Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Advocating for Cluster Grouping

Has anyone had success advocating for cluster grouping in schools? What approaches have worked? Any pitfalls to avoid?

I read Winebrenner's Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom which has questions and answers about cluster grouping. I'm curious about real life success in shifting away from the traditional method of dividing the gifted evenly among classrooms.

Our school purportedly does cluster grouping. The only problem was that in one cohort, only one student was identified as GT. So he was in a "cluster" of one. Cluster grouping only works if there will be enough students to form an actual group.

I have advocated successfully for cluster grouping at my DD's school. It can be very successful, but requires a teacher who will differentiate for the group, so we have found 5 or 6 to be a good number. It has been fantastic for my daughter, who is in the cluster, with "top 5%" being the criteria. This, along with subject acceleration up 2 years for math (into the year 5 cluster group!) has been magic. In literacy, it is easier for the G&T teacher to do a pullout if all kids are in one class as in a cluster. I requested "subject acceleration" for the novel study pullout too, which was granted, so again she is grouped with an older cluster for this.

For everything else, she remains with her sameage cluster group. Socially this has been good for her. There is probably only one other HG+ in her age cluster............but for us it has worked magic.

It took a couple of years to convince the Principal that the clustering was in the kids best interests academically and social/emotionally. Initially, lots of teachers wanted the cluster, thinking it would be teacher-pleaser easy kids. Within a year, they realised it was darned hard work, and now only G&T trained teachers get (or even want) the cluster ;-o

I have heard of teachers who "add" students to the cluster group however, and do not differentiate adequately, and then there is little to be gained.

Hope this helps

Steph

I totally agree with you here. My daughter's old school's "modified grouping" was basically this. All the students gained proficiency through this.

In my experience, the lower students get "help" from the higher students and never learn anything. In grouping, they are forced to learn the material. I feel really bad for them because they hold the group back all the time and they know it.

With grouping, higher students are (usually) placed with students with more enthusiasm for school subjects. Lower students just really hate school (most of the time).

This can also be done with "book clubs" and "workshops", which is what they were often called. Some students would attend a "comma workshop", while others moved on to something else.

Thanks for everyone's input!

Steph, your situation helps a lot since it sounds like what I want to happen at DD6's school.

Did you advocate alone or organize with other parents of GT children? What avenue did you use to keep the conversation going with the principal (PTA, individual meetings, etc.)?

I'm hoping DD6 will be in a full-time, self-contained gifted class the year after next at a different school. If it took two years, I may not be able to get any cluster grouping for her before then, but if I start now maybe something can happen for DD4 (or other children down the road).

Glad to hear it's working out well and it's encouraging to know there are success stories out there!

I've never advocated for cluster grouping; however, our whole sd has gifted clusters in every grade from 2-5, then gifted classes in middle school and high school. The gifted cluster classrooms in elementary school are supposed to have from 5-8 gifted kids in each, with the ballance of kids made up of average or above students. The gifted classes get inclusion with the gifted teacher (the gifted resource teacher comes in and does enrichment with the whole class). Does it work well? From what I can tell, a good class is more teacher-dependent than gifted-cluster dependent. (The rest of the classes at a particular grade level are supposed to include kids of all abilities.)

Our school system has limited resources for gifted kids in K-3 so cluster grouping has been our only support. There are four kids in my child's grade that perform at a level much higher than the rest of the students. The parents all "indpendently" met with the principal to request that the students be kept together for academic instruction. The other are exactly right in that the teacher must know how to differentiate and be willing to do so for this (or anything else) to be effective. We had great experiences in 2 grades. One year we hit a brick wall because the teacher did not understand how to curriculum compact. Best of luck with your efforts to make it happen!

I think this is a good point to make as there are kids who are smart and who have very good work ethics who can keep up with most of the material even with others who are very, very good. It takes a good teacher to do this, though.