I don’t know the context in UK primary schools, but if someone has the data it would be very interesting to read. My perception is that most primary schools have abandoned setting. If you haven’t, I would like to persuade you to think about it.
Even though my school has been teaching in sets for over a decade and a previous attempt to remove sets ended in failure, a couple of articles on the EEF toolkit into Mastery Maths and streaming inspired us to take a fresh look at the way we taught maths.
Before we began, as a three form entry junior school, we had 3 streamed classes: a larger ‘Higher Attaining’ class with one teacher, a ‘Middle’ grouping with one teacher and TA and a smaller third ‘Lower Attaining’ Group with an adult to child ratio of 6:1.
The higher group would work through the curriculum more quickly and then work on problem solving activities and reasoning, though often they would attempt elements of the following years’ curriculum. The lowest group would work through the curriculum following the same pace as the higher groups, focussing more on fluency. In reality they might not meet all the objectives in the set time before having to move on.
As a Year 3 team we knew where we wanted to go: mastery-style teaching for the whole class. I will provide practical examples of how this was achieved and resources and links in the next post.
Despite this clarity of objective, actually achieving this was harder than it first seemed. There were a wide range of stakeholders who were, at least in some respect, resistant to change:
- Teachers (there was a general perception held by most, including myself, that mixed ability = harder work for teachers.)
- Leadership Team
- Pupils
- Parents
Luckily all these groups had a shared main concern: efficacy.
Rationale
Attainment in our school is and always has been strong. Progress is less impressive and we felt that certain groups of children could do better. Namely pupil premium and low prior attainment groups.
At one time, our Year 6s sat the level 6 tests and scored highly but the whole feel of the 2014 curriculum is one of ‘mastery’ and so this high attainment stream seems less in keeping with current values.
Furthermore, current research seems to back up this approach.
Implementation
Slow and steady wins the race. We were making changes that we believed would benefit the pupils in the long run so a hasty and badly managed plan could have been disastrous.
We decided to run a trial. We kept our classes for a properties of shape unit, planned together and ran a pupil survey following this. Teachers and pupils were surprised how much they enjoyed the experience and the leadership team were comfortable with a short term trial. One of the first things we noticed was how the more confident learners from the bottom two groups were really motivated and surprised us with their learning outcomes.
Following this success we repeated our trial with a trickier unit (from a planning perspective) on place value. Pupils were delighted and I remember my class cheering when I told them it was ‘class maths’. Although some of the pupils from our top set told us they preferred the status of learning in that group.
At the start of this year we rolled it out to our new starters. We had learnt some valuable lessons from our trials but it was still challenging and our learning curve was steep. However some advantages were immediately apparent:
1. Timetabling
Teachers are free to change the time of maths to suit their needs. In the past any changes due to trips or special events etc. would lead to either cancelling maths or a complicated rescheduling. Now we just squeeze in an afternoon maths or, if we’re feeling particularly cruel, double maths instead.
2. Catch up sessions
We were able to build in catch up sessions. Sets meant that misconceptions identified at the end of a lesson or in books would have to wait to the following day and then would take learning time from everyone even if only a small group needed it.
Now, by blocking out 15 minutes of the afternoon timetable for a whole class ‘Recall’ activity, class teachers and/or our team HLTA can run same day catch up sessions with children identified in the morning lesson.
3. Knowing your learners
There is a lot to be said about strong relationships at primary level. I know my class far better than I ever knew my maths set. I understand when they need a push and when they need encouragement. This year for the first time ever, I am not dreading maths reports because I feel I know all of my children’s mathematical capability as well as I do their writing. Perhaps I was poor at teaching my maths set but it is definitely easier for me now.
Furthermore, I see their parents daily, and am able to feedback targets and successes much more easily than in maths sets, where you might not meet the parents until parents’ evening in February.
4. High Ceiling
It is a challenge to make sure that all learners are engaged and challenged but once you get it right those challenges are open to all learners.
I have noticed in my class a group of girls who, given their baseline assessment scores, would have been in the middle set, who now regularly take on the reasoning and problem solving challenges and demonstrating a real love of mathematics.
5. High expectations
Every single member of the class is now expected to work on the year 3 curriculum. In the past we have assessed some against the year 2 curriculum. Not so now. This fervent belief that all can make it has been revelationary for my practice.
However it won’t just happen by magic; those children who struggle with maths are always playing catch-up and they need a boost:
- We provide bi-weekly small group maths interventions, delivered by TAs, based on this highly structured and systematic scheme of work called the Mathematics Enhancement Programme.
- We have begun regular recall sessions, designed as tests which aim to revisit areas of the curriculum taught last week, last month and last term which help to embed concepts in the long term memory
- We have weekly sessions teaching the key instant recall facts such as number bonds and times tables as well as arithmetic skills.
- Teaching assistants are well drilled to provide limited support to key individuals, usually focussing attention, breaking down instructions, re-explaining taught content and organising learning resources. They are not focussed on output but on learning.
Outcomes
All teachers feel their maths teaching has improved. The maths classroom is more dynamic, planning is shared and teaching responsibilities are equitable.
Our lowest attainers have grown in confidence and fewer children describe themselves as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ at maths. Like anything else, if they work hard they can achieve.
Improvement in the data is more difficult to judge. Scores are better this year, particularly for number and calculations, but there are huge problems attributing this to one factor. In fact it’s impossible. What can be said however, is that the overall impact of this raft of initiatives has been positive.
Notably, the confidence level of our lowest prior attainment group is greatly improved and I am convinced this is at least in part due to removing the stigma of the bottom set and the tireless work of the team to help these children diminish the difference.
Next Steps
We want to see the kind of dramatic boosts in attainment seen on some of the research studies as outlined by the EEF. Therefore we will be trying to embed AfL assessment in a more systematic way, using tests to decide when the class moves on.
We are also experimenting with better ways of running our ‘Recall’ sessions. One idea is to standardise the format so children know what to do automatically and maximise the time spent on retrieving their prior learning.
Other teams have already taken on aspects of this approach and in my new role as maths subject lead I will be looking to inspire other year groups to ditch streaming as a concept.
Would love to hear any thoughts on what worked well for you or other ways in which we might maximise our impact. It would also be fascinating to hear from KS2 teachers who are persevering with sets and their experiences and reasoning.
Diary of a Change Junky 