this when overall setting does advantage (our) groups.

Doesn't it mean every group has to do everything in the same order at the same pace?

To a certain extent yes, and that’s why it worked in my example above. It was a particularly well structured set of textbooks as well, so that the work was appropriate whether going up or down sets. There was plenty of extension work in the higher level texts and plenty of reinforcement in the lower. I like to go off piste and make things up as I go along but this was at an early stage in my career and I found it very useful.

While lateral flow tests are not as accurate as the PCR swabs used at testing centres, their use by schools to safely reopen has shown they can be effective, Dr Cannon said.

Too early to tell, Dr Cannon (a random GP)!

Dr Cannon is really just an entertainment doctor and famously denied Covid was something to worry about last year at the start of the pandemic (but was happy to still help flog lots of Zoflora) and frequently passes off her opinion as medical fact (has made controversial claims about breastfeeding before)

I wouldn’t trust a word she says.

I should have said, not at the same pace. Top sets would cover more in the time available with Set 2 a little behind and so on. What is now (?)called Stretch and Challenge then focused on breadth and depth, which was well achieved through the coursework that was then required at GCSE and which we prepared for with similar tasks in KS3.

I think we had this discussion on the last thread - we do too bottom and mix the middle. It works really well for us. So 240 intake - two ‘top’ sets, two smaller and one booster and everyone else mixed. We use the same lessons though for all - think I waffled in detail before but it really really works for us and was much better than trying to ‘fine’ set them which we did previously as we can break up pockets of behaviour issues if needed without it meaning changing up or down if that makes sense.

Oh really, Chloe?!

DS1 was brilliant at mental arithmetic, DS2 good. Both had phenomenally low CATs scores for the space and shape thing (we are talking 80 here..) and really high for the numbers one: couldn't hold compasses or understand shapes/area. This caused problems because they weren't' all round mathematicians. Both in top sets, neither got the support to improve/understand space and shape. Because of where we live, we have middle schools and so setting begins about year 5. DS2 was in a ridiculously low set for science and so never liked it. Lots of favouritism of a clutch of boys and a large number of sweet, involved girls built into the systems! I think ti is only because I am a teacher that he was pushed and that I could see he was better than the teachers thought (now on track for maybe AAA+ at A Level ). His upper school had a weird streaming thing where they were in the same sets for literally everything (except maths!). DS2 was in 'top' stream although it got eroded as the school's enthusiasm for the system waned. DS1's behaviour was massively affected by being in boy heavy band 2 for year 9 with 33/4 in the class. He was brilliant at languages and wasn't being nurtured there because 32 of them had no real interest. Luckily though he had a teacher who nurtured him.

Because DS1 was lazy there were constant discussion about 'moving him to set 2' and I think this did happen. He got a 6 in maths eventually but he really should have done better. DS2 was at bottom of a top set and struggled with pace and self image. Got a 7 in CAGs so nothing to worry about. Now doing well in Economics A Level but he still cannot use a ruler or compasses!!

Interestingly, DS1 ,always in those not well behaved set two classes got rubbish A Level results. DS2 on track to do really well. there are personality factors at play here but their CATs scores are identical. If anything, DS1's are a bit better.

Sorry : long reply!

piggy Long but interesting. The whole thing is a minefield really because the right decision for one child, will be wrong for the next.

My trainee keeps commenting that there is no perfect answer to anything in education. It's always a best fir solution. They're definitely on to something there!

Yes, kids as individuals can sometimes be collateral damage for a system that works for most. Obviously DS's CATS scores were outliers. I always did find it very annoying, and quite upsetting though, that because they educationally managed , no one was interested in a CATs score of 80 for NVC.

However, I would challenge anyone who thought that their bonkers streaming approach worked for the majority! It really doesn't. It works for approximately 40 kids out of year groups of about 300. Luckily DS2 was one of that 40, on the whole, maths issues aside.

Streaming is bonkers. I went through secondary school with streaming for everything apart from maths. Luckily it was OK for me but meant I was supposed to be good at PE, art which I just wasn't. Whereas the majority of the school football team were in the bottom stream.

I also think that what is right for one year group / setting can be wrong for another, and so flexibility that keeps all options in mind and then changes / makes an unusual decision if it needs to would be the ideal.

It's always asking 'Why?' - why are our top Maths sets boy heavy? [because from the very beginning of their school career speed and self-confidence was valued and nurtured and seen to be 'the sign of being able']. Why were more girls than boys getting GD in writing but it was more even in reading [because teachers looked at neat pieces of work with a more positive attitude - very interesting piece of work done internally, where a range of work was typed exactly as written and then moderated]? Why weren't boys in upper KS2 as avid readers as girls [because the largely female staff tended to choose books they themselves enjoyed to read to the class]?

Time is so pressured that it is very, very difficult to have time to ask the 'why?' questions, and really think about the answers. In primary, we have the luxury of knowing our children really, really well and also to some extent a flexibility to try some experiments within our own domain, which I can completely see that the greater size and complexity of secondary (as a multi-form entry primary, each year group in the nearest secondary is just over double the size of each of our year groups) makes much more difficult.

We teach mixed ability at KS3 and then at GCSE we have a top set, a nurture group and the other 4 sets are mixed. I don’t think there’s a ‘magic’ system, our class numbers are just too high in comprehensive education. The only 2 years where I’ve seen a disaster was the year we trialed an all girl’s set and all boy’s set for the middle groups in my last school. Neither group did well funnily enough!

I supplied at a school that had nurture groups and it seemed to work well. They weren’t like ’bottom sets’ and were taught by people particularly skilled with those students and their needs.

Covid has screwed our setting to some extent because we didn’t do end of year exams last year which are the ‘big ones’ for proper group changes. We came back in Sept with much more variety in our groups than normal. Then Jan lockdown happened and some engaged and some didn’t so the gap widened and now particularly my Y10s are all over the place. Some need to be in Foundation and will probably get a 3 and some are definitely higher and will get a 7. I’m trying to teach higher algebra to kids who really need a focus on basic skills.

I think setting works well when there is lots of movement. Setting doesn’t work well when there’s a wide range of ability in the group but you try to teach them as if there isn’t.

@motherrunner

We teach mixed ability at KS3 and then at GCSE we have a top set, a nurture group and the other 4 sets are mixed. I don’t think there’s a ‘magic’ system, our class numbers are just too high in comprehensive education. The only 2 years where I’ve seen a disaster was the year we trialed an all girl’s set and all boy’s set for the middle groups in my last school. Neither group did well funnily enough!

I think that's an interesting model [not the girls and boys!].

I am not arguing for mixed ability right the way through to GCSE - especially where there is a tiered qualification.

What i wonder is whether extending mixed ability into KS3 (obviously after training, revising the curriculum and resources and exporing the best approaches from schools, including primaries, where it works well) would lead to better longer-term outcomes, perhaps especially for those children who come from weaker feeder schools, or whose transition into secondary is difficult and overwhelming and so whose initial performance is affected by factors other than potential competence in the subject.