Mixed class groups: Opinions?

DA7800

I was thinking back recently on my time in primary school, and I remembered that in my 4th year, when I should have been in 4th class, I was in a mixed group of 3rd and 4th class. I just have a few questions I was hoping could be answered:

Is this a common occurrence nowadays, even if just from an anecdotal perspective?

How are these classes taught? Does the teacher divide half of their time to one set group and half to the other? Do 4th class pupils repeat some of the curriculum from the previous year?

Is there much of a difference between being in a mixed class as I have described and being in a normal class, in your opinion?

Thanks in advance.

abutler101

I went to a small primary school (in 3rd year now) that only had two teachers. One teacher had junior infants to 2nd class and the other teacher had 3rd-6th.

The teacher would give each class different work for subjects like english Irish and Maths that was appropriate for their class.

For History, geography and science everyone would learn the same thing at the same time. For example 3rd/4th class had the same history book and 5th/6th had a different book (it would rotate every second year so that one year they would have the 3rd/5th class book and the next they would have the 4th/6th), every second class everyone (3-6) would learn the same thing from the same book(either the 3/4 book or the 5/6 book) so sometimes 3rd class would be using the 6th class book or 6th class would be using the 3rd class book.

The teachers in my current secondary school have commented on how good the students that come from my primary school so it can't have done any damage to any of us.

Moonbeam

it is not the norm in Ireland but it does happen in some private and rural schools.

I came across this article recently - http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/mixing-age-groups-in-class-affects-girls-more-than-boys-1.1932625

also -

https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/Documents/diff_instruction_brief.pdf (I have not read all of it yet)

heldel00

Only ever had a single class once in my career to date. Have always had "split classes" (as we call them.)
Currently have 1st and 2nd. Split classes are very regular occurrence in smaller schools (ie: schools that have less than 8 teachers, one for each class if you know what I mean.)
Everything, except literacy and numeracy, are taught together as a group. When I am doing maths with 1st, 2nd would be doing english and vice versa.
Younger class follow the text books of the older class and teacher makes sure that both curricula are covered. It can be very hard going but I really don't know any different so it's fine.
Splitting classes every year can be a NIGHTMARE! Parents lamenting about friends. Every school has their own criteria for splitting classes. Sometimes if a child could do with another year in a class, but can't repeat as it is no longer an option, then they will stay with the younger grouping and get the benefit of both their own class work and revision of other class.
It works well in our school probably because we don't know any different but it is very hard work for class teacher. Two sets of notes for each curriculum area, sick day/EPV day would need two separate bundles of work and so on ...
Would be interested in hearing other people's views on multigrade?

byhookorbycrook

Children no longer work as a uniform group of 30, as they would have while I was at school. Multi-grade classes or single classes all have different groups anyhow. I worked in a two teacher school for a time, the children were very independent and used all kinds of skills that now have become "fashionable" peer to peer learning, discovery learning, group work, differentiated work and so on.

when I was in primary in a school in meath 1st and 2nd, 3rd and 4th were together and then 5th and 6th where though by the principal,

not sure if that still the case was a good few years ago! Id imagine its a headache for teachers?

Mountainsandh

My kids are both in split classes in a small rural school.
One is in 1st class along with Jun Infants and Sen Infants. The other is in 3rd class along with 2nd and 4th. 5th and 6th are with the principal of the school. There is one resource teacher who takes some groups for literacy or numeracy some set times every week, it gives teachers a chance to have a more intense and level specific time with the remaining groups in their class.
The splits change from year to year depending on numbers.
It's not ideal, but so far they are both working well with excellent teachers. I am a bit worried about next year though as my daughter might be moved along to the Principal's class with 5th and 6th (her group is small) and I don't feel she's ready for that at all.

Big Bag of Chips

Moonbeam wrote: »

it is not the norm in Ireland but it does happen in some private and rural schools.

I would have thought it is very common in Ireland. 30 years ago I was in mixed classes, 4 teachers each teaching 2 classes. And 30 years later, in a different school, my children are in mixed classes.

I didn't do an better or worse in school than my city cousins!

DA7800

Thanks for responding. I'm slightly surprised at how high the frequency of these multi-grade or split classes are, but then again I went to school in an urban area with about 15 staff. In my school a split class was a rare occurrence, usually one or two in the school with the rest being single classes.

I look forward to hearing more responses.

Moonbeam

Big Bag of Chips wrote: »

I would have thought it is very common in Ireland. 30 years ago I was in mixed classes, 4 teachers each teaching 2 classes. And 30 years later, in a different school, my children are in mixed classes.

I didn't do an better or worse in school than my city cousins!

I still think schools with less then 3 streams are small:)

lazygal

I think it depends on the area. Not one school near us (and I can think of ten off the top of my head) does this. When I was in school there were five classes of JI, and four of SI to sixth. Never mixed classes at all. I don't know of anyone who's children are in mixed stream classes.

pwurple

4 out of 5 of the schools in our local area do mixed classes. It's almost guaranteed. I went to the largest primary school myself so was a bit wary of it, so I asked to sit and observe the teaching before enrolling my own children.

The children were in small groups and worked as teams in each corner of the room. The teacher basically moved between each group.

The children were remarkably well behaved and had a pretty good level of independence and freedom in the classroom. I expected junior infants working together on a pre-writing exercise (cutting shapes) to be complete mayhem, but they were fine. Showing eachother what to do while the teacher was with another group.

I thought it was great tbh, so they are enrolled.

heldel00

pwurple wrote: »

4 out of 5 of the schools in our local area do mixed classes. It's almost guaranteed. I went to the largest primary school myself so was a bit wary of it, so I asked to sit and observe the teaching before enrolling my own children.

The children were in small groups and worked as teams in each corner of the room. The teacher basically moved between each group.

The children were remarkably well behaved and had a pretty good level of independence and freedom in the classroom. I expected junior infants working together on a pre-writing exercise (cutting shapes) to be complete mayhem, but they were fine. Showing eachother what to do while the teacher was with another group.

I thought it was great tbh, so they are enrolled.

Wow! That is a really accommodating teacher. That really wouldn't be a common occurrence.

The_Pretender

I'd imagine with class sizes growing mixed classes will be becoming less and less of an occurence outside of small rural schools. I know several schools around me who actually have multiple classes in the same year i.e two 4th classes :eek:

afkasurfjunkie

The_Pretender wrote: »

I'd imagine with class sizes growing mixed classes will be becoming less and less of an occurence outside of small rural schools. I know several schools around me who actually have multiple classes in the same year i.e two 4th classes :eek:

Yes classes sizes are growing but teacher numbers aren't, so a school might find itself trying to distribute a larger number of children among the sane amount of teachers/classrooms, hence the need for mixed or split classes. There are 8 streams of classes so any school with less than 8 teachers will more than likely have split or mixed groups.
As a previous poster mentioned not all children learn at the same rate or pace so even single stream classes might contain ability based groupings. It can be easier to group children in a mixed class sometimes as the older children mentor or help the younger ones or a weaker older child might think they are helping the younger child but it's actually the other way around.
I went to a 2 teacher school myself and work in a slightly larger school so am used to mixed classes and see the benefits. if I ever go on to further study, it's an area id be interested in researching. People tend to be very positive or negative to the idea based on their own experiences. Also the curriculum is structured so that classes can be grouped together. Jun inf/sen inf, 1/2nd, 3/4th and 5/6th. When I taught infants I had a 2 year plan. I taught certain topics in year 1 and others in year 2 so that children weren't repeating the same art/music/stories in sen infants.

lazygal

heldel00 wrote: »

Wow! That is a really accommodating teacher. That really wouldn't be a common occurrence.

I'd have thought it would require Garda vetting etc. That wouldn't be entertained in the local schools near us. Even simple visits require forms being filled out.

lazygal

The_Pretender wrote: »

I'd imagine with class sizes growing mixed classes will be becoming less and less of an occurence outside of small rural schools. I know several schools around me who actually have multiple classes in the same year i.e two 4th classes :eek:

That's was my experience in the late 1980s/early 1990s. There were five of my year all the way through primary school, and four of all other years. I was in a class of 36-38 all the way through too. It was a very large school, but because of that it had great extra resources, such as a big special needs team, IT was a standard subject etc.

Maybe it is a rural/urban thing?

jobbridge4life

Was in mixed classes for half of my primary school. Teacher would simply teach one book eg third class irish one year and then fourth class irish the next year so that by the time each class were finished with her they had gone through everything they should have, though not necessarily in the right order. My baby sister, currently attending the same primary school as I did, is taught in the same way.

echo beach

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

I worked in a two teacher school for a time, the children were very independent and used all kinds of skills that now have become "fashionable" peer to peer learning, discovery learning, group work, differentiated work and so on.

I went to a small primary school and throughout my life I have found that it was a huge advantage to learn from junior infants to take responsibility for your own learning. None of us were dependent on the teacher.
I would say that it requires a lot of skill on the part of the teacher and possibly a different skill set to that required to teach a single class.

abutler101 wrote: »

The teachers in my current secondary school have commented on how good the students that come from my primary school so it can't have done any damage to any of us.

That was also my experience in secondary school where the 'country' children who had gone to small rural schools were usually ahead of the 'townies'. I'm sure we weren't any smarter but we knew how to work and learn without constant supervision.

Moonbeam

lazygal wrote: »

That's was my experience in the late 1980s/early 1990s. There were five of my year all the way through primary school, and four of all other years. I was in a class of 36-38 all the way through too. It was a very large school, but because of that it had great extra resources, such as a big special needs team, IT was a standard subject etc.

Maybe it is a rural/urban thing?

The most we had was 45 in our class and there were 3 streams except when it got a bit out of hand and they had to bring in a 4th for some classes.
It was ridiculous.
We had no IT or anything like that but we did have an amazing principal and mostly great teachers.
I moved school in 6th class to a small country school (so I thought) with 8 classes of around 35-40.
Actually we did have IT and it was where I learned to programme in basic and we used to collect the Superquinn receipts for the computers for schools programme.
Oh how we forget:)