Split classes in Primary School

bylromarha

depends how it's done and if the whole school is behind it., Is it a new change to mixed age classes,or has it been that way for a number of years?

A few years ago, i taught a class of yr 1/2. I had 3 year 2's, 27 year 1's. There was another yr 1 class and 2 year 2 classes. It was a nightmare, especially as I had the 3 youngest year 2's, 2 of which were bright. The year 2 teachers weren't willing to adapt their curriculum in any way and I was struggling to challenge the bright year 2's when I had 27 year 1s.

plus the 3 year 2s were very unhappy as they felt they'd been labelled thick.

Ended up that some year 2's left and mine moved into their spaces, leaving me a year 1 class.

It can work really well, with huge benefits to bright and poor abilities in both age groups. I'd see how it goes before talking about moving schools.

looby-loo_2

wendykearney wrote: »

From my experience it depends very much on the calibre of the teacher. The first year my son went into a split class he did well as when he was able to do the harder work in the year above it was easy for him to do so instead of having to stay at his officail level. However, when he then became oneof the older students the teacher was unwilling to set him and some others harder work to keep them motivated
wendy

Exactly this happened to my eldest son. Stretched when in the lower year but bascally repeated the year when in the next year. At the Year 5 parents evening he proudly told me that my son had completed all the Yr 6 work and more. I asked what he was going to do in Year 6 and was told there wasn't much point in him doing extra as he would only repeat it all at secondary schoool. He though he would be a great help to less able children or would enjoy being a library monitor.

This is exactly what happened at the start of Yr 6 so we moved him to a private school where he took the 11+ and gained a scholarship for his secondary school.

Not a good situation but we would never have though of going private if this hadn't happened and it was worth every penny!

kodokan

My son is in a small rural school with split year classes, and it doesn't seem an issue at all. I too was concerned about it when I realised before he started school, simply based on it being 'not what I had done' (in my large town primary). I rationalised it in the end by thinking in terms of each class consisting of children with 'varying abilities and an age spread of 18 months' rather than the more common 'varying abilities and an age spread of 12 months'. Either way, the teacher has to adapt what they're teaching to the different levels.

Go and see it in action - it's not nearly the big deal it was in my head, especially if the school has been dealing with it for years.

kodokan

Vickicb

My son is in a mixed year 3/4 class and it works very well, I think some teachers actually think it works better. Remember that in any primary class you have kids working at wildly different levels even if they are all the same age, and teachers are trained to cope with it.

In one school I occasionally do workshops in they like the system so much that they have 2 x year 5/6 classes instead of one year 5 and one year 6 class. One of the teachers is Maths trained and the other is English trained so they move them into ability groupings for numeracy and literacy, otherwise it's mixed age and mixed ability and works very well. The older one's get the benefit of learning how to be responsible and "set an example", and the younger one's have the benefit of learning from the slightly more mature older pupils.

I wouldn't worry, it's very common and is certainly no reason to change schools, which can be very disruptive to the child.