Multi-age Classrooms

At St Paul’s Catholic Primary school, our classes can be multi-age structured.  This means that our Year 1s and 2s are in mixed classes, as are our Year 3/4s and 5/6s.

The multi-age classroom has often received negative publicity, however, this is often due to ill-informed opinions and misunderstandings.  Multi-age classrooms are not to be confused with composite classes where students are often separated according to their year level and exposed to separate curriculum content.

At St Paul’s, we recognise that age is irrelevant when it comes to child development and achievement. Regardless of your child’s age, we use many assessment tools and measures to establish what each child knows and needs to know in order to structure their learning accordingly.  Students are placed in fluid groups across many subject areas in order to better target their next learning steps.

The multi-age approach also has many other benefits beyond the academic.  Because of the mixed age group, the younger children benefit from the positive models of older children, often aspiring to their levels of capability. At the same time, the older children rise to the expectations of the younger children and teacher, being very responsible and having opportunities to lend and use their expertise.​