Holy Rosary Bi-parish School
Multi-age (Spectrum) Classroom
for First, Second, and Third Graders

A multiage educational program is a union of an organizational structure and unique combinations of teaching and learning strategies. The way learning occurs is made possible by the multiple age structure.

Why Multiage?

Allows for flexibility in the grouping of children according to need, ability, or interest; not just by age. 

Problems associated with a yearly transition from one grade to another can be overcome. The teacher has a nucleus of children, trained in the details of the class organization who keep it going while newcomers absorb it. 

As the student-teacher-parent relationship develops over a longer period of time, students will receive greater support for their success in school. 

A more natural learning situation is established. Children work at their own pace, and instruction becomes individualized to both interest and challenge each child toward attaining specified goals. Their program is not geared to the work of a single year, but can be adjusted over two or more years. 

Benefits come to the older children from the quality of leadership and responsibility they develop. 

Young children are stimulated intellectually by older children. 
Children have a broader social experience with increased opportunities to lead and to follow, to collaborate and to make stable peer relationships. 

It is our goal to use instructional strategies that:
Change the teacher's role to facilitator rather than the source of knowledge. 

Produce cooperation. 

Allow students to learn from each other through peer tutoring. 
Give students responsibility and independence in both learning and behavior. 

Build understanding of action-consequence relationship. 
Provide choice to the student in different areas of learning that will reflect learning-style differences. 

Allow continuous learning through the use of learning centers, small group instruction, and individual pacing. 

Involve parents in classroom activities. 

Encourage student responsibility and ownership of the learning environment. 

Teach goal-setting from an early age.

Foster spiritual growth in children based on Catholic Christian values. 

Build leadership skills in all students. 

Why do we want to increase choices in education by implementing a multi-age classroom?

In most cases at Holy Rosary, teachers have students for only one year. However consistent research shows that teachers having students for consecutive years increases student achievement. At Holy Rosary, through our process of continuous school improvement through the philosophy of Effective Schools, we believe that in addition to increasing our efforts in team teaching in the upper grades, offering yet another choice to families at the lower grades based not on the latest educational “buzz words”, but rather on years of strong, well-documented educational research, we will best serve all children at Holy Rosary, thus increasing student achievement and creating confident, spiritual, and well-rounded Holy Rosary graduates.

Multi-age classrooms, with a smaller teacher to student ratio, small-group and individualized teaching strategies, and teacher facilitation and motivation create an atmosphere in which children may perform and achieve success at their highest possible level. 
What we've done to prepare for this change?

Ensured that multi-age education is supported by the Holy Rosary Bi-parish Strategic Plan 2002-2007 and the Effective Schools Process of School Improvement.

Researched multi-age education, visited multi-age classrooms, attended multi-age workshops. 

Implemented some multiage techniques and strategies in our currently offered first, second, and third grade classrooms at Holy Rosary. 
How will we teach three grades at once?

Limit the classroom to eighteen students.

Classroom layout will be very center and one-on-one based.
Technology—computer lab inside classroom/connected to classroom—all network capabilities. 

Students will work with one-on-one to learn specific skills, as needed. 
Students will work side by side on projects, and whole group or small group explorations. 

Examples: math, reading, projects (space, animals, social studies). 
All essential skills and content area will be covered extensively for each grade level. 

Star Reading, Star Math, Accelerated Reading, and Accelerated Math programs will be used as an essential addition to the Language Arts and Math programs.

Here is one of parents' biggest concerns: "My child needs enrichment," or "My child needs extra help. How will you meet his or her needs?"
The issue is not so much which grade levels are in a class, but rather, what is the teachers' program, style, and philosophy. 

Time is provided each day to pursue learning at students' own level and pace. 

Programs, instruction, and materials are available for students who need extra practice, and for those who have mastered skills and need to move on. 

Students will be taught study skills; how to work independently, as well as with others. 

Research shows multi-age classes benefit ALL students academically and emotionally. Older students act as role models, and younger students are stimulated to meet the expectations of the older students. 
We educators at Holy Rosary believe that we have the obligation to become facilitators for your child's learning, not just dispensers of knowledge.

Provide models and methods for sharing what students learn. 

Build upon students' interests. 

Arrange classroom so individuals and groups can work independently. 
Emphasize responsibility. 

Active learning and creation of products: (Models of habitats, plays, videos, experiments, class books). 

Summary of Research on Benefits of Multiage Classrooms
Professor Barbara Pavan reviewed 64 research studies on nongraded (multiage) schools. Pavan found that 58% of those students in multiage classes performed better than their peers on measures of academic achievement. 33% performed as well as their peers, and only 9% did worse than their peers.

Pavan also found that students in multiage settings were more likely than their peers to have positive self-concepts, high self-esteem, and good attitudes toward school. Her review of the research also indicates that benefits to students increase the longer they are in a nongraded setting, and that "underachieving" students also benefit from being in multiage classrooms. (This research summary can be found in the October 1992 issue of Educational Leadership, pp. 22-24.)

Parents are often concerned that older children in a multiage setting will not benefit as much as younger children. Research shows, however, that when older students teach information and skills to their younger classmates, their academic performance, and even IQ scores, dramatically improve. The research of Arthur Whimbey (in his program T.A.P.S: Talking About Problem Solving) showed that when students were routinely given the opportunity to teach someone else, their scores on IQ assessments improved as much as eighteen points.
In another study done in the 1960s, underachieving high school students who acted as reading tutors for younger students improved their reading scores by an equivalent of two years, in just six months' time. (From the Nov. 1994 edition of Educational Leadership, p. 58.)

Educational research indicates that students benefit both academically and emotionally from being placed in multiage classrooms.