Reassessing 'Ability' Grouping: Improving Practice for Equity and Attainment

Citation

Francis, B., Taylor, B., & Tereshchenko, A. (2020). Reassessing 'Ability' Grouping: Improving Practice for Equity and Attainment. Routledge.

Chapter Summary

The book is about 190 pages long, with ten chapters. According to the publisher, it presents original quantitative and qualitative data from a large-scale empirical research project conducted in British secondary schools and analyses the impact of attainment grouping on pupil outcomes, teacher effectiveness and social equality. Alongside the new evidence it offers an account of existing literature and of the international field, a view of wider political debates about pupils' social backgrounds and attainment, a discussion of classroom practicalities, and recommendations for practice. The publisher notes that the text includes vignettes, tables and graphs, and quotations from teacher interviews and pupil focus groups.

Chapters 1–3: Introduction; 'Ability Grouping': What Is It and Why Do We Do It?; The Best Practice in Grouping Students Study: Explaining Our Methods

The opening chapters frame the question and the evidence. Chapter 2 asks what is meant by 'ability' grouping and why schools do it, which is where the existing literature and the international picture belong. Chapter 3 explains the methods of the authors' own Best Practice in Grouping Students study, on which the central chapters rest.

Chapters 4–6: The Impact of Attainment Grouping on Pupil Self-Confidence; Pupils' Experiences of Different Grouping Practices; The Impact of Attainment Grouping on Pedagogy and Practice

The middle of the book reports findings, first on pupils' self-confidence, then on pupils' experiences of different grouping practices, and then on what grouping does to teaching.

Chapters 7–8: Why Is Good Practice in Setting So Hard to Achieve?; Doing Mixed Attainment Grouping Well

The two practical chapters take up the two options the book weighs. Chapter 7 examines why good practice in setting, that is, grouping pupils by attainment into sets, is difficult to achieve; Chapter 8 turns to doing mixed attainment grouping well.

Chapters 9–10: Reflections; Recommendations

The book closes with the authors' reflections on the findings and a chapter of recommendations aimed at improving practice, outcomes, experiences and equity.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–3: The question and the study

• Attainment grouping: arranging pupils into groups, such as sets, according to their prior attainment; the book places 'ability' in quotation marks in its title.
• Best Practice in Grouping Students study: the authors' own large-scale project in British secondary schools.

Chapters 4–6: Effects of grouping

• Pupil self-confidence: examined as an outcome of different grouping arrangements.
• Pupils' experiences: how pupils themselves describe being grouped in different ways.
• Pedagogy and practice: the effect of grouping on how teachers teach.

Chapters 7–10: Practice and recommendations

• Setting: grouping pupils into sets by attainment, and the obstacles to doing it well.
• Mixed attainment grouping: teaching pupils of differing prior attainment together, and what doing it well requires.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Original evidence with wide context. The publisher stresses both new large-scale quantitative and qualitative data and an account of existing literature and the international field, so the findings are placed within the wider debate.
• Attention to equity as well as attainment. The subtitle and the publisher description tie the question of grouping to social equality, and the book frames it against wider debates about pupils' social backgrounds and attainment.
• Close to practice. Chapters 7 and 8 deal with the practicalities of setting and of mixed attainment teaching, and Chapter 10 gives recommendations. The publisher describes the book as attending to the practicalities and constraints of the classroom.
• Evaluated by practitioners and researchers. Endorsements on the publisher page come from Adam Gamoran of the William T. Grant Foundation, who describes its original research and balanced weighing of evidence, and from Lee Elliot Major of the University of Exeter, who stresses the guidance for teachers on delivering mixed-ability classes.

Limitations

• A single national context. The primary data come from English secondary schools; the international literature is reviewed, but readers in other systems must judge how far the findings transfer.
• Compact scale. At about 190 pages, the book offers a focused argument rather than a comprehensive handbook; readers wanting a full treatment of differentiation will need other works.
• Secondary-school focus. The study is of secondary schools, so primary-age grouping is not its subject.

Where It Fits in the Course

In the classroom practice course, this is the research monograph on one decision: whether and how to group pupils by attainment. The Differentiated Classroom, by Carol Ann Tomlinson, is a comprehensive guide to differentiated instruction that provides strategies for adapting teaching, content and assessment to diverse needs, so it is the place to start for general responses to difference. Lemov's Teach Like a Champion 3.0 is a handbook of specific classroom techniques, Saphier and colleagues' The Skillful Teacher a practice-oriented resource on planning, culture, questioning and assessment, and Rogers's Classroom Behaviour a practical guide to managing behaviour. The Handbook of Classroom Management is a research handbook on the evidence for classroom management.

Francis, Taylor and Tereshchenko supply something none of those provides: a research-based argument about how a structural decision made before the lesson begins shapes pupils' confidence, experience and the teaching they receive. It is the natural reading when a department or school is reviewing its grouping policy.

How to Use This Book

The book suits graduate students, teachers and school leaders, and policymakers working on differentiation and equity. A course on classroom management and differentiation and basic familiarity with reading quantitative and qualitative research findings are sufficient preparation.

A practical plan:

• Core: Chapters 1–2 for the question, then Chapters 4–6 for the findings on confidence, experience and pedagogy.
• For decisions about practice: Chapters 7 and 8, then the recommendations in Chapter 10.
• For researchers: Chapter 3 on the study's methods, and the reflections in Chapter 9.

Read it with your own school's grouping arrangements in mind, and use the vignettes and quotations as prompts for discussion with colleagues.