School breaks tradition to teach pupils according to ability, not age.

I wonder how long that policy will be allowed to continue.

I believe it will eventually become apparent that high-achieving pupils of various ages grouped together can do things that they simply cannot do when grouped into mixed-ability classes of the same age, because they will be able to form shared communities of practice based on the ways that effective and self-motivated learners think and behave*.

If permitted and enabled to do so, they could potentially leave everyone else behind by a long way.

And then what? What do you do when bright 14-year-olds, with the help and encouragement of bright 17-year-olds (and freed from the distractions, discouragement, hazing and bullying meted out by not-so-bright 14-year-olds), start running out of things the school can teach them?

* That’s assuming that the way such learners think and behave doesn’t effectively militate against community-forming of that kind, which I guess is a possibility. Very intelligent teenagers tend to be somewhat socially isolated, and individualistic in outlook and attitude. It may not be the case that the isolation is wholly externally imposed, or that the attitude is simply a reaction to that isolation.