Last week’s publication from UCL and the EEF reignited the long‑standing debate around streaming. Their findings suggest that high‑attaining pupils may perform better in attainment‑based groups. At first, it felt daunting for me to question such giants. However, the battle against whether to ability group or not is one I’ve fought for years — as both a teacher and a leader.
After sitting with the report for a few days, I realised I needed to speak up. Not to challenge the research, but to represent a group of pupils whose voices rarely shape this debate: the higher‑attaining underserved pupils who contributed to a study I recently coordinated and designed for a MAT.
These voices belonged to our pupils who left Y6 as “Greater Depth” yet fell behind rapidly by the spring term of Y7. I designed the study to set out to understand why and to explore their lived experience of mathematics during this transition.
What We Found: A Rapid Decline Hidden in Plain Sight
We tracked several pupils who, just two terms after achieving Greater Depth in their KS2 SATs, were now working significantly below the expected standard in their most recent formative assessments. I know, there is a much wider conversation here about misalignment between pedagogy and curriculum between the cliff edge that is the primary–secondary transition. But across three schools, a striking pattern emerged.
These children described mixed‑attainment environments as the places where they felt, most confident, most known and most able to thrive.
Their comic‑strip drawings and interviews painted a vivid contrast:
- Year 6: “happy and calm since I could talk to my friends and get help from them”
- Year 7 (especially in streamed groups): “no idea what to do” and “feeling lost” as pace, language, and representations shifted
A Qualitative Lens on Lived Experience
Our research design was deliberately qualitative. We wanted to understand not just outcomes, but experience. During sorting activities, pupils placed:
- “working with others,” “teacher explanations,” and “feeling known” in helps me
- “groupings/sets,” “going too fast,” and “new maths words” in makes it harder
These insights don’t claim universality; however, they do reveal something important about identity, belonging, and cognitive safety during this transition period.
Two Studies, Two Lenses — Both Valuable
Reflecting on the UCL and EEF study alongside my own, the differences are clear:
Theirs: large‑scale, mixed‑methods, often using closed‑question interviews
Mine: small‑scale, qualitative, grounded in open narratives and pupil‑generated artefacts
Different lenses. Different questions. Different answers.
Isn’t that precisely why we need both?
Why Research Ebbs and Flows — And Why That Matters
It’s important to remember that research is not static. It evolves, contradicts itself, and deepens over time. The current UCL and EEF findings sit within a much longer lineage of work on grouping, not forgetting UCL’s own earlier research, which painted a very different picture. A previous large‑scale UCL study, which at the time of publication described itself as the biggest UK study of its kind, found that children placed in the bottom group in Year 2 did worse both emotionally and behaviourally than their peers. These children in lower groups showed:
- more emotional symptoms
- more hyperactivity
- and these effects persisted all the way to Year 9(!)
This study didn’t focus on attainment. It focused on wellbeing, identity, and behaviour. It concluded that early ability grouping can have long‑term negative consequences for children’s emotional development.
So when today’s research suggests that high‑attaining pupils may benefit from attainment‑based grouping, and yesterday’s research shows that lower‑attaining pupils may be harmed by it, we are reminded of a simple truth….
Research ebbs and flows because children are complex, contexts are different, and no single study can answer every question.
What Our Story Adds to the Conversation
Despite what the UCL and EEF found at scale, our research story showed something different at the level of lived experience:
Mixed attainment didn’t hold these children back; it held them up.
This isn’t a contradiction. It’s a reminder that we, practitioners, must interpret both these stories in order to create local solutions for our children
If we only ask:
“Which grouping structure raises attainment?”
…we risk missing the deeper, more human question:
“Which grouping sustains identity, belonging, and equitable access to challenge — particularly for our underserved higher‑attaining learners?”
Our children deserve us to hold both truths simultaneously.
Leave a Reply