In one of my previous article, I discussed the fact that some classrooms do not follow the traditional school setting.
Instead of the class having one teacher with one grade level of students, some classes have split level students. This means that more than one grade level is in the class. The teacher teaches more than one grade in one classroom. There may be two, three, or even four different grade levels in one class.
There are many reasons why a school would choose to have a split grade level class.
Lack of Students
In the elementary school that I first attended, there were split level classes. The classes were formed due to the fact that not enough students were enrolled to create classes for each grade level. This happens a lot in very small schools. Our private Catholic school now has split level classes due to the same reason.
Lack of Teachers
Some schools choose to have a split-level class due to the lack of not having enough teachers. When classes from two consecutive grades are full and in need of another teacher, schools may have to make do with only one new teacher hired. That teacher will take students from both grades in order to reduce the ratios in each. For example if eighth grade is overloaded and seventh grade is also overloaded, then a new class of half seventh grade students and half eighth grade students may be created.
Research
Some teachers have researched spilt level teaching and actually prefer it to one grade level teaching. These teachers believe that students can benefit from being in a spilt level classroom. The class is created simply by the wishes and requests of the teacher. In some cases, the parents may have input on whether or not their child is placed in the split level classroom.