Educators have long debated whether students should be ‘streamed’ – or organised into different classes based on their academic performance. Is it better for students to be learning with students of a similar ‘ability’, or a mix? In Australia, most high schools stream students according to their ability, especially for maths. Streaming can also occur in the primary years. New research from the United Kingdom suggests streaming can help some students. What does this mean for Australian schools?
Concerns about streaming
Education researchers have been raising concerns about streaming for decades. Some scholars argue seemingly objective ideas around ability unintentionally favour white, privileged students. Students from minority racial groups and disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to find themselves in the lowest streams. Research suggests a student’s natural ‘ability’ may be less important for academic success than a student’s background, or their motivation and approach to learning.
What happens in the lower streams?
Students streamed into ‘lower’ groups often end up doing lower-level work and miss out on the challenges they would need to develop more advanced skills. The intent of easier work might be to protect low-stream students from repeated experiences of failure. But research suggests students end up stuck in a vicious cycle of low achievement. They get fewer opportunities to extend themselves, so they don’t perform as well and continue to get fewer opportunities. Streaming can also impact students’ self-confidence. Some researchers have linked being in a lower class with students experiencing shame and not enjoying school. This means streaming can widen achievement gaps already linked to social class and race. This concern has spurred ‘de-streaming’ movements in New Zealand and Ontario, Canada. In Australia, some schools have stopped streaming in a bid to be more inclusive, but streaming is still the norm.
A new UK study
Despite these concerns, a new UK study, involving Becky Taylor, one of the authors of this article, has just found high-achieving maths students in England achieved better results when streamed. The study examined the maths results and self-belief of students in years 7 and 8. It did this by comparing schools (which were matched for background and other demographic factors). This included 28 that used mixed-ability grouping and 69 that used streaming. It found streaming Year 7–8 students was beneficial for higher-ability students. These students made three months’ more progress in schools that streamed students for maths than those that did not. Streaming also did not damage the results or self-belief of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. In fact, this study found students who were not streamed made only one month less progress overall than students who were, after two years. Students with disadvantage and students with low prior achievement made similar amounts of progress regardless of how they were grouped. These findings were surprising because they seem to contradict previous claims streaming can harm some students without benefiting others. This new study can and has been interpreted as showing streaming benefits some students while creating no harm to others. However, the findings do reinforce previous research suggesting streaming is inequitable and widens achievement gaps. The new study found high-achieving students made much more progress than low-achieving students when streaming was used.
What are the lessons for Australia?
Educators in Australia often look to the UK for policy and evidence in education. So they might interpret the latest findings as encouragement to stream students in Australia. But we need to be cautious. The teaching in most mixed classes in the study looked more like low-stream than high-stream teaching. There were no appropriate opportunities for extension. So the findings might not generalise to mixed classes that include challenging work. Most examples of effective mixed ‘ability’ maths teaching gives all students access to challenging, rigorous tasks, and teaches to the ‘top’. The researchers also found a similar structure was widely used in all year 7 and 8 maths classes observed for the study. This involved teacher input, student practice, and a bit of feedback at the end. There was very little small-group work and almost no differentiation – where teachers vary their methods for different students’ needs. Research tells us small-group work and differentiation are important for helping students reach their potential. Australia also has a different educational context. Many schools in the UK study were very large – Australia has many small rural and remote schools that can’t stream. Finally, results also only cover streaming in mathematics, and it could be different for other subjects.
What now?
We encourage schools and policymakers to continue to approach streaming with caution. Research still suggests streaming or mixed groupings can be done well or done poorly. It often comes down to the teaching – and whether schools keep evaluating how different students’ needs are being met.
