THE EFFECTS OF STREAMING IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL

Abstract

Summary. This investigation seems to indicate that when junior schools adopt a policy of non‐streaming, the result is, on the average, an improvement in the intellectual and scholastic progress of pupils. This increase in ability and attainment is achieved without any noticeable ‘holding back’ of brighter pupils, though it seems true that the main effect of non‐streaming is a radical ‘pulling up’ of the more backward children.These results are in striking contrast with what teachers believe to be the effects of streaming, as shown in Part I of this article. Streaming, most junior school teachers believe, is a method of school organisation which allows children to progress, educationally, ‘at their own natural pace’; bright children are, it is believed, held back by being taught in classes containing duller pupils, whilst duller pupils tend to be overawed, and consequently are retarded, by the presence of brighter pupils in their classes. Consequently, it is widely believed that both dull, average and bright pupils make maximum educational progress when streaming policies are operated. The evidence of this investigation suggests that streaming does not in fact have these effects—rather that the contrary is true. In view of the fact that streaming procedures at the junior stage of education do not find favour in most other advanced countries of the world whilst they are almost universally practised in English junior schools, it would seem that further research into the effects of streaming along the lines of the present investigation, are urgently needed.