Teach children of different ages together, schools told

Published on Sunday 24 May 2009 22:27

SECONDARY schools in Scotland are like factories and should treat children more like individuals, according to a leading educationalist.

Keir Bloomer, education consultant and former chief executive of Clackmannanshire Council, said teaching children in groups dictated to by age was "absurd".

"Can you think of any other service which first of all asks your age then sticks you in with all the other people who are the same age," he asked.

"It's a bizarre thing to do but we take it completely for granted."

Mr Bloomer, who sat on the review board which originally drafted the new Scottish curriculum, added: "Schools are still geared around the mass delivery of a standard service, it is not yet a service that really offers something personal to the individual learner.

"Despite the fact teachers have made attempts to make it so, there are constraints on schools, particularly secondary schools which make it difficult.

"There is a huge difference among individual young people by the time they reach the age of 12. Some are hugely mature for the age of 12 and others are way behind.

"The notion that the one and only thing which really ought to determine who they sit with and learn with is their date of birth is actually completely absurd."

He said grouping children by ability rather than age could be done under the forthcoming Curriculum for Excellence, due in schools next year. However, he said it was difficult for schools to change the "powerful ideas" which persist about how they should run and which generate from the "factory age".

He said the idea of grouping by ability rather than age already existed in guidance for the new curriculum.

"It says we ought to look again at the way in which we group children together and it does indeed talk about children of different ages," he said.

"I'm not saying anything that isn't implicit in the programme itself."

Teachers said the idea was good but would be impractical and expensive to introduce.

Ann Ballinger, newly appointed general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association, said: "Having groups of children of the same ability together and teaching them at the same level could be wonderful if you could do that.

"It would make it easier for kids as they could learn at their own level, but what would you say to a parent whose child is not moving up with his age group?

"How do you deal with pupils starting at age four or five with some going into primary one, two or three?"

A Scottish Government spokesman said mixed-age classes were not on the agenda.

He said: "This is not part of any current plan. The Scottish Government will continue to focus on providing an education which reflects the needs of each individual pupil."

Mr Bloomer also urged teachers to have more confidence in themselves to teach under the new curriculum. He said: "Curriculum for Excellence is about empowering teachers. The trouble is teachers have been told what to do for at least 20 years in Scottish education now and suddenly being told that the initiative lies with them is, for a lot of them, very difficult.

"In principle they welcome it but in practice they say the guidance is too vague."