setting children in secondary school - fiddling the numbers to achieve a gender balance...

[harpsichordcarrier]

This week I have been listening to, and participating at the margins, in setting discussions - year 7 into 8, 8 into 9 and 9 into GCSE.
In almost every case, children have been moved around the groups to achieve a gender "balance" because, in practice, the top sets would be heavily dominated by girls and the bottom sets by boys.
So boys with lower achievement levels/potential are put into top sets than more able girls, and relatively able girls are put into bottom sets.

This seems to be accepted practice but I am very about it. Why shouldn't a top set be mostly/mainly girls? Why should that matter?
opinions please

[janeite]

We don't look at genders when setting unless it would mean just one boy or one girl being in a group. My top group Yr 10 set has far more boys than girls in it.

[RattusNorvegicus]

Ours are set in Y7. My daughter's form has 24 girls and 6 boys. No problems.

[harpsichordcarrier]

Interesting. I was VERY about the notion of "balance" and why it is relevant in these circumstances.

[busymummy3]

I have never really thought about this before but am now even more glad I sent DD to an all girls school. She is a high achiever and is in top set for everything she would absolutely have hated being one of a few girls with a lot of boys.

[roisin]

It sounds like your school needs a major "raising boys achievement" drive.

At our school sets are fairly 'pure', though there is some juggling goes on because of timetable restrictions and/or behaviour.

But in most year groups our top sets tend to be fairly balanced anyway for gender.

At ds1's school they don't set, but they do have a single 'high aptitude' group for most subjects. Again, this is very much a mixed group. And the boys I know that are in it are certainly not there for their gender and can give the girls a serious run for their money.

[harpsichordcarrier]

tbh roisin the decisions from 7 into 8 are the most striking, and they are mostly taken on the data for ability rather than achievement (again, an interesting choice and not one that I would have made).
There IS a big drive to raise the achievement of AAB, which I think is part of it.

[mummytime]

The schools I know don't do this. The one key thing is to make sure the way you measure ability is gender neutral. So you don't give biased questions which one sex finds easier.

Maybe the primary schools around you are very gender biased? And a balance has to be made for them?

[roisin]

by data for ability do you mean CATs?

[harpsichordcarrier]

yes CATS and NFER, reading age and spelling age tests. And also, gulp, end of KS2 levels....

[mnistooaddictive]

It depends on your thinking. There are some who believe that as boys develop later you need to give them the opportunity to do better later by keeping them in higher sets. We were visited by an HMI who thought we should do this. She made a huge fuss that our bottom sets were dominated by boys until we pointed out that every set in that year was dominated by boys as the year group was very unevenly balanced. In fact the whole school was as many local families sent their girls privately but boys to the state school
Setting is far from accurate however you do it.

[mnistooaddictive]

Bottom sets that are boy heavy can be incredibly difficult to teach and the girls and well beahved boys in there miss out as so much time is wasted in behaviour management. This might be a tactic to deal with this. Not saying I agree but giving as many reasons as I can!

[harpsichordcarrier]

yes, I would agree with you about bottom sets.
but is that a good enough reason? I am not sure.
"There are some who believe that as boys develop later you need to give them the opportunity to do better later by keeping them in higher sets." now that IS outrageous imo.
what about the GIRLS who might develop later?
anyway, girls continue to outperform boys at GCSE so "developing later" isn't a great argument is it?
(I appreciate that it isn't YOUR argument )
I understand that there used to be a different pass rate for boys and girls because of similar reasoning. So less clever boys were (are?) given an advantage over more able girls.
it makes me CROSS actually

[bruffin]

Just asked DS about he says the top band (top three classes) are boy heavy with a ratio of 2 to 1.

[harpsichordcarrier]

interesting - in what subjects?

[TheFallenMadonna]

Ooh - we haven't even looked at sex. I will examine new set lists tomorrow. Science - wonder if it's different...

[ampere]

The secondary DS is starting in Sept structures it tutor groups according to:
Intake primary mix
Gender
Ability
Choice of 1st foreign language
Social reasons if there's an 'issue' flagged by the primary

Must be a total nightmare to do!

They stay in these tutor groups for much of their schooling, being moved around later in the 3 subjects they do set in: Maths, language and science; then later still for GCSE choices, of course.

They have practically no difference in the attainment of boys v. girls at GCSE. They consciously worked on closing the gap that existed in say 2003 by introducing 'boy-friendly' methods, most importantly, setting loads of mini-deadlines for work completion, not just one big, final one. We all know that generally girls tend to work little and often where boys leave it all til the last minute and dash off whatever they can get away with! This is why these modular courses suit girls better than boys, by and large.

Admittedly, I do wonder whether the school's stratospheric GCSE results happen because the DCs are effectively 'streamed' by GCSE choice?

[namelessmum]

This practice sounds like outrageous sex discrimination pure and simple! I have one DS and one DD so I do understand that there are differences between boys and girls, but why should girls be held back in the interests of "gender balance"? What if a school finds that pupils from a particular ethnic background are over-represented in the top sets? Will it re-jig to achieve "racial balance"?? Sounds like a very slippery slope...

[bruffin]

DC school are banded then set within that band. DS (yr 9) was talking about the band, so across all subjects. He noticed it in PE as all of the top band have PE together and they line up in boys and girls. He says there are two lines of boys and only one line of girls. His primary school had a very strong group of boys for his year as well.

[ampere]

The national results emanating from the latest 'rejig' of the GCSE curricula hardly point to disadvantaged girls, do they?!

'Held back'?

All that happens, pure and simple, is that instead of setting a final, big deadline weeks in the future, - then watching as many if not all girls work conscientiously towards it whilst the boys ignore it then cram it all into the last couple of days- they set mini deadlines on a few daily/weekly basis to keep the boys on track. Those girls will already be meeting those mini-targets by way of their normal mode of studying, won't they?

The girls have continued to acheive as expected, the boys have improved to join them.

Disadvantage occured to girls when all the O levels were 'get in there, remember 2 years teaching and pray- you have 6 hours to impress us'. Boys blitzed that, girls didn't. Now the examination methodology favours girls- and even possibly disadvantages boys? But I'm not squealing 'outrageous', just pleased our secondary has found a method to even the playing field a little.

[LadyLapsang]

Don't the parents challenge you on this? Or do you fiddle the end of year exam results or other data too? In DS's school they are usually set based on their end of year exam attainment. They all know their marks so it is a (relatively) simple process which set they are placed in e.g. 88% and above set 1 (obviously the % moves up or down according to the overall performance). Top sets are always the largest because they need less support and bottom sets smallest because they need the most.

[gramercy]

In ds's school (I believe it's ampere's ds's destination, actually) they have to try to encourage the girls. It was the same at primary school. The top kids in English, history and French as well as maths are all boys.

I think that the Year 7 boys are still eager beavers whereas the girls are all hitting puberty and fussing over boys and appearance and wotnot. Probably it'll even out in the next couple of years.

[ampere]

Thornden?

[namelessmum]

Sorry ampere, my post was intended to refer to OP, but didn't make this clear Wasn't suggesting what happens at your DC's school is outrageous, as from what you say the school is open about the fact that it is not setting tutor groups purely by reference to ability, but by a variety of different factors. What I DO think is outrageous is what is apparently happening at the OP's school, which is that the school is purporting to set on the basis of ability alone, but secretly re-jigging in a way that favours boys over girls of the same ability.

[mnistooaddictive]

No setting is perfect and someone is ALWAYS disadvantaged. You can't set by simple exam results as you have to look at pupils who need to be kept apart, not putting too many serious behaviour problem children in one class, children who need to 'share' a TA may need to be together, bullying issues if necessary, and then those who would not cope in a higher set as they need continual re4assuance and actually do better at a slightly slower pace in a lower set. Setting is there to make life easier for the teacher not the students. There are always parents who think there child is in thw rong set and those who just miss out and feel upset by it. Then the child who has to be moved down to make way for someone to be moved up will feel upset if they have worked hard.
As I said earlier, I don't agree with whatthey are doing but I am sure they have good reasons that they have debated long and hard about. They have particular issues that they feel this is the best way to address.

[namelessmum]

Re moving a child down to make way for one who is moving up: I thought that secondary schools did not have the same strict number limits as primary, so would moving one child up a set really inevitably mean moving one down??

I guess if schools are setting by (at least some) criteria unrelated to ability and being OPEN about that fact then that's one thing. However, if they are purporting to set via ability, but actually re-jigging purely to achieve "gender balance", then that is sex discrimination, whatever fancy theories are put forward to justify it.

I think that a setting system whereby a boy gets a place in top set ahead of a better performing girl is one of those systems that is fine when applied to other people's daughters but not one's own