Teaching: Big groups, big results?

Traditionally in the educational world, it has been firmly believed that smaller teaching groups lead to better outcomes.

Many schools boast their class sizes in an attempt to attract potential students and often, class size can be the deciding factor for parents when choosing where they send their children.

Does a smaller class always mean better progression though? Does a small group mean that outcomes are guaranteed to be better? I am going to have to argue no – I am actually going to say the absolute opposite.

This year, in my school, we were faced with an interesting predicament. Our ability-setting system combined with staffing led us to a crossroads where we had two choices. We could split top two sets into three, dividing the students into equal number groups or we could try something different. That’s exactly what we did – something different.