I love them. Both as a parent and as a future teacher. THe way our school structures their classes is that Kindergarten is a straight class, but all others are taught as composites. But in NSW the education system is structured as 'stages' So Kindy is Early Stage one, years 1 and 2 are Stage One, Years 3 and 4 are Stage Two and years 5 and 6 are Stage 3. All the curriculums are based on teaching to these stages and within those stages they have ability groups for both maths and literacy anyway, so you will have groups ot the top, bottom and mid range and a few accelerated kids. For other KLA subjects like art, music, HSIE/SOIE etc you teach the exact same curriculum to all kids in that stage anyway. And when the new National Curriculum comes into effect composite classes wont matter then either because its designed to be progressive and each year they build on what they learnt the previous year in a more structured way than they currently do.

As a parent, my kids have absolutely thrived in a composite class. They get to make friendships with children either older or younger than them and with DS1 in particular, it has taugh him a lot of tolerance for the less capable students when he was in yr 4 in a 3/4 class last year and there was a massive spectrum of ability within that class. If they need harder work, such as spelling they can easily get accelerated because the teacher is already teaching the higher level kwim?

As a future teacher, I love them. In any given year group you will always get a broad range of ability and intelligence so it wouldn't matter if it was a straight class, any good teacher will cater for that anyway. I know in my kids school, having a composite arrangment also means that they can have smaller class sizes as well as the school being able to have a higher number of staff. It honestly does not matter how the structure of the class is, your child will be taught to their ability anyway, but there are just so many positives to having composite classes.