Multi-Age Classes
Author Daniel Pink once
asked, “When was the last
time you spent any significant time
with a group of individuals who were
all the same age as you?” Age-based
groupings don’t make sense in the
real world and make no sense in
school either. While there are
certainly some developmental stages
that are more or less age-specific,
even these milestones are not exact.
That means, it makes eminent sense
to group students in ways that offer
them the best opportunity to get a
rich learning experience and not on
the basis of their age. Accordingly,
multi-age groupings (in and outside
“classrooms”) are a more suitable
way in which to organize a given
student population.
At the Quinns Beach Primary School
in Western Australia, multi-age
classrooms are commonplace. Far
from creating a chaotic atmosphere,
multi-age groupings at this school
and many others across the world
are unusually self-directed, with
students appearing to be far more
engaged in their work than in
traditional teacher-centered, singleage
classrooms.