Class organisation

Children at Stisted Primary Academy are taught in mixed age classes known as vertical grouping. This is a typical arrangement in small village schools and has proved very successful for us enabling younger children to imitate older and older children to reinforce leadership skills by sharing their knowledge with the younger children. 

This arrangement supports our belief that vertical grouping is part of children's natural development and that grouping children solely by their age is against our social nature as human beings. We believe that children should learn from their developmental starting point rather than their chronological age. Whilst we have a curriculum that identifies age related expectations, we know that children develop at different rates and vertical grouping enables the teacher to cater for these different needs and provide a more bespoke approach.

Our published Admission Number is 15 per year group. Children start off in a class of 15 pupils and then join classes of up to 30 pupils when year groups are mixed.

   The class structure is as follows:

• Class 1 (Reception)

• Class 2 (Year 1 and Year 2)             

• Class 3 (Year 3 and 4)

• Class 4 (Year 5 and 6)