Photo: Unsplash/ Taylor Flowe
A visiting education expert says streaming school children into groups according to their perceived ability does more harm than good.
Nathanial Swain is a senior lecturer in learning sciences at La Trobe University in Melbourne and the founder of Dr Swain's Cognitorium, an online community of teachers that has 23,000 members and growing - many in this country.
Swain told Nine to Noon evidence showed students streamed into low-achievement groups fell further behind their peers.
"When you do sort of track these students over time... students that are placed into a lower retaining group or a low progress group, do tend to stay in that group."
Students received slower instruction and less content, reinforcing achievement gaps, he said.
"If you think about it logically, if you've got a group of students that are requiring more support and more need, you will go slower and you will not get through as much content as you would have potentially if you had a range of students altogether."
And while the system provided some small academic benefits to higher-achieving students, research showed they suffered socially, lacking empathy for others.
Swain was among a growing number of teachers pushing for an alternative "low floor, no ceiling" approach.
"It's important that everyone gets access to that grade level instruction so that they're not capped at what they are able to access and what they're able to do."
He said keeping classes together and providing additional specialised support ensured the best overall learning outcomes by helping those struggling without segregating them, removing barriers to achievement and building social awareness among students.
Swain will be in Auckland this weekend to speak at the SPELD conference, a not-for-profit organisation that specialised in assisting people with dyslexia and other specific learning disabilities.
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