Education Quandary: 'Should children be streamed in school, or taught in mixed-ability classes?

Hilary's advice

Research from around the world shows that there is no clear-cut answer to this, no matter what education hardliners – on both sides – would like us to think. When children are divided up by their ability, the achievement gap between the different groups tends to get bigger over time. Bright children do well out of it, but the less able suffer.

In contrast, mixed-ability classes are better for more students, although the higher-ability ones don't do as well as they would if they were separated off.

However, the disadvantages of grouping by ability can be moderated if pupils are not separated out into broad overall-ability bands but only grouped by ability for specific subjects, or within a mixed-ability classroom. These looser kinds of divisions are, in fact, what most schools now opt for.

It's also vital that all ability groups have the same teachers, and that those teachers have the same high expectations of all the students they teach. In a fully streamed school, the best teachers often teach the top sets, while the lowest band of pupils only gets the staff-room dregs.

For parents like you, who are looking around for a good secondary school for your child, it is as important to try to get a feeling for whether teachers are committed to getting the best out of all their pupils, as it is to look at the school's formal setting and streaming policies. It is also important that the school can explain to you exactly why it has chosen the policies that is has.

Readers' advice

What if your daughter doesn't make it into the top set? This happened to my daughter, who was good at everything but mathematics, and she was devastated. She felt that she had been labelled as stupid, and it affected her friendship groups and her whole sense of who she was. She went on to make bad choices of friends, played up at school, and only scraped five GCSEs.

Bea Hemmings, Warwickshire

When pupils are separated by ability, they are also divided by class and race. This reinforces social divisions. Research has shown that, subconsciously or not, teachers always underestimate the ability of black and white working-class children, and overestimate the abilities of confident middle-class ones. Group these children apart, and you don't get a cohesive school community.

Shaun Cortello, London SE19

At my school, the humanities department now organises pupils into two large so-called "soft sets", and moves pupils up and down over the divide. This works for most pupils except the very brightest, and the small SEN set, which both need more attention.

Ian Brinkstone, London N7

Next Week's Quandary

Doesn't the economic downturn show how daft it is to try to force half of all young people into university? We are now in the absurd position of enticing them to take degrees, then having to set up special schemes for them when they graduate so that they can find employment.

Send your replies, or any quandaries you would like to have addressed, to h.wilce@btinternet.com. Please include your postal address. Readers whose replies are printed will receive a Collins Paperback English Dictionary 5th Edition. Previous education quandaries are online at www.hilarywilce.com, where they can be searched by topic