Combined grade classes: any parents had experience with this? Talk to us!

[Anonymous]

I was in a 5/6 class in the late 1970's, and it was definitely better for the fifth graders. The school I attended abandoned the practice sometime in the mid to late 1980's. To my knowledge, there are no plans to revisit the practice any time soon.

[Anonymous]

I know of a few cases of kids in combined classes and have heard mostly good things-especially if the teacher is right. There are a number of public schools which have implemented this to some degree.

[Anonymous]

I was in a 3rd/4th combo class in the early 90s. I was one of maybe 15 fourth graders and we had 5 third graders with us. I don't know why my school did it, because there was a separate third grade class. Maybe that class was too large.

Anyway, we started out with separate work for both groups, but by the middle of the year the third graders were all listening to our lesson and doing our work. We all went to math together as well and the teacher would just work a little more with them to bring them up to speed.

I remember all of them being upset because we all moved to the fifth grade while they still had to move to the fourth grade even though they'd done our work all year. A few of them ended up transferring and skipping to the fifth grade.

[Anonymous]

My DS was a 2d grader in a 1/2 combined class in FCPS. My DH and I were against it at the start, but agreed to give it a try. The school put a great teacher and a very strong aide (who was just a test away from full teaching certification) in the class and it worked great. The first graders had people to look up to. The second graders felt like they could help others. And the class had twice the resources or others dedicated fulltime. If the school is willing to do that, it is good.

[Anonymous]

I believe this is how Montessori classes are set up by design. It's kind of silly to segregate students by DOB.