00.cov. 0444-2004.vfinal

10 | Key Stage 3 National Strategy|Pedagogy and practice

Unit 10: Group work

© Crown copyright 2004

DfES 0433-2004

Task 10

Benefits and limitations of different grouping criteria 15 minutes

Look at the grid below. It shows a range of different criteria for grouping, with

their benefits and limitations. The right-hand column indicates when these criteria

may support your teaching.

Highlight the issues you have encountered, and add any extra points from your

own experience.

Grouping

Friendship

Benefits

Secure and

unthreatening

Limitations

Prone to consensus

When to use

When sharing and

confidence building are

priorities

Group composition

Ability

Structured mix

Random selection

Single sex

Work can more easily

be pitched at the

optimum level of

challenge

Ensures a range of

views

• Builds up pupils’
  experiences of
  different partners and
  views


• Accepted by pupils
  as democratic

Socially more

comfortable for some

Visible in-class setting

Reproduces the power

relations in society

Can get awkward

mixes and ‘bad group

chemistry’

Increases the gender

divide

When differentiation

can only be achieved

by task

When diversity is

required

• When pupils
  complain about who
  is allowed to sit with
  whom


• When groups have
  become stale

In contexts where one

sex habitually loses

out, e.g. competing to

control the computer

keyboard