The Mixed Ability Class

My class of 22 children is classed as "mixed ability" - that is, students were not selected for the class based on their academic ability or lack of ability.

As a result, "mixed" is a very good term. I have now finished the beginning of the year testing, and find in different subjects that the ability range is:

Reading: My poorest reader reads at the level of an average child leaving kindergarten. He struggles with words with more than 4 letters, and words that can't be directly sounded out are beyond him. Finding reading material is a challenge - if he can read it, it is far below his interest level (which is much the same as any 11 year old boy in our community - motor bikes and footie). On the other end of the spectrum, I have a boy and girl both reading at an adult level. Both have read all of Harry Potter, the girl has read all of Twilight and is now exploring Austen, and the boy currently has Huckleberry Finn and Ash Road on his desk.

Spelling: We give all students the South Australian Spelling Test, which is a test of 70 words, ranked in difficulty. The first word is "on", the last is "seismograph". Where they start making mistakes gives their "spelling age". My poorest speller (not the same as the lowest reader) fell apart at word 5 "Jam", giving her a spelling age of less than 5. My best spellers, by contrast, made their first mistake at word 61 "Mortgage" and their errors from that point still lead to readable, understandable writing, even though their spelling was incorrect. Their spelling age is 16+, or adult level.

Maths: Range from struggles with single digit addition to comfortable working with fractions, decimals, and large number calculations.

Teaching this range of ability levels is common in our primary schools, and one of the biggest challenges we face. With the push for good results in the NAPLAN testing, I sometimes feel I am throwing my good students under the bus - they will achieve in NAPLAN regardless of what I do, but oh, how I wish I sometimes had the time and opportunity to really work with them and to extend them even furtherl.

This range of abilities and achievements