Flexible grouping: What is it and why use it?

It can be dangerous to reinforce the idea that some pupils always, and others never need help.

Whether we’re scaffolding, grouping or deploying a teaching assistant, we should be doing so with a secure understanding of who needs what and when. The historic over-representation of summer-born pupils on SEND registers should serve as an important reminder of the dangers of taking a ​‘fixed’ view of pupils’ abilities or needs.

Research from the EEF suggests that a flexible approach to creating within-class groups – ​‘flexible grouping’ – may be an effective way to counter this fixed idea of pupils’ abilities. This approach aims to reduce stigma by making sure that groups are based on the relative difficulty of curriculum content, or on other teaching and learning needs, rather than being fixed and inflexible.

On the first ​‘to what extent do I…’ sentence, I take it these are from the Guidance report so can’t be changed? Ideally it might have been worth tweaking to say, ‘…group pupils in a way that reduces stigma, ensuring such groups are based on the relative difficulty of curriculum content, or on other teaching and learning needs, rather than being fixed and inflexible’ .