In September I will be teaching a mixed age class of Year 5/6 children. This will be first time that I have had the unique challenge of working with a year group comprised of two different ages. Your advice and expertise about some of the questions I have would be most welcome.
Much of my concern relates to the content of the curriculum and how best to plan to suit the needs of such a broad range of children. No doubt this is just the same as any classes we have, however a Y5/6 class has the added dimension of (possibly) doing SATs in 2011.
My class will be made up of children from 3 separate classes: a Year 4/5 class (who followed the Y5 curriculum), a straight Year 4 class and a straight Year 5 class. This mixture means that they have had a mixture of curriculum content too. Some have had the usual Year 5 curriculum whereas others have not.
We will be able to provide the older children with TA support to booster them nearer the time for SATs and also ensure that the coverage is in place for Literacy and Numeracy. Another challenge with such a class.
We’ll need to consider any impact on the Year 6 curriculum as there will be children moving into Year 6 next year.
It has been established that we will be using the Year 5 curriculum as a platform to build from and I will be working closely with the other Year 5 teacher (not the Year 6 teacher). Much of the content of the curriculum (especially topic based work) will have to be brand new, as there is the possibility of patchy repetition from the other classes.
Importantly we need to continue to engage and inspire this group of learners, no matter how old they are and I want to provide them a time that they will remember.
Faced with such an intricate challenge in terms of curriculum design I would greatly appreciate your help, advice and expertise.
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Pic: Sabotage #4: Mixing noodles with rice by Stéfan
Man, teaching these kids must be a difficult task. But it will also be fun. I also taught few kids of this age. Try to make the education funny and interesting and try to teach them with pictures.
Hi Tom,
I taught a mixed year 4/5 age group in my NQT year. It is a unique challenge. It is important, in my opinion, that someone with on overall responsibility for progression through the school maps the intention for continuation. I found it worrying when looking at different topics, science especially, that I was either boring the children with what they already knew, or treading on the toes of future teachers. As another poster has already pointed out, one very good way of dealing with this is to take a thematic approach to planning. This worked best for me. Spend time with the class mapping out the learning journey for the entire range. The children should, with support, be able to locate themselves on that journey and identify their own next steps. You can then work on facilitating them achieving the next steps in a very individual way, rather than trying to shoe- horn a scheme’s objectives into an awkward lesson.
You may be surprised by how small the spread ends up being. I found that infact the children where not as far apart as I had thought they would be and I have certainly had classes since, of single age phase children with a much broader sweep of ability. One of the key issues that arose for me was maturity. A year in the life of a child is a long time and they change dramatically year on year. I found that the previously separated classes did not gel well together and behaviour became a serious concern. I would recommend developing a mentoring program where children support each other in as many different combinations as you can imagine. This diminishes the ‘age as status’ mentality that many of the children had in my class at least. You might have P.E mentors, writing mentors, friendship mentors, playtime mentors, technology mentors and so on and their role is to support the other children in this area.
Finally, it is important to let the children lead the learning. Chalking and talking will always fall short because no matter what you do, some will have already heard it, some will find it difficult and others will be picking their noses. Try and use collaborative talk structures like Kagan to enable the children to become the leaders of learning. Web 2.0 collaboration tools are essential of course and support this type of situation well. Finally you could try teaching workshop style. If the children are all working broadly to one objective you can teach smaller groups the skills that they are missing or the extension that they require while the others peruse independent inquiry.
Hope this helps!
Hi
I taught mixed Y5/6 and like you was concerned about the delivery and most of all differentaition.
I agree with the posts that have already been written. For me the teaching to stage not age was completely necessary, I did lots of team building at the start of term so they felt like one class and one community, however, I felt it really important to make sure the Y6 felt like Y6- at times of transition to KS3, responsibilities through the school….that is when my valuable LSA helped out, to compensate this on occasions when Y6 were doing such projects, I would make sure Y5 had equally exciting tasks/projects. Teaching on to a thematic/topic based appraoach was the best way for me to differentiate. For Language, KS2 grouped according to ability..this does work really well in our particular school.
Hi Tom,
My last two classes before I left teaching were a Yr 5/6 and then a Yr3/4. I loved it.
I would totally agree with all James’s comments below, and can only add that if ever you needed a prompt (and I am not sure you do : ) for enabling children to manage their own learning and support each other – then this will be it.
I was forced to push aside my control-freakery and focus on the variety of strengths in the class and (as James says) really focus on the kids themselves first. The first half terms were very tightly planned – round mini topics and stories – but by Xmas, I had had to innovate around classroom management – a mix of streaming, mentoring, lots of carousel activities (carefully differentiated), and lots of Speaking and Listening basics so that plenaries made the most of the learning achieved from across the room.
It was also important to allow the kids to help with the assessment of their group work (I couldn’t be everywhere!) – and to look beyond their ‘year group’ and focus on progress within the topic.
It was very hard work (before Web2.0 and cheap ict tools)…. but my year with the yr3/4 class was the most rewarding of any class I taught.
Also – it is really important to use resources that do not shout (eg) “FOR YEAR 5” – otherwise you set a tone of ‘dfference’ not differentiation. Resources that support curiousity and investigation, and tools that enable kids to share those learning journies are key. Sorry for the plug – but sites like http://www.brainpop.co.uk – which do not display an age group to the kids – are a great place to start.
Hugely rewarding too are deep and broad topics around a fantastic story (we did loads of work around Harry Potter as it was a craze at the time) – as this is also not age specific.
On a last note – be aware that the parents are expecting different things and your colleagues too. You also need to differentiate for them too – for notes home, etc….
Good luck!
Eylan (Head of BrainPOP UK!)
I’ve been teaching a mixed Y4/5/6 class in a small rural primary for the last six years. As with any group of children, it has presented me with various challenges, but undoubtedly the biggest is the range of abilities and at what level to deliver the ‘main teaching’ so as not to lose the less able or bore the more able. Differentiation of activities is a key aspect, but equally important, I think, is the differentiation of your questioning. In order to do this well, you need to really know your kids. I usually start the year with some kind of assessment activity (though I don’t necessarily tell the children that). Getting to know what makes the kids tick, what interests them, is also useful as it means you can direct the curriculum towards the kinds of activities that suit your class. I also find it helpful to know what kind of learner they are – Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic…
I try and group them according to ability, rather than year group – that way those that are struggling get the support they need, and any high flyers get pushed on. Watch out for the average group though – it’s very easy for them to get overlooked and ‘coast’ their way through the year. Termly pupil reviews at my school help us keep track of attainment and spot any that aren’t making the desired progress.
The most important advice I would give is: there is no right or wrong way of managing a mixed class, only what works for that particular group, but knowing your class well will help you get the balance right.
Hope that helps. If there’s anything else I can do to help, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
I’m not a teacher, haven’t been a teacher, so can’t help with the specific question. I hope this observation is valuable.
I’ve had three children go through school and I think they all had split classes at sometime. The most difficult one was my oldest, my daughter. I think my recollection is correct – this was a few years ago.
Her yr 3 and yr 4 were split classes. She had yr 3/4 and yr 4/5 with the same teacher – the deputy head. (Note that in each case she was in the older group).
This became incredibly difficult on the teacher, as she had to actually deputise for much of the time as the health of the (then) head was failing. The school report she brought home (from the newly fangled report writing system) led me to telling the teacher concerned that, in my view – she didn’t know who she was writing about.
Shortly after this I became pretty actively involved with the PTA and discovered that the deputy head was also the link teacher for the PTA. As I got to know her better I did apologise for my comments – but it was a situation that made life incredibly difficult for her and the children. Hopefully this situation is rare, but one never knows.
Where I’m from we call these combined classes and I’ve always asked to teach them. The best thing about them is the flexibility of the view on curriculum. Even in a straight class, the range of achievement of students is enormous. I had a grade 6/7 class (ages 11-13) and their reading levels were from grades 2-11 so differentiation was key to everything. The added bonus of multi-grades gave me the freedom to explore topics of choice – assessments were based on the learning outcomes of each of the grades. Differentiation was the key. I had a 2 year rotation to cover things so there were no repeats for any of my students. For example, everyone participated in literature circles in language arts – the only difference were the learning outcomes for the grade levels. Expectations for the higher grades were more complex. The great thing about all this is that the older students became models for the younger ones (which pushed them further) and we ended up with a stronger set of younger students to move to the next level.
Use google spreadsheets to completely analyse your class. Everything from Reading scores to APS, through parent’s evening attendance into self esteem (I use a simple but effective self esteem questioannaire called BASIS). Then group accordingly. Also plan your interventions by child not by curriculum content. Sorry that’s all theory though – I’ve never taught a mixed age class (apart from maths sets)
I taught a mixed Year 5/6 a couple of years ago and found it a challenge in the sense that I was working with ability levels from Levels 2-6 in one class. Differentiation became more layered and I would find myself simultaneously running three mental/oral starters in maths lessons. When I was without a TA (about 80% of the time) I found that the SEN/LA children in Year 5 valued being able to use interactive ICT resources in a very focused way. I was then able to ask two-tiered questions to the other children. Literacy was a lot easier to plan and teach since differentiation can be by output more so than maths.
In terms of curriculum design the school used a two year rolling programme – one year they would teach the Y5 topics and the next the Y6 topics for maths and the foundation subjects. The maths planning was focused on the strands of learning with Y5 and Y6 objectives listed separately.
Thankfully we are at stage now where the message is to focus on the National Curriculum PoS. So it would be very easy to design projects suited to the children you teach. I have found this in recent years and it’s the thing I enjoy most about teaching. Although I currently don’t teach a mixed-aged class we have children working from P-Scales to Level 3+ and found that projects with layered objectives really engages all children contextually driven learning. They access and lead the learning how they wish, while being guided by the teacher.
What I did find beneficial about working in a mixed-age range class was the fact that the higher ability Y5 children could easily work with the Y6 children and the lower ability Y6 children could work with the Y5 children. I really enjoyed working like that and I think that you will too!