In the quiet rhythm of a good school, you can often sense when things are working as they should. A teacher adjusts the work to the child in front of them — stretching one pupil who is racing ahead, gently supporting another who needs more time. The lesson flows. Confidence grows. Character is quietly formed through effort and modest success.
Yet for decades, this natural rhythm has too often been disrupted by an ideological preference for mixed ability teaching in all circumstances. It is therefore worth revisiting a moment of refreshing honesty from a Labour Education Secretary who had the time to look carefully at what actually worked in classrooms.
In his 1997 White Paper *Excellence in Schools*, David Blunkett wrote with characteristic directness:
> “Mixed ability teaching has proved successful only in the hands of the best teachers and should be used only where it is appropriate and can be seen to be effective. We would expect setting to be the norm.”
Blunkett enjoyed something that has become increasingly rare in British education: time in post. He served as Secretary of State for Education for just over four years. In the years since, the revolving door at the Department for Education has spun ever faster. The average tenure has fallen to around two years, with some ministers passing through for little more than a season — and a few for mere weeks. With each change, institutional memory grows thinner and education policy has too often followed the personal priorities or political pressures of the minister of the day, rather than a steady, coherent plan for our children.
This lack of continuity matters deeply. When ministers come and go so quickly, practical wisdom struggles to take root. What remains is too often shaped by short-term whim instead of the patient realities of school life.
From more than five decades of experience at Claires Court, I have seen both the strengths and limitations of different approaches with clear eyes. Setting works particularly well at secondary level for English, Maths and Science. These are hierarchical, cumulative subjects where concepts build sequentially. A secure grasp of fractions supports algebra; foundational sentence construction underpins more sophisticated literary analysis. In well-setted groups, teachers can match pace and depth appropriately, reducing frustration for those who need more time and preventing brighter pupils from marking time.
Even in these carefully setted classes, however, size still matters. When numbers rise much above 24, even the best teaching begins to fray. Individual attention and responsive feedback become harder to sustain. Misconceptions go unchecked for longer. The teacher’s ability to build deep relationships with every pupil weakens, and the sheer volume of marking and planning pushes towards shallower tasks. Progress slows not because of poor intent, but because human attention and relational teaching have their natural limits.
Conversely, I also recognise why mixed ability grouping can work better in many other secondary subjects — History, Geography, Religious Studies, Art, Music, Drama and PE, for example. These subjects often thrive on discussion, collaboration, peer modelling, interpretation and the rich exchange of different perspectives. Stronger pupils can raise the quality of debate and act as natural models, while the social and creative nature of the work benefits from diversity within the group.
At primary level, the case is rather different and leans more strongly towards classroom stability. With one class teacher largely responsible for the whole breadth of a child’s learning and development, deep knowledge of each child becomes even more vital. At these formative stages, young minds are growing and changing rapidly; what a child struggles with in one term may suddenly click in the next. The continuity and personal understanding that a single teacher can provide far outweigh the benefits of early pigeonholing by ability. In primary years, it is often wiser to keep children together in stable classes where the teacher can nurture the whole child, adapting support and challenge day by day as they grow.
At Claires Court we have long sought a “Goldilocks solution” — one that is large enough to challenge, small enough to care. We deliberately keep class sizes around “plus or minus 18”. This is neither so small that pupils lack the healthy friction and breadth of peer interaction that builds resilience and character, nor so large that teachers lose the capacity to know each child deeply and respond to their individual needs in the moment.
This balanced approach allows us to use setting where it brings the greatest benefit — particularly in the core hierarchical subjects — while retaining the flexibility of mixed ability or broader banding where collaboration and diverse viewpoints enrich learning. Above all, it protects the conditions in which skilled teachers can truly teach: with enough time to care, enough stretch to challenge, and enough continuity to help every child develop the character, resilience and self-worth that will serve them long after they leave our gates.
In the end, education is a long game. It does not thrive when treated as a short-term political project to be reshaped with every change of minister. What our children need is principled, practical wisdom that respects the realities of how young people learn and grow — the very wisdom David Blunkett glimpsed back in 1997, and the kind we continue to pursue at Claires Court every day.
**Et Omnes Unum Sunt.**
A Principled view 