My daughter has just started Year 9 yesterday and they are getting split into different classes for the core subjects.

Now are these classes streamed, meaning there is a top, middle, bottom class etc., according to ability?

I was under the assumption that they are, but my daughter tells me in her case Friend 1 is in the same class as Friend 2 (a different class to my daughter).

To put it politely we know Friend 1 isn’t the sharpest tool in the box and has a very poor attendance record, while Friend 2 is a model student. So the class mix seems odd.

And if they are streamed will the decisions made now tie-in my daughter to a future GCSE class and possible lower grade than she could achieve (with a bit of arse-kicking!).

Ta

Do all schools work the same way? For comparison my son’s also just started Y9. In his school core subjects are all streamed by ability. However this isn’t related to GCSE classes at this stage – they have to choose their GCSE options at the end of next term.

Now are these classes streamed, meaning there is a top, middle, bottom class etc., according to ability?

Only the school could answer this and even then they might not actually tell you. It was a looooong time ago but when I was at school class for Maths were mixed and there was streaming, however the streaming was to give those at the very bottom a bit more of a helping hand rather than getting all the brightest into one class. That happened a year later.

Year 9 tends to be mixed ability these days and then when they make their options choices to progress in to Year 10/11 then they will be streamed.

My daughter’s school has been streamed for core subjects like maths and english since year 7 – based on their SATS results from Primary/KS2, other classes have been mixed ability, and others still have been only accessed by the ‘higher ability’ – eg: the more able based on English have been doing a second language for 1 or 2 lessons a week while those with poorer english and maths skills get extra classes in those.

I don’t know what flexibility schools have in this but hers is an academy so they have more flexibility anyway.

Mixed feelings about it. She is in top sets where available and doing the extra language, so if she’s like I was at school with a tendency to be a bit ‘do enough to get by’ at times then being less able to disappear into the background is good for her.

At the same time i see the benefit of mixed ability to increase the standard for all.

And then again; she does struggle a bit in the mixed ability classes, because whether it’s political to say it or not there are kids in there who are not ‘maximising their potential’ because they just want to arse about, disrupt lessons including personal disruption (eg: there have been occasions where she’s turned away to take measurements in a science experiment and turned back to find someone’s poured a flask of water all over her lab book) – and the sooner the little shits are setted out to the learning support centre or whatever it’s called now so those of varying capability but good attitude can get on with it the better. My daughter reckons 30% of some lessons is lost to the behaviour of <10% of the class.

My lad is same year as the OPs daughter. They were streamed for maths last year in year 8, still the only subject they are streamed in though this year there are two top sets, a boys and a girls, to generate competition.

All **** bollocks imho. Jnr is bright, bored, demotivated and sick of having classes disrupted by the idiots.

When I was at school you could move up/down sets if you did well/badly, but you had to work really hard to do it. I was in 2nd (of 8 ) set for science and 3rd (of 4) for English, getting moved up in Science pretty much took a year of sticking my hand up to answer every question and full marks in every homework. English I think I got moved into the top set mid way through year 10, after working my ass off through year 9 to get an above average Sats result and moved into the 2nd set for GCSE, then getting a perfect score in a descriptive short story exercise/competition.

I’m not great at English, but as I said in the Grammar school thread, I really f****** hate being 2nd so took it as a personal insult from the teachers that I wasn’t in top set for something.

That and the year was split, so some subjects the sets were 1,2,2,3,3,4 (8 classes, but only 1 top and 1 bottom), so it’s possible that one half of the year just has stiffer competition.

Maths is the only subject streamed at my children’s school.

When I was at high school we had A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3 (and B3E for those who were so “stupid” (ie, foreign) that they couldn’t speak English).

IIRC, everything was streamed until Options were taken, then they were streamed, bundled as A-band and B-band, or one single class depending on take-up (ie, class size). The only class I remember mingling with B-banders was electronics, and it was immensely frustrating as I was a girlie swot and really interested in the subject, and the bench across the room was more interested in snorting flux and setting fire to the gas taps.

We also had ‘form’ classes, where the morning and evening register was taken. These were, as far as I could tell, divided up arbitrarily.

That was just our school though. I expect it’s down to whatever policy a given school wants to implement, and probably influenced by class sizes.

It depends upon the school. Unless the school is absolutely tiny, all the classes will be split up at some point 🙂

My daughter’s school set by ability from day one of year 7. That’s been great for her, because she was a shoe-in for top set of top stream, and she’s had very few disrupted lessons. Further down the ability scale it’s a different matter. The lower ability groups are smaller so, in theory, the students get more one-to-one time; in practice, it’s crowd control.

My younger daughter is about to make secondary choices and we’re probably going to go for a different school, which doesn’t set (other than maths and English, I think) until year 9. For her, this will be better as she’s on the top/middle set borderline in her primary (where they set for maths and English from Y5) and so more likely to end up in a lower set.

Just like the grammar school debate, streaming is a great idea if you assume your kid is dead bright 🙂

Muffin am I right in thinking she’s at belper? My daughter has just started year 10 and last year seemed to see them streamed in to different groups through the year. Will ask her in more detail when I get home if that helps.