Age-mixed Groups

“It is not the mere presence of other children but active participation with them, doing real things together, an active interchange of feeling and experience, which educates the child.” -

Susan Isaacs

At Kaleide International School we welcome diversity as an opportunity. Exposure to diversity (including age and ability-related diversity) helps children realise that there are other ways of thinking or doing things that can be more humane or intelligent. In a context that welcomes diversity, there is a chance that each individual's own understanding and needs will be taken into consideration. In addition, through diversity, variation becomes visible and expected, and becomes an opportunity to stimulate children's thinking and promote respect towards otherness.

Mixed-age groups provide more family-like environments than are possible with homogeneous groups. Although at the school there will be separate classrooms for the Early Years children and the Primary children, the opportunities for mixing will be extensive given the many common learning spaces and activities we will provide.

Cognitive development does not progress through a fixed sequence of age-related stages. As Robert Siegler and other researchers have shown, children employ a variety of strategies to solve problems, not just the one “typical” of their stage of development. As a child begins to adopt a more advanced approach, she or he may return to earlier, more primitive approaches for a while, like a series of overlapping waves. For this reason, at Kaleide International School classes are not so much divided by age, but in vertical groups, with attention to dynamics, learning preferences, and relationships. The groups can be arranged in narrow bands of age, such as 5-6, or wider, such as 8-11.

Mixed-age groups promote emotional learning because older children can provide scaffolding and modelling for the younger ones. In turn, older children learn to care and take responsibility for the little ones.

Our children can mix freely irrespective of their age or gender, enabling them to share knowledge and skills with each other and the adults. This occurs across the whole spectrum of school life, much of it during play. Facilitators and older kids provide scaffolding, mentoring, and advising. The smaller children develop new skills and understanding by collaborating with older children within their zone of proximal development, as described by Lev Vygotsky. Older children are closer to the younger children in energy level, activity preferences, and understanding, than are adults, so it is more natural for them to behave within the younger ones' zones of proximal development.

In an age-mixed environment, children learn from older children by watching and listening, even when they are not directly interacting with them. The older children learn to care and assume a role of responsibility and leadership toward those who are younger than themselves, and they benefit from participating in the creative and make-believe play the younger children prefer. Studies of cross-age tutoring programs have revealed that the experience of tutoring younger children leads the tutors to score higher on measures of responsibility, empathy and helpfulness towards others.