Mixed-abilities versus same-abilities classrooms

Research on the social and cognitive effects of grouping students in mixed-abilities versus same-abilities classrooms is gaining increasing interest among practitioners and researchers. In hopes of attaining higher scores, many schools have adopted homogeneous ability grouping. Unlike them, our school has adopted the policy of mixed ability classes where students of different academic abilities study together in the same class. Indeed, there is a lot of research in favor of heterogeneous ability grouping, but is …

…for students’ intellectual, academic, physical, dispositional, social, and emotional development, and our school is doing so now. Under the current policy of mixed ability classes, the academically more able students and the weaker students can benefit at the same time. I am not suggesting that every student should be approached the same. Effective educators will be mindful of differing learning styles and sensitive to differing personal dynamics, but they should not segregate based on ability.