musical skills. In team sports and music children not only work together but hold
collective responsibility for a learning outcome. This may also be an important factor
influencing teachers’ attitudes. Why the drama teachers, who also engage the children
in considerable group work do not share these views is interesting. Perhaps they
perceive the aims of drama education in a different light - being more concerned with
process and progression than outcomes. In contrast, in art, work tends to be
undertaken at the individual level creating less potential for interference with progress
from others.
Where setting was implemented in the school, it was often based on academic
attainment so that pupils were often at very different levels of expertise in the arts and
PE. For some teachers this was a source of frustration. School procedures seemed to
reflect a lack of value attached to their subject in comparison with more academic
subjects and they wanted setting to be undertaken in relation to their subject. Teachers
may also have felt that grouping pupils by ability in their classes may have
encouraged more pupils to take their subjects when entered for the General Certificate
of Secondary Education (GCSE). In considering the way that students are grouped
structurally within schools, managers should take account of the impact on the
teaching of practical subjects and avoid making grouping decisions based only on the
perceived needs of academic subjects.
An earlier study, which included data from all school subjects, showed a significant
relationship between the type of ability grouping practices adopted in the whole
school (set, mixed ability, partially set) on teachers’ attitudes towards and beliefs
about ability grouping (Hallam and Ireson, 2003). This was not the case in the current
sample suggesting that irrespective of school ethos, teachers of the arts and PE,
overall, hold fairly similar views about grouping practices. The relatively low
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