For a given number of students, composite classes allow greater administrative flexibility in allocating students to classes. This allows gender balancing, matching of student needs to teaching expertise, and balancing class sizes. By allocating children to classes according to specific learning needs, it is possible to arrange classes with narrower ranges of abilities.
Schools composed exclusively of composite classes are increasingly common in Australian primary school education; they are not uncommon in New Zealand.[3]
Composite classes often meet resistance, with parents often believing that their child is disadvantaged by being in one.[4][5] This perception is often regardless of whether their child would be in the younger or older cohort.[6]
Advocates of multi-age classrooms point to the lack of age stratification in workplaces, families or other social environments as a reason to create a similar environment in the classroom.