National School Reform Faculty

Looping Classrooms
Date: February 7-11, 2006
Listserv: Coaches

Tuesday, February 7, 2006 4:17 PM
Hi Everyone,
I am wondering if there is anyone out there who has experienced looping at the elementary school level and would be willing to offer some suggestions for transitioning my students. I am finishing a two-year cycle with my current class of third graders. This has been my first experience with looping a mostly positive one at that! I know that transitioning to a new teacher and student mix will be difficult for some of my students. How can I best prepare them? We have been discussing it but does anyone have any specific suggestions or suggested readings for me? Thanks in advance!
Alba, MA

Tuesday, February 7, 2006 4:49 PM
Must the student family be broken up when they leave you, or could they be allowed to remain intact? At our school, the teachers aren't interested in taking on the added curriculum challenge of looping. We do invest a lot of time and effort, quite successfully, in building "class families."

This year, for the first time, we experimented with leaving several "class families" intact as they moved up a grade to a new teacher. Many teachers cautioned those participating that it would be a disaster. Quite the contrary! I don't even know what to call the concept of moving classes up intact, but it has proved to be a wonderful success.

The culture of the classes endured, and the kids hit the ground running. Sometimes they "trained" their new teacher with procedures that the teacher would normally have to establish the first few weeks of school. ("this is the way! we...") but they were not, as some feared, inflexible. Nor did they band together to overpower the new teachers as others were convinced would happen. Interestingly enough, in the class I sent to 5th grade, there has been an exceptionally high number of students coming and going. The culture of the class survived even that.

It has been easier to plan this year because my class is more homogeneous than it would have been if pulled from our 5 third grade classrooms instead of one. For example, they've all received an identical math curriculum; even when a grade level plans together and uses the same materials, the delivered curriculum will vary significantly from class to class. My students' last teacher really hit geometry hard, so they really didn't need the whole unit I usually taught. Fractions were a little weak, but they ALL needed extra so I could do it whole-group.

An added bonus is that you can easily have "reunions" and celebrations with past teachers. I've invited their last teacher to be our guest at class meetings, for example. When I taught my current students a new cheer for FCAT, I also went down the hall and taught it to my last group of students.

I've become convinced that the benefits of looping are as much derived from the class remaining together as from the same teacher staying with them. In other words, we could attain most of the benefits by simply leaving the kids together as they move up a grade to a new teacher. I also think we send a terrible message to kids when we so matter-of-factly dissolve (divorce?) the "family" we establish. What is the origin of the standard practice of shuffling students each year? Why does it endure? Who benefits? Who hurts?
Susan, FL

Tuesday, February 7, 2006 7:00 PM
As a principal I encouraged teachers to loop. In the spring at the end of the year the class family went and spent an hour with their new teacher. If this is on a school wide basis even if students have different teachers, a visit to next year's teacher goes a long way in relieving anxiety.
Fay, NY

Thursday, February 9, 2006 11:38 AM
I will add my affirmation to the idea of keeping the students intact. I have belonged to a vertical team for six years. Our students enter the continuum in first grade and remain together thru fifth. They develop relationships, work thru problems, follow a continuum of skills and content - and test very well. Ed. Leadership published an article of ours called "The Bear Den" in Feb., 2002 that gives more detail. Hope this helps.
Gail, FL

Friday, February 10, 2006 10:26 AM
ditto--I took my students from sixth to eighth grade. Especially in those often turbulent years it was gratifying to see the supportive relationships that developed among the students. It was also invaluable for me as a teacher to understand what would be required of them in the coming grades so I could prepare them adequately. I would add, however, that three years at that age was too long for them to be with just two teachers (both us taught them all the core subjects and most of them were also in an elective class with one of us). But taking students from sixth athrough seventh was just right. Often seventh graders get lost in middle school but we hit the ground running and kept up that pace throughout the year.
Susan, CA

Friday, February 10, 2006 1:33 PM
Hi there,
I understand the idea of looping to mean that the kids stay together and in tact. My question is that we are a district that has, for years, combined 7th and 8th graders together and looped them through a two year curriculum scheme for history, English and science and in some cases math. The kids are exposed to and taught the state standards for both grade levels together and when the 8th graders graduate new 7th graders come in and stay mixed with the past 7th graders who are now 8th graders. The teachers loop the curriculum, meaning one year they are teaching the 7th grade standards for science and the next year 8th. It was working fine until the state started giving 7th and 8th grade state exams in reading, writing and math. Our 8th graders did supremely well, our seventh graders did not do too badly, but soon we will get a state test in Science and in Social Studies. If we continue to loop the curriculum we might place kids in danger of not hitting the standards by the time the test comes around. I am wondering if this is the case anywhere else and if there is a solution to keep mixed ages in a "looped curriculum"
Lisa, AZ

Saturday, February 11, 2006 12:58 PM
Hi Lisa and All: Our school is also in Arizona where (as Lisa pointed out) the state has articulated grade level standards in reading, writing, math, & science and next year also in social studies. We are a public charter school and in our charter we explicitly stated that we would be using a looped curriculum for Humanities and Science in 6th and 7th grade. This means that our sixth and seventh graders experience the same curriculum and this curriculum is delivered over a two year period (a Year A and a Year B curriculum). We recently received a letter from the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools telling us that we would have to redesign our curriculum so that 6th graders encounter all of the 6th grade standards when they are 6th graders (and the same with 7th). We are trying to figure out some creative ways to address this without doing away with looping altogether but it is frustrating and it demonstrates great insensitivity to the needs of small schools trying to do their best with limited resources. Santo
Santo, AZ

Saturday, February 11, 2006 2:55 PM
I've been to the Waldorf School in Princeton a few times. I haven't had the pleasure or opportunity to teach in one. As a casual observer I have noted that they loop from 1 to grade 8. In their philosophical and curricula methods it works very well. You might want to check them out or any other Waldorf School for ideas.
Bill, NJ