Setting up children for success

Well, well, well. The Guardian has written about education, and I agree with it!

The story is some months old, but the research it reports will remain true, and always was true, as reality-based educators have known since time immemorial.

The research states that teaching pupils in classes grouped by ability improves the results of high-flyers but does not affect the progress of less able children.

It is obvious to teachers, but apparently, academics and educational theorists of a progressive bent were not convinced and pushed for teaching children of all abilities in the same class.

It should have been obvious that this was not the best way to group young learners, but ideology often trumps evidence in education.

Research by University College London’s Institute of Education found that secondary school pupils in England with previously strong maths performances made slower progress in mixed-attainment classes than when they were taught alongside children with similarly high ability.

It also showed that setting by ability did not ‘significantly harm the attainment of low-prior-attaining or socioeconomically disadvantaged’ pupils.

I explained years ago to government minister Sir Nick Gibb the difference between ‘streaming’ and ‘setting’ in comprehensive education.

Streaming involves teaching all subjects to a class that has been streamed by overall ability – this is less flexible

Setting involves teaching classes by subject ability – so a child might be in Set 1 for maths and Set 2 for English, for example.

The second is preferable, and I taught in one school that employed this for the main core subjects, and it worked extremely well.

We have seen that the 2014 curriculum changes in England have shot us up the Pisa rankings. The changes were obvious to me and to those who introduced them.

Teaching in sets is also obvious, and now, thankfully, even the Guardian has acknowledged it.

But at the same time, we have an Education Secretary who is looking to reverse the 2014 changes and introduce progressive policies – which will take us back down the rankings.

One step forward, two steps back.

Let’s hope evidence in education becomes the default position when ministers are devising policy.

ends