As a retired modern foreign languages teacher, I read your report with interest (Teaching in classes grouped by ability does not hamper progress of less able pupils, study finds, 29 April). I struggled for years to devise lessons to cater for all abilities and came to this conclusion very rapidly. Thank goodness our department only taught mixed ability for a year before introducing setting. In other subjects colleagues strove to maintain mixed-ability teaching until the end of key stage 4.
Many lay people cannot differentiate between streaming, where students are taught all subjects at the same level in forms, and setting, where students from different forms are taught each subject in groups of similar ability. Had setting existed when I was at grammar school in the 1950s, I would have ended up in the top set for French and English and near the bottom in maths and science.
I have no doubt that despite the efforts of my former colleagues, able students were held back by those who struggled, particularly in cumulative subjects such as modern foreign languages.
John Marriott
North Hykeham, Lincolnshire
• The value of the Education Endowment Foundation research showing that setting by ability produces better results in maths overall is limited by being based on schools in England.
Before deciding this research “upends decades of debate over mixed-ability teaching”, maybe we should ask whether these results would be replicated in countries such as Finland and Estonia, which knock spots off England when it comes to maths attainment while insisting on mixed-ability classes? If they wouldn’t, maybe we should look at the way we train teachers.
Michael Pyke
The Campaign for State Education
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