INTRODUCTION
Understanding Multigrade Teaching: What is It and Why Do It?
At one level, multigrade teaching is an important and appropriate way to help nations reach
their internationally-mandated Education for All targets and national Millennium Development
Goals by providing good quality education to children who are often neglected by their
education system because they live in small, poor, and remote communities. More importantly,
it is an approach that can help schools in these communities and teachers in these schools
serve their students better by providing them an education that is both good quality and
relevant to the community in which they live.
Many teachers in Asia and the Pacific – teachers such as you – need to teach students from
more than one grade in one classroom. And many – in Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, the
Philippines, Viet Nam and elsewhere – are already doing so. The approach being used is
known as multigrade teaching – teaching classes of students not only of different ages and
abilities but also at different grade levels. Multigrade teaching is not always easy, but doing it
well means that you are educating children who otherwise would not be able to go to school
and therefore helping them gain the knowledge and skills they need for a more promising
future. But many education systems, teachers, and even parents, think multigrade teaching is
somehow “second class” – the last choice of poor systems and something to move away from
as quickly as possible by building more classrooms and hiring more teachers, or closing small
schools and forcing children to go long distances to larger ones. In many
countries, however, not only in Southeast Asia but in many parts of Europe, North America,
and Australia, multigrade teaching is the first choice for managing a classroom. This is true for
several reasons:
It helps children, especially those in remote and isolated areas, realize their right to
education and therefore learn what they need – and want – to learn
It is a cost-effective approach to providing schooling to children often excluded from your
education system
It encourages children from different backgrounds to learn with the help of their peers and
therefore promotes cohesiveness, cooperation, and healthy competition among students,
strengthens interpersonal and leadership skills and develops a positive attitude towards
sharing
It benefits you as a multigrade teacher by helping you to plan your work better and be
more efficient in your use of time
Through the variety of teaching practices used in multigrade classrooms, it contributes to
your students’ cognitive development
Seeing Challenges as Opportunities
All teaching offers challenges, and as a multigrade teacher you have specific things to think
about to ensure you get the best out of the students in your class. These challenges and the
opportunities they present include:
Taking advantage of diversity within and between groups
Handling one grade with students from diverse family backgrounds, ethnic/linguistic traditions,
and socio-economic circumstances and with different ability levels (and some with experience
in pre-school programmes and some without) is difficult enough. Combining more than
one grade in a multigrade context is even more of a challenge. This requires not only
specialized content knowledge and teaching-learning methods but also personal values which
respect and welcome diversity in the classroom. What is important to understand, however, is
that such diversity should be seen not only as a challenge but also as an opportunity for
providing better quality education for all your students.
Balancing time and multi-tasking
The secret to being a successful multigrade teacher is to balance your time effectively. This is a
challenge when addressing the different learning needs of groups of and individual students,
but preparing a variety of activities that keep all groups of students engaged in the multigrade
environment is an opportunity to develop new and more effective teaching practices.
Engaging your students and keeping them focused on learning
Your responsibilities as a multigrade teacher multiply as you create a space for each group to
keep your students engaged in one or another activity. Such activities should be both
meaningful and intense enough that nothing distracts your students from their work when
different grades are sitting in the same room and carrying out other activities at
he same time. You also need to develop activities on which all students can work – and help
each other with. It is here that your ability to keep students focused on the activity they are
involved in is important.
Breaking your isolation as a multigrade teacher
As many multigrade schools are in geographically remote locations, you might feel isolated as
a multigrade teacher. This makes it difficult to keep aware of the best practices and
developments in other schools like your own – and more broadly elsewhere in your education
system. But such a context makes it important to find innovative ways to break this isolation.
Groups of similar schools in a geographic area can create a cluster to organize regular and
frequent meetings. The local community can be involved in generating and sharing resources
and support for your school. And networks and partnerships with groups such as community
based organizations can also offer suggestions for improving teaching in your school. The
sections below will explore further the various challenges and opportunities presented by
multigrade teaching with a focus on managing and teaching effectively in a multigrade
classroom and comprehensively assessing your students’ personal development and
achievements.
