Parents of children at Greenmount Primary School in Ryde have expressed concerns about the school’s plans to reduce the total number of classes from 14 to 11, mix up the year groups and split the curriculum in half. Under the plans, Greenmount will reduce the total number of classes to 11 which will see year groups mixed up. In order to make this work, the curriculum will be split into 2 and rotated annually to ensure all pupils receive the education set out by the Department for Education. The 2-year rolling programme will have a Year A curriculum and a Year B curriculum taught during a phase, enabling children in mixed-age classes to be taught everything set out in the curriculum whichever class they may be in. Reception class children will still learn the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum. Come September, Greenmount will be made up of 2x pre-school classes, 1x Reception class, 3x mixed Year 1/Year 2 classes, 3x mixed Year 3/Year 4 classes, 2x Year 5 classes, 2x Year 6 classes and 2x Greenhaven classes. Although some year groups will retain 2 classes as normal, the ‘classroom makeup’ will change… To ensure ‘diversity in all situations’, pupils will be assessed and moved according to their gender and academic ability in an attempt to make the classes balanced. It is hoped this will also rectify problems that are occurring in classrooms due to the dynamics of the class, with friendship groups split up to reduce disruption. The school is commissioning external support from agencies to enable wellbeing support for anyone affected by the changes. Headteacher Rebecca Day says that these changes have been forced by a ‘significant deficit budget’ which does not allow for ‘really small’ class sizes, but that mixing pupils between the classes will ‘pose many benefits for both the school and the individual pupils’. It appears the decision to press forward with the changes in September has already been made, but it’s said that at ‘no point’ were parents nor the Parent Teacher Association notified in advance of the changes, with the first knowledge of these major changes coming in a letter sent home on 5th July. One parent has told Island Echo:
“I am very concerned that my children will only be learning half the national curriculum per year and when they do the second half there is a greater risk of them forgetting what they learned in the first part. “As my children will be in a class with older children I worry there will be an uptick in bullying. I also worry about how my children will cope with keeping up with the older children in their new classes. It is also really sad to know that they will be potentially split up from friends and disrupt bonds that have been forged over the years they have grown up with their fellow students”. “As school was disrupted so badly during the pandemic I feel this is a really bad decision on the headteacher’s and governors’ part”.
Meetings are taking place with parents today (Wednesday) – both physically and online – to talk through the changes. Children will go into their new classes on transition day next Wednesday (17th July) and each child will be sent home with a letter informing parents of their new teacher for the year ahead.
It’s*OK this is Council giving them World Class education! , cutting budgets, taking away teachers, increasing class sizes and discrimination!.
Less kids = too many school places = shut down some schools
Get on with it IWC and stop wasting our money on empty classrooms.
‘…ensure ‘diversity in all situations…’
‘…moved according to their gender…’
‘…friendship groups split up to reduce disruption…’
Why this preoccupation with ‘diversity’? It’s a classroom, for heaven’s sake. Just teach the kids maths, English and the other subjects, that’s all we ask.
And, splitting up groups of friends at the school? What’s that all about?
What on earth is happening in that school?
so, children are encouraged to make friends and learn social skills, however, are then split up from their friendship groups – are these teachers stupid or insane – splitting a friendship group up is like telling the kids that they are being punished for being friends
what kind of imbeciles are being teachers these days.
Mixing year groups is a bonkers idea and the main reason I took my child out of St Helens primary some years ago.
“Friendship groups split up to avoid disruption”…..? Is that a failure of the school, unable to deal with behavioural problems other than by separating children from their friends?
As for mixing ages, won’t older children be leading how a class goes, having more developed brains than the also perhaps slightly intimidated younger ones?
Why on earth would a PTA be involved in any decision making? They aren’t a part of the logistical make up of a school and have no decision making capability?
Having worked in schools myself I suggest these parents actually listen to what the Head is saying. Mixed year groups work up and down the country, and the way that the curriculum functions is that a certain block of subject material must be learned by the end of key stages, not particular subjects in particular years. If y3&4 have learned all of their 3&4 material by the end of y4 then it makes no difference at all what order it’s learned in.
mixed groups don’t work and splitting up friends groups, just proves that the teachers are inept and incompetent.
friends groups exist in the adult workplace and nothing will ever change that, so why try to impose something on kids that isn’t a reality for them when they become adults.
They aren’t splitting up friendship groups they’re splitting up disruptive groups of children to enable the whole class to do what it’s meant to do – sit down and get on with their work. They’re making it fairer for the whole class. The kids have break and lunch to socialise, they’re meant to be learning in class time.
so it is ok for the teachers to be friendly with and associate with certain other teachers more often than others and sometimes maintain a friendship group, but not for the kids – hypocrites
The teachers don’t speak to eachother during lesson time, they’re busy teaching. And the kids should be busy learning during lesson time. It’s a school not a party.
To ensure ‘diversity in all situations’, pupils will be assessed and moved according to their gender and academic ability in an attempt to make the classes balanced.
..
so, this isn’t about teaching, it is about trying to impose more stupid woke diversity instead of focusing on teaching
all that will happen is the older kids will resent being in the same class as younger kids, that aren’t at the same level and the younger kids will feel anxious because the “bigger” kids will make them feel inadequate due to a difference of knowledge levels
which clown at the school thinks that arranging the children like pieces on a chess board, or should i say a rainbow to suit some stupid woke hand wringers agenda will work
Diversity in class means anything from disability, language barriers, additional needs, academic attainment level, and yes boys and girls – you have to have a roughly equal mix of boys and girls because they need to integrate. Nothing to do with “woke”, not everything is a gammon issue. Try reading the IW council’s press release about school places.
what is a gammon issue emily – have you resorted to insulting people because they are correct and you lefties don’t like inclusion, diversity and opinion, unless it conforms to your narrow agenda and viewpoint
Here we go. Someone unable to address or understand or debate the actual points raised in this matter, so frantically starts throwing the word ‘woke’ around as though ‘Nuff said’.
But its NOT enough. Its lazy and goes nowhere, and merely shows the person’s own ignorance.
i will be withdrawing my kid from that school, as I cannot risk my childs knowledge base to be corrupted by woke, diversity and stupidity, rather than be in a class with kids of her own age with a focus on making sure she can read, write, add up and successfully learn social communication skills with her own age group
Come off it. Your kid is probably in their late 40s
I was taught in a mixed age class group from the age of 7-11 and it worked well. I rather liked it.
That sounds bonkers. Mixed year groups is a recipe for bullying. The suggestion that it doesn’t matter what order you learn 3&4 in is also bonkers. Maths and English both have to be taught in the right order. I’d hate be a year 4 transferring to that school and ending up learning year 3, all over again, or indeed leaving that school to arrive at your new school and finding the same thing! Year 4 put in with year 3, when at that age some of them are far more advanced. The year 5 teacher must be dreading it. There SAT scores will drop as a result. Which the secondary school won’t mind because it means less work for them with progress 9. The previous headteacher Richard was apparently on the ball. Maybe they should give him a bell.
‘Their’, Oops.
Haylands are doing the same thing except they have got x3 3/4 year classes.
I see the results of these stupid teachers decisions in the work place as we have plenty of teenage apprentices and other young workers.
they cannot even add the most basic figures without the use of a calculator – i actually watched one of them struggle to add 20 to 100.
they whine like hell and cry like hell, when they realise that everyone is not a winner, everyone is not entitled to everything someone else has, there are no prizes for just taking part and your job is not an entitlement. They get most upset when told “either do the work or be sacked and that means no money”
someone said they weren’t coming in – due to a mental health day and were upset at the loss of pay and absence review meetings
pathetic
clearly voted down by those who live in academia and have never held a job in the private sector
Always makes me chuckle when someone bleats about educational standards in a post full of spelling and grammatical errors.
Here Here!
These teachers are doing the kids a disservice.
They spend so much time talking about woke garbage, that the kids arrive in the workplace with no idea that they have been taught nothing but drivel.
I had several young workers tell me that they wished that they had been taught in school, what they had been learning from us older workers. We taught them finance, household money management, how to look after yourself at home, budgeting, lifes realities, such as losing happens etc.
They told us what they had learned and we corrected them on what they believed to be true – the teachers are lying about so much, trying to indoctrinate kids with an agenda …which we rip to pieces and undo, the moment they arrive in the workplace.
Hopefully this one gets shut down. The staff don’t know how to teach they think they are the parents hence why they take decisions without any consultants to parents
Unfortunately they have to deal with a lot of lazy parents who can’t be bothered to teach their kids to behave but then insist “they’re not naughty they’ve got ADHD” and then when the school disagrees because they know it’s laziness and bad behaviour and the parents don’t get their benefits then the parents kick off. Sound familiar Dani?
Some parents are lazy and can’t be bothered to look after their children and don’t watch them or anything. Some have to fight every step of the way because of incompetence and teachers being unable care for the amount of children. Thats any children not just ones with ‘adhd’ as you put it. Clearly you would know nothing about that.
years ago, attention deficit was cured with a slap to the face in class – that focused your attention and hyper activity was also dealt with in the same way – it soon calmed you down, as you nursed that red, painful cheek, from a open handed slap from the teacher.
ADHD did not exist years ago and it only exists now, because kids are allowed to get away with being little s hits.
Yeah I know plenty about it. Seen parents constantly harassing the teachers at the end of the day, brushing off their kids awful behaviour during the day by saying it’s the ADHD, insisting it’s not their fault, then pumping their kids full of sugar at the shop while they all stand round vaping and letting their kids run in between cars in the car park. Sick of them all ruining the classroom and school for the kids who behave themselves. Meanwhile genuine cases of kids who have adhd or other SEN can’t get help because the help all goes to the lazy parents.
That frustrates me too. I had sen children with additional needs there but unfortunately the school wasn’t able to deal with their needs put in place by ehcp etc. and went against everything that was in it because they thought they knew best. Hope your children get the helpmthey deserve.
Get a job sounds like that is exactly what you need to do. You obviously support the school in their decision not to consult parents about what Is best for Thier own children which is a very sad.outlook. It makes no difference if a child is ‘adhd’ although it seems to bother you for some reason.
Parents still should have been consulted. Before the decision was made