By Jaya Carrier
We mostly teach at WA in mixed ability groupings, and this is underpinned by a very important part of our educational philosophy. As such, this week, I found it interesting to read about the idea of within-class attainment groupings in this summary from the EEF - namely, grouping students in mixed ability groups together with peers of a similar attainment level.
Objectives: To understand the impact of grouping students of a similar attainment level together in lessons.
Summary:
The key overall themes are:
- Evidence suggests that grouping students with those of a similar attainment level has a positive impact on all learners
- Despite the overall positive effect, there does appear to be less of a beneficial effect for lower attaining students
- There are some studies that suggest that grouping students in this way has a negative impact on other factors such as student confidence - possibly as it discourages the belief that attainment can be improved through effort
How does this impact me and my practice?:
Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are:
- How might considering this help the learning of some students in my lessons? What might I need to implement this?
- What impact does the currently COVID situation have on this?
- What other strategies might be needed for LPA students to support their learning?
- How might I mitigate potential negative impacts on confidence if I were to use this strategy?
If anyone would like to discuss this further with me - please let me know! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.
A really interesting summary, Holly, thank you. It can be a controversial topic but I do prefer to see differentiation within a class than via streaming. The former approach can, and should, be flexible since students' aptitudes for different areas of a subject may well vary. I've seen temporary in-class groupings work most effectively in maths but, to labour the point, they were grouped temporarily to provide appropriate challenge for students in a particular topic. Later, the teachers would mix the students in completely different permutations. (Of course, differentiation in our classes need not rely on physical groupings of students). Thanks again!
ReplyDeleteThanks to Jaya for the really clear summary and to yourself for some interesting insights. Out of interest, what are your experiences of streaming in a STEM context for KS4 students? I've heard a lot of arguments in favour of sets in science, but very few from people who have a fuller breadth of experience
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