For more than 30 years, primary schools have been in the habit of grouping children according to ability. In almost every primary, we find spelling groups, reading groups and maths groups with children who have been placed by dint of their “ability”.

This system is outdated, indefensible and entirely unfit for purpose.

Placing children in groups based on ability is all about making classroom management easy and nothing to do with educational gain for children. Grouping children by ability creates self-confidence issues for those who find themselves in the “bottom” group, overconfidence in those in the “top” group and a middle group that
is often ignored by the teacher, who is focused on ensuring challenge for the brightest and support for the weakest.

No one child really gets what they, as an individual, need. Groups tend to be formed at the beginning of a child’s school journey - and by the end these same groups are largely constituted of the same children. In other words, there is no fluidity within the groups. Children who find themselves in the “bottom” group early on recognise this. They get the message that they are not clever, and their entire schooling is based on the knowledge that their teachers have labelled them as weak.

I cannot find one major research study that concludes that young children should be grouped by ability in primary schools. Indeed, quite the reverse. The best any research study can conclude about ability grouping is that it does not improve educational attainment in pupils.

At worst, the conclusions include: social segregation being compounded, birth date being more relevant than potential ability and, further, that grouping by ability is often subjective and misinformed. Indeed, at a time when the attainment gap continues to persist, we should be questioning the rationale for ability groups more than ever.

Rod Grant is headmaster at Clifton Hall School in Edinburgh