A Three-Year Cycle

When you have multi-age classrooms, a child has a three-year cycle. This is so valuable to both the child and the classroom. You build a deeper relationship and can build upon things done in previous years. The child becomes very familiar and confident in their environment, knows their guide well, and builds lasting relationships with other children.

A three-year cycle provides many opportunities for flexibility in learning and teaching. This is helpful when you have a child who may be struggling in one area or a child who is ready to keep moving forward. There can be more fluidity in the groupings for lessons as the children get older. The three-year cycle allows building a deeper relationships with the children as well as their families. It also is a very effective approach because a child can pick up where they left off the next school year rather than having a different educator to learn what they do and don’t know each year

Groupings based on Interest and Abilities vs. Age

When you have older children and younger children in the same classroom you create a diverse community of different interests and abilities. Having a variety makes it easy to diversify the groupings based on a child’s interests and abilities rather than their age. Such classrooms encourage and allow children to move forward and work at their own pace. A multi-age classroom makes and the blend makes it easier to accommodate because that is how it is intended to function. Classrooms should not be designed to be a “one size fits all” approach. Naturally, by putting multiple ages within the same classroom you are expecting to have different groups, different abilities, and a lot of variety in the work happening within the classroom.

Having a the mixed ages in a classroom can helps mask any social discomfort of academic success or being at different levels than their peers because all children are different in their abilities and basic skills, it can help prevent some of the comparisons that may happen in traditional schools. A classroom should foster a love of learning and experience. Having multi-age children in classrooms greatly helps achieve this goal.

Peer Mentorship

Just think for a moment, if you were on your first day of a job and showed up and needed to ask someone how to do something, would you feel more comfortable asking your boss who is 25 years older than you with tons more experience, or would you turn to your new colleague who is 2 years older than you or even your age and was just in your shoes not too long ago?

The Rootbridge education depends on peer mentorship and peer teaching. Children help other children. An older child can help their younger friends know where things are in the classroom, recall how to use a material they worked with just a few months ago, and model how to function and operate in this classroom. This peer mentorship helps build a greater sense of community, and this mixed-age group of children brings their varying skills and experiences to create a beautiful environment.

Greater Responsibility

With a three-year cycle, a child gets to go through different phases . The first year they are the youngest students in the classroom. They have lots of new things to learn and can look to the older children in the classroom. A second-year child in the classroom will have a little more experience and things will be more familiar to them. They have many things they could share or help a younger child with because they know what it is to be the new child in a classroom. Then, as a third-year child in a classroom, you become the expert. The older classmates are role models to the young children of the class. They establish leadership skills and are often entrusted with a greater responsibility for the class. The third-year children take on great pride when they are in this role. They love to be the person their younger peers look up to.

Mimics the Real World

It is helpful to relate to some of the experiences in the real world. Imagine if you went into a new job, your whole team was your same age and had the same amount of life experience as you. It would create quite a steep learning curve as you learn how to do your job and get to know the company. Most often, there is a variety. This multi-age grouping is beneficial for everyone. Learning to work with people of different ages is valuable and reflects real-world experiences.