Bright Pupils in Mixed Ability Classes

Abstract

There seems to be a good deal of disquiet, expressed by teachers at conferences and by parents and industrialists through the media, about the problems of meeting the learning needs of bright pupils in mixed ability classes, and about the possible longterm effects of schools' apparent failure to meet these needs. The Teacher Education Project, financed by the Department of Education and Science to research and develop courses for the Postgraduate Certificate in Education, has been looking at mixed ability teaching as part of its brief to develop training materials. During the first year of its life the Project initiated research into a number of problem areas relating to class management, language across the curriculum and the teaching of slow learners and bright pupils, as well as into the general area of the teaching skills required of teachers in mixed ability classes. Some of this research has been, or will be, reported elsewhere [1]; but that relating to bright pupils in mixed ability classes is discussed in this paper.