The Student Room Group

The higher the set you are in, does it mean you have better teachers?

That's what I found anyway, my set 5 teacher was better than my set 6 teacher in science, but I thought if you are in one of the bottom sets you get more support so the teacher should be better at teaching.
For some schools, the bottom sets get better teachers for learning support, while other schools just randomly assign teachers to different sets.
My teachers were completely different in my maths sets (Last year, I went from set 2 to set 1).

Set 2 - Our teacher was serious and took us through various steps in numerous units.
Set 1 - The opposite of the set 2 teacher—he didn't teach us much (and if he did, it would be in the A-level syllabus as he wanted to challenge us for fun). Every lesson was filled with discussions, from the best vacation spots near the Dead Sea to what cars are best to use these days.

At least from my personal experience, the sets weren't equivalent to the type of teachers we'd get. :smile:
Reply 2
Original post by jelllyfiiish
For some schools, the bottom sets get better teachers for learning support, while other schools just randomly assign teachers to different sets.
My teachers were completely different in my maths sets (Last year, I went from set 2 to set 1).
Set 2 - Our teacher was serious and took us through various steps in numerous units.
Set 1 - The opposite of the set 2 teacher—he didn't teach us much (and if he did, it would be in the A-level syllabus as he wanted to challenge us for fun). Every lesson was filled with discussions, from the best vacation spots near the Dead Sea to what cars are best to use these days.
At least from my personal experience, the sets weren't equivalent to the type of teachers we'd get. :smile:

I chose to leave set 5 due to a potential bully in my class and did I regret it afterwards. I hated my set 6 teacher, she would also pick on me if I made a sarcastic comment and keep me behind and try to find out what's up or she would keep me behind if I called out. I didn't learn much in her class and struggled as I was expected to do higher whilst my class learn foundation and separate papers for single science whilst I am used to combined science higher. It just wasn't the right format for me and did not allow me to thrive academically and I did let myself down. My set 5 teacher was funny, he made us laugh whilst also teaching us properly and I made progress in the second year I was with him, not really the first year or maybe did make progress but didn't realise. He helped me pass higher and I would always be thankful for that. He told us the definitions of concepts, went through structural formulas in chemistry and looked at wavelength equations in physics. I was sad to leave but a bully was coming to my set and she would have put photos up on Instagram of me (that's what she was doing) and video me. She was coming down from set 2 to set 5 because she also likes the teacher. He's the best teacher and I had supply teachers so maybe that's why I didn't make progress in ks3 but I never found a teacher that can get things in my head like he did. Even when I try to learn it, it doesn't stick but it sticks with him. My grade stayed the same in the end but got worse grades in individual papers different format due to doing foundation in set 6, and higher in set 5. I think I would have passed and I would have got an additional science GCSE if I had stayed.
Original post by Anony345533
I chose to leave set 5 due to a potential bully in my class and did I regret it afterwards. I hated my set 6 teacher, she would also pick on me if I made a sarcastic comment and keep me behind and try to find out what's up or she would keep me behind if I called out. I didn't learn much in her class and struggled as I was expected to do higher whilst my class learn foundation and separate papers for single science whilst I am used to combined science higher. It just wasn't the right format for me and did not allow me to thrive academically and I did let myself down. My set 5 teacher was funny, he made us laugh whilst also teaching us properly and I made progress in the second year I was with him, not really the first year or maybe did make progress but didn't realise. He helped me pass higher and I would always be thankful for that. He told us the definitions of concepts, went through structural formulas in chemistry and looked at wavelength equations in physics. I was sad to leave but a bully was coming to my set and she would have put photos up on Instagram of me (that's what she was doing) and video me. She was coming down from set 2 to set 5 because she also likes the teacher. He's the best teacher and I had supply teachers so maybe that's why I didn't make progress in ks3 but I never found a teacher that can get things in my head like he did. Even when I try to learn it, it doesn't stick but it sticks with him. My grade stayed the same in the end but got worse grades in individual papers different format due to doing foundation in set 6, and higher in set 5. I think I would have passed and I would have got an additional science GCSE if I had stayed.

Your bully sounds horrible, sorry you had to go through all this. You shouldn't have had to change sets because of your bully, rather they should be the ones who are removed from the hostile environment.
Moreover, I hope things turn out well for you! :smile:
Reply 4
Original post by Anony345533
That's what I found anyway, my set 5 teacher was better than my set 6 teacher in science, but I thought if you are in one of the bottom sets you get more support so the teacher should be better at teaching.

I felt like for me, even in top set it did feel kind of elitist (if you could call it that haha). I found that those who got help the most were usually the ones who scored the highest. But generally speaking, higher sets pushed you past the foundational stuff, maybe explained things more deeply and pushed through content faster. At least that was my experience for science and maths.

Though knowing my friends who were in the lower sets, there wasn't much push on them to go outside what was being taught, or to move onto chapters sooner - once they were in foundation they stayed in foundation, and because of that they did just the bare minimum. That isn't to say that you can't climb out but it's gonna need you to put in some effort and would require you to actually speak to your head of dept/year.
In my experience yes, if you are in set 3/4 it’s basically self learning.

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