Primary school which mix class years by age

shirlgirl2004

Children do well to mix with children of differing ages. Just because a child is a certain age doesn't mean they will have the abilities to match. IMO it is something more schools should employ.

Mojisola

ciderwithrosie wrote: »

Not really a new thing, schools were doing this back in the 1960s - part of the 'Open Classroom' idea from the US.

It's a much older idea than that. Most local schools were very small and the children were either all in one class or two if the school was a bit bigger and that would have been from 5 to 11 year olds.

bylromarha

Depends how they mix and the balance.

I taught a year 1/2 class where the mix was based on age alone. It was awful. I had 3 year 2s, 27 year 1s.

1 of my year 2's was extremely bright - in the top of her year group, but her August birthday meant she was with me.

Always felt I let her down - I'm trying to teach basic a b c's to 29 kids on the carpet, and the best will in the world couldn't meet her needs too in that set up.

Saying that, I've also taught very well set up mixed age classes where the spread of age has not been noticable.

shirlgirl2004

bylromarha wrote: »

Depends how they mix and the balance.

I taught a year 1/2 class where the mix was based on age alone. It was awful. I had 3 year 2s, 27 year 1s.

1 of my year 2's was extremely bright - in the top of her year group, but her August birthday meant she was with me.

Always felt I let her down - I'm trying to teach basic a b c's to 29 kids on the carpet, and the best will in the world couldn't meet her needs too in that set up.

But that situation can also happen in a single year group. My daughter, with an August birthday, was reading chapter books when she started school but still had to listen to the others learning a b c. There should be more teaching according to where the child is academically at a given time.

geoffky

I did not realise this, but this happened to me many years ago at school i only found out a few weeks ago as i had not remembered but had been given a class photo from a friend..

*Louise*

Scottish here, so my two summer born children fall in the middle of their school year group age wise

I have no particular problem with the classes being split at our school, it's a necessity due to numbers but I cannot understand why they do it on age and not on ability.

DD will go into a composite class in August, either primary 1/2 or primary 2/3. At the moment with her birthday being July I don't know if she is in the upper of lower half. She has been joining the primary 3's for reading since she started in P1 so I don't see the point in putting her in 1/2 due to her birthday then sending her up to 2/3 for reading and comprehension due to ability.

On the other hand, her two best friends birthdays fall in the lower half, and she would be split from them, but again they are in the most able P1 group and would surely benefit from working with older children as well.

I can only trust the school will do the best for the children.

*Louise*

Just remembered - when I was in primary 7, our school was so small and mixed that I ended up in the same class as my sister who was in Primary 5 for a full year...:)

It can't have been easy for the teacher. In fact I recall spending most of my final primary year doing maths from textbooks (work at your own pace ones) and lots of art projects

neverdespairgirl

My 7 year old DS is in a mixed class for years 3 & 4. It's a class of 28 children, and they have a full-time teacher, a part-time teacher, and a full-time teaching assistant. Works very well at his school. The next class up is mixed years 5 & 6.

Tenyearstogo

My October born 7 year old is in year 2 of an infant school. He'll be changing in September. He needs to be in with older children for his maths.

He's so far ahead, they do give him extension work but he finishes that quickly too. His school has just dropped from outstanding to good because they don't pay enough attention to the higher ability children.

valk_scot

*Louise* wrote: »

Scottish here, so my two summer born children fall in the middle of their school year group age wise

I have no particular problem with the classes being split at our school, it's a necessity due to numbers but I cannot understand why they do it on age and not on ability.

DD will go into a composite class in August, either primary 1/2 or primary 2/3. At the moment with her birthday being July I don't know if she is in the upper of lower half. She has been joining the primary 3's for reading since she started in P1 so I don't see the point in putting her in 1/2 due to her birthday then sending her up to 2/3 for reading and comprehension due to ability.

On the other hand, her two best friends birthdays fall in the lower half, and she would be split from them, but again they are in the most able P1 group and would surely benefit from working with older children as well.

I can only trust the school will do the best for the children.

I'm in Scotland too. It does depend on your area, my local council does the split on age, nothing else. (Except when there is a relevant health problem, but that's exceptionally rare). When DD was in the P1/2 composite it came down to what time of day she and another child was born, they're that strict. Others do split partially on ability and then they get huge amounts of trouble from the parents of the older group I'm told who tend to think their children are being stigmatised in some way.

The minute there's some sort of judgement call done on the kids, parents will feel judged. It's only natural I suppose, a lot of other parents asked me if I "minded" that DD was in the composite class given that only 12 out of 79 kids in her year were affected. To be able to reply that there was nothing to mind as it was purely a birthdate thing was helpful as a lot of the parents with unaffected kids did seem to think there was some sort of stigma attached. That was the only negative thing about DD being in the composite class come to think of it, the weird attitude of some of the other parents.

As to teaching to ability, maths is set at our school and the kids do all shift round for that from P2, reading groups are also set. The timetable logistics in a big school like ours must be horrendous, it has to be easier in a smaller school I would think! I don't think DD has been in any way held back by being in two composite classes over her primary school career tbh, she's not gifted as such but she's in the accelerated set for maths now and top set for english, unfortunately there is no accelerated english atm. She just reads a lot at home instead.

I do think lots of home reading is very important at any level btw so whatever year your DD ends up in, *Louise*, make sure she gets plenty of extra books of the right level, either from the school library, town library or the charity shops. Any teacher will give you a supplementary list of suitable books and authors. Or just go with what your DD likes, even if it does have a sparkly kitten on the front cover!