Barend Vlaardingerbroek: Updating the streaming debate

When it comes to education, one size does not fit all. Nobody can be in any doubt about the fact that young people differ with respect to their aptitudes and attitudes and accordingly benefit from different teaching/learning approaches. But streaming is a blunt-edged tool with which to deliver school education that suits every learner. It uses a ranking system based on averaged-out measures of ability. This works quite well for kids who are simply good at everything (gifted) or who are pretty hopeless at everything for whatever reason (often a matter of attitude rather than aptitude). It does not work so well for kids who are very good at some things (talented) but not at others. To make streaming really work, you would have to stream classes for each subject separately. So a kid might be in Year 7A for one subject, 7D for another, and 7F for yet another. This just isn’t practical.