ability groups - what does you primary school do

[doodles]

DS's class very small (about 10) and they are mixed ability but extension work given in Maths and English.

[andyb]

DS2's school have 2 sets for Maths and Literacy from Y1 and 5/6 ability groups for guided reading. A child is not necessarily in the top set for both subjects although it is probably only about a dozen children who have a mis-match. Movement between sets is fairly fluid at the beginning of each school year but then settles down and there is little movement.

Now in Y5, the upper Maths set (and possibly English) has a sub-group of approx 10 children of higher ability who do the same work as the rest of the class but are more or less left to get on with it, whereas the other 2/3rds of the class has closer teacher involvement.

[mystery]

Thank you to everyone for the replies so far. Any more answers out there?

[2Girlsmum]

DD in Y6 has 2 spelling groups, 3 reading/comprehension groups and 1 set of maths tests (10 questions daily) for everyone. The 4 children who have special needs have extra help when the rest of class (and all the Juniors) are at Assembly in the morning.

[scarlett]

My childrens' school is tiny with about 6 in each year ( more than 1 year group in a class though ) so their ability groups can have children from any year.....in particular maths and english they are put in whole school groups , if that makes sense. My year 2 daughter is with year 4 children , but they are the ones who need extra support ......we haven't told this to my pushy , competitive, sister in law who has a daughter also in year 2 and is spitting feathers at the thought that my daughter is more able than hers!! ( when she isn't !)

The children don't seem to mind being with younger children....my year 4 son is with some of his peer group and some clever year 3 children and just accepts that they are better at english ( but that he is a whizz at maths and rugby !)

[yoyo123]

my maths groups were quite fluid, some children were a whizz at shape but struggled with number and vice versa.

[lemondrop]

At my DC's school all classes have about 5 guided reading groups according to ability from Reception upwards. Maths and literacy are split into 2 groups in KS2 only across the 2 forms according to ability, so they just mix the 2 classes up with the more able half from each class grouped together, and the less able together, although there must be a lot of kids in the middle ground, so not sure how this works for them.

Tasks in class for all lessons are given as MUST - everyone must do it; SHOULD - everyone should have a go; COULD - if you finish quickly or find the musts/shoulds to be easy then try these, and EXTENSION - for children who get through the musts/shoulds and coulds. These are self-limiting to a certain extent but children are encouraged to aim for the harder tasks if they can. Certain children are actively given the extension work in class, I only know this because DS is very good at maths and he is given lots of numeracy extension work, I didn't know it existed before he joined the school as DD has never had any she usually does all the coulds though.

For spellings there are 2 lists, one is harder than the other, the children are allowed to choose which they learn.

It seems to work for the most part but I do wonder that the lazier more able children will get away with doing less work than they could be doing (my DD springs to mind )