Teach Sleep Repeat
A major new EEF study has just produced the strongest evidence to date on ability grouping in English schools. Dylan and Hayden break down what it found, what it means for teachers, and whether it actually settles one of education's longest-running arguments.
In this episode:
š What the study actually found -- 97 schools, around 9,000 pupils followed through Years 7 and 8. Pupils in mixed attainment classes made one month less progress in maths. High prior attainers made two months less. Low attainers and disadvantaged pupils saw similar outcomes in either model. And lesson observations found mixed attainment teaching looked closer to what bottom sets get than what top sets get.
š Why the source matters -- the researchers behind this study are the same team that produced much of the evidence against setting for the last decade. This is not a pro-setting think tank finding what it wanted to find. That makes the result harder to dismiss.
š The orthodoxy we were trained in -- for twenty-five years, teacher training said the research was clear. Dylan and Hayden are honest about what they were taught, where it came from, and how much of it still holds up.
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The strongest case for setting -- pedagogical precision, real stretch for high attainers, the counterintuitive confidence argument, behavioural reality, and what two months of lost progress actually compounds to over a secondary school career.
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The strongest case for mixed attainment -- labelling and long-term self-concept, the 31% misallocation problem, who consistently ends up in lower sets and why, teacher allocation patterns, curriculum compression in bottom sets, and why peer effects still matter.
š¼ The workload truth the research ignores -- setting reduces planning load and most teachers know it. Mixed attainment done well is genuinely harder. Mixed attainment done badly is just teaching to the middle, which is exactly what the observers in this study caught happening.
š¤ Where this actually leaves us -- one study does not settle a century of argument. But it does shift it. Dylan and Hayden land somewhere honest about what they would actually want if it were their child, and what they would need if their school went mixed attainment from September.
Whether you teach maths, lead a department, or just care about how schools group children, this one is worth your time.
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