Multi-grade Classrooms Aid Childhood Academic, Social, and Emotional Growth
Bennett Academy is pleased to announce that we will combine grades in school year 2007-'08 to provide multi-graded education to all students, with the exception of kindergarten.
The combinations will be 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 and 7-8.
Graded classrooms were instituted during the 1800’s as a management system for rapidly expanding U.S. populations. The idea for organizing students according to age came from Horace Mann, an educator who visited similarly organized schools in Prussia. Grouping by age is not based on student achievement and learning research. It is a management technique.
In most American schools today, by third grade most classrooms have a spread of 3 years of academic ability, not 12 months.
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Teachers become frustrated with students who are not keeping up, and the children are traumatized by knowing they are not doing as well as their peers. In the multi-grade classroom there is a much wider range of ability and teaching. If a child is not ready to go on to the next “grade” then he or she will be with the same peers for another year, continuing to learn with them.
Multi-grade classrooms support children’s academic development. The wide range of skills and abilities in a multi-grade classroom necessitates a more individualized approach to education. The curriculum ranges between two grades and is less restrictive for each grade. Children develop skills according to their own pace and timing.
Multi-grade classrooms also support the social and emotional development of students. Behavior problems are minimized because older children know the rules and can model for younger children. Children learn to get along with others of various ages.
2 Children have a broader selection of friends than just the 20 or fewer in their grade.
Reading may be taught in two, three or four different groups. Writing is usually taught to the whole class at once, with different expectations for different ages. For instance, everyone may write on the same topic, with 1st graders writing a few words or sentences and drawing a picture, while 2nd graders write a paragraph or two.
History and geography and social studies topics will be taught in a two-year rotation. For example, this school year the teachers will teach the higher grade curriculum from the Core Knowledge Sequence (grades, 2, 4, 6 and 8). Next year (08-09), the curriculum topics will come from grades 1, 3, 5 and 7 in the Sequence. Thus, students who remain in the school for all grades will receive all of the curriculum topics. (If you do not stay, your child will likely not learn most of the history curriculum anyway!)
Science topics will be taught in a similar manner.
Math is taught using the Saxon math method, which is a method that tests students to determine which book is suitable for them. Thus, there could be at least three math levels in the same classroom, whether a multi-grade or single grade classroom.
Students will learn to spell all the words in a grade level spelling book and the words from the Eyre’s list. If a student learns all the words for both years in one year, then he or she will be freed from that list the next year.
Advanced students will learn more, in this arrangement, not less.
1Cotton, Kathleen "Nongraded Primary Education." School Improvement Research Series, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education; April 1993. Northwest Regional Educational Library.
2"Multi-grade Classrooms." Family School.
See also:
Gaustad, J. "Nongraded Education: Mixed-Age, Integrated, and Developmentally Appropriate Education for Primary Children." OSSC BULLETIN 35/7 (March [April] 1992): entire issue. Erick Digests.
Cites validated elements of successful change from graded to nongraded systems; discusses the educational change process; describes transitions to nongraded structures at the single site, district, and state levels; and presents implications for school boards. 
