Saturday 26 May 2007

Other changes - Multi-age classes

As part of the changes in the Age and Stage restrictions we have also decided to review how the classes are made up.

Traditionally subjects have been taught as a single age group but multi level in courses. Here, because the school roll being 250 (Yes, that's all the age groups form S1 - S6) we were either getting very small classes at a single level or a very wide, multilevel range.

We started to think about this and came to the conclusion that we could teach classes at a particular level and leave the age open.

Therefore when we removed the age and stage restriction we opened up classes to any age. This means that in the 1st layer classes have mainly S3 and also some 5th and 6th years.

Next year, now that the S3's have completed the first 5 courses, S3 and S4's will be selecting the same level of courses. By the end of S4 they will have completed 10 subjects before moving onto either Higher courses or more courses at the appropriate level, or a mixture of both.

This has created more space in the timetable.

The social side of mixing age groups would be a major issue in a larger schools but in a small school this almost disappears as the pupils mix naturally.

This is very much a quick summary. Please feel free ask questions


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