Streaming at age 7

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rosered100

Re: Streaming at age 7

Post by rosered100 »

We had to move my DS away from a school that set from year 3. Once set, there was rarely any movement for the rest of their time at the school. DS was well ahead in maths & for the previous 2 years had been told to 'make up your own sums' while the rest of the class caught up on times table - so theoretically he should have been in the top set for maths. However his English - particularly spelling, was very poor so for that he should have been in the bottom set(3 sets). The school compromised & of course put him in the middle set.

We moved him to a school which only set for maths & in the top set they also had a 'top table' for the children who needed extending & they could also sit the maths challenges. He was much happier there, even though the school was considered much poorer academically (I cant tell you the comments we got when we moved him) but it did him a power of good.
mystery
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Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Streaming at age 7

Post by mystery »

Which set would you put the headteacher in who masterminded the setting system at that school?
scary mum
Posts: 8841
Joined: Mon Mar 15, 2010 3:45 pm

Re: Streaming at age 7

Post by scary mum »

using jazz hands to do their 5 times table
Err, what are jazz hands? :oops:
Which set would you put the headteacher in who masterminded the setting system at that school?
The remedial stream with no opportunity to move up :lol: :lol:
scary mum
push-pull-mum
Posts: 737
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:52 pm

Re: Streaming at age 7

Post by push-pull-mum »

scary mum wrote:
using jazz hands to do their 5 times table
Err, what are jazz hands? :oops:
this ..
[insert picture of jazzy man waving hands like a mime artist here - coz computer won't let me]
hopefully ...
Never posted an image here before.(not gonna this time either, obviously :( )

Do none of your kids count in fives with their hands? They do it a lot at DCren's school. It's cute when they're 5 and kind of scary at 11.
scary mum
Posts: 8841
Joined: Mon Mar 15, 2010 3:45 pm

Re: Streaming at age 7

Post by scary mum »

Sadly I still catch DD counting on her fingers (she's 15 :oops: :cry: )
scary mum
Looking for help
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Joined: Thu Dec 18, 2008 11:12 am
Location: Berkshire

Re: Streaming at age 7

Post by Looking for help »

My 17 year old also :oops:

I just don't get streaming primary school children, I don't know a primary school large enough to allow it to work properly. Our old one had one class per year of 30 children, they were divided into groups loosely based on their ability for maths and English. I think that works well enough for children up to 11.

I can see the need at secondary school particularly in comprehensives, where there is a huge ability range, and lots of forms to play with. I don't believe it's necessary in a grammar, where everyone is of a certain standard, although the one my older children attended set for Maths.
inkypinkyponky
Posts: 1863
Joined: Fri Feb 27, 2009 1:41 pm
Location: Gravesend, Kent

Re: Streaming at age 7

Post by inkypinkyponky »

scary mum wrote:Sadly I still catch DD counting on her fingers (she's 15 :oops: :cry: )

Erm, are fingers not allowed for counting as a grown-up? (says inky, age 44 :oops: )
Fran17
Posts: 1440
Joined: Sun Mar 07, 2010 10:16 pm

Re: Streaming at age 7

Post by Fran17 »

I was just wondering the same thing inky. :oops:
tokyonambu
Posts: 109
Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2010 5:38 pm

Re: Streaming at age 7

Post by tokyonambu »

Looking for help wrote:My 17 year old also :oops:

I just don't get streaming primary school children, I don't know a primary school large enough to allow it to work properly. Our old one had one class per year of 30 children, they were divided into groups loosely based on their ability for maths and English. I think that works well enough for children up to 11.
It depends on the size of the school, and the nature of its intake. My children attended a large (three, shortly to become four, form intake) primary whose catchment area is powerfully bi-modal: a sink estate with very serious deprivation issues, and an affluent area popular with university and hospital staff. Their response was to run maths, and in some years English, as sets: the groups used for teaching those subjects were formed by need. It didn't necessarily favour the able: the resources (TAs, particularly) were quite properly put into supporting those with the greatest need. And they eventually stopped doing it for English, for reasons I can't now recall. But overall, it seemed to work quite well.
I can see the need at secondary school particularly in comprehensives, where there is a huge ability range, and lots of forms to play with. I don't believe it's necessary in a grammar, where everyone is of a certain standard, although the one my older children attended set for Maths.
Actually, I think the idea that the ability range, and more importantly the motivation range, is narrow in a grammar is one of those myths along with "there is no bullying in selective schools" --- if it were true it would go double in a university course where everyone has roughly comparable A Levels, and it manifestly doesn't. My daughters are at a super-selective school in an area without a compulsory 11+, and in any given subject, the gap from the most able to the least able is quite substantial. Whether that's innate ability or the result of all those contingent decisions to focus on subject X rather than Y because you enjoy it more, who can say, but very few children are equally strong over all subjects.

They're not setting for maths, although de facto they're going to in Year 11 by offering two different post-GCSE options, but they desperately need to: children who are going to do Further Maths A Level are getting bored while children whose abilities or interests lie elsewhere are struggling. In a sense, the grammar school status makes the problem worse: there's a higher concentration of children who will excel in a given subject, which means their interests are not being served by teaching to the middle.

The super-selectives (<5% of ability range) have a narrower range than "traditional" grammar schools (~20%), but historically grammars streamed quite narrowly: my father reports three streams in a three-form intake grammar he attended in the forties and fifties. It might be that the super-selectives end up as having the ability range of the former A stream, but I suspect they don't: a load of confounders like (for example) the difference between those that got in on heavy tutoring and those that got in almost unprepared means that over the course of time, the cohort will become much more varied than raw scores at eleven imply.
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