Last month, the Secretary of State for Education Nicky Morgan dismissed reports that she was going to ask Ofsted to oversee compulsory setting. What is your view on the possibility of the government mandating that schools use setting in certain subjects? Does your school set by ability? If so, for which subjects? If it were practical, would you like to see more setting by ability – or less? Here ASCL members share their thoughts.

An unstable mix?

Setting up for failure

Mixed-ability improves the confidence of our students and encourages them to achieve their potential; no one knows this more than our school where we have maintained our percentage of A*-C grades in English despite the government trying to ensure failure through the removal of speaking and listening this year.

But it’s not just about the grades. We do not set in English because we believe that English is all about communication: group work; discussion; exploration of topics; sharing of ideas and learning from one another. Surely these are all qualities that will allow our young people to become productive and, dare I say, democratic members of society?

Nadine Watson
Curriculum Leader for English at Baylis Court School in Slough in Berkshire

An inevitable shift

While we know that setting and streaming can have a negative impact on the learning of those deemed to be ‘less able’, in a world where schools are competing with ever more ‘selective’ schools and where ‘The Public School Model’ is seen as the one to aspire to, it is almost impossible not to respond to aspirational ‘middle-class’ parental demands to make their children ‘the best’.

Schools that do not respond to this demand will undoubtedly suffer a drain of these types of student as they look at schools that meet these demands. This is why the move to setting and streaming is inevitable because the schools that do select or set will demonstrate greater success for the most able and so will attract these types of students. This is a policy that will surely just increase societal inequality. Opposing this will be a difficult battle to win.

John Connolly
Assistant Principal at Ounsdale High School in Wombourne in Staffordshire

Combination works best

The government mandated setting would be yet another example of the Centre giving autonomy with one hand and taking it away with the other. As a free school we have more autonomy than some, and are (rightly) free to use our professional judgement over what to teach, how to teach it and who should teach it. Imposing setting on us would be contradictory to those freedoms, and challenge our professionalism. Incidentally, we do set in core subjects, and plan to teach non-core subjects vertically at Key Stage 3. And sometimes we teach whole cohorts together, with team teaching. We believe that our students will make the most progress with this combination of strategies. That should be what Ofsted is interested in.

Lauren Thorpe
Principal at Compass School Southwark in London

Inverse correlation

Setting is not a panacea, nothing can replace good quality teaching. Research suggests an inverse correlation between setting and progress in many cases, and in my schools, the highest performing subjects are taught in mixed ability and the worst behaviour is in setted subjects. Irrespective, it is not for the Secretary of State to direct schools to group students in a particular way or to use Ofsted as the enforcer if we are serious about autonomy. Schools should reflect the society for which we are preparing students, and I am not aware that we ‘set’ in society.

(Name supplied)
Executive headteacher in the East Midlands

Designed with IMPACT

© 2024 Association of School and College Leaders | Valid XHTML | Contact us