Due to the size of Broomhill, our classes are organised into mixed age groups.
Currently, the classes we have are:

Owls (Nursery and Reception)
Finches (Years 1 and 2)
Seabirds (Years 3 and 4)
Swans (Years 5 and 6)

We understand that this structure is different and parents may have questions about how this looks in school. We have created this page to outline how it works at Broomhill. This structure creates challenges, which means we have to plan our curriculum carefully with each year group in mind, but also offers a range of unique educational benefits. 

Benefits:

1)  Peer learning: older children in the class often act as the "experts" in learning. They are able to add depth to their learning by explaining concepts to their younger peers and acting as the role models in class. Furthermore, mixed age pairs and groups can add a strong dynamic to learning activities, whereby children have to work together to progress in their learning.

2) Social benefits: as the classes progress each year, children mix with a different group of peers. Children quickly learn how to build relationships across a wide range of peers and collaborate effectively with each other. Children experience being the "younger ones" or the "older ones" in alternate years, which is character building in terms of developing empathy and resilience. 

3) Research on mixed-age classes shows that academic differences between mixed-age and single-year classes are often small or inconsistent, but social and cognitive benefits, particularly for older pupils, are frequently reported. 

Curriculum Design:

The success of our mixed age approach relies on structured teaching strategies, clear curriculum progression, and careful attention to individual pupil needs. We have several systems in place to manage this:

1) Curriculum plan: the substantive curriculum content is taught through a 2 year cycle. We have carefully planned cycles A and B to ensure learning is progressive and pupils do not repeat content unnecessarily. 

2) Year group end points: we have developed curriculum end points for each year group across subjects. These harness the disciplinary skills that children need and children complete a "thinking like a..." task in each lesson to ensure they are being taught at an appropriate depth. This enables us to teach the same lesson, but at a different depth. For instance, in English, a mixed Y5/6 class may be looking at the same piece of writing and the same language feature for part of the lesson. Later in the lesson, they will branch off and complete a "thinking like a writer..." task that is appropriately aligned with their year group end points. This ensures that children are adequately challenged and learning is tailored to their specific needs year by year. 

3) Vocabulary progression: each subject has a vocabulary progression document. This further enhances the expectations for each year group and ensures that children are accessing learning at the correct level. 

If you have any further questions about the mixed age class structure at Broomhill, please get in touch.