As secondary school teachers confront a new wave of reforms, some of the best insights from research that we can offer come from our previous investigations of the impact of destreaming. Though destreaming in grade 9 may be under review, the whole process by which the change was managed and implemented in different schools carries important lessons for other secondary school reforms of similar scope that affect most secondary school teachers' classroom practice and relationships with their students. This study looked at how teachers in eight varied secondary schools anticipated and responded to the prospect of destreaming that loomed ahead of them and with which some schools were already experimenting. The structure of a secondary school, and the context in which it is located, affects how teachers interpret and implement changes like destreaming. Therefore, although teachers often see destreaming as a pedagogical and organizational problem, it clearly also has profound implications for educational and social equity.
Teachers are most wary of what they have had least experience with previously.
Schools most resistant to destreaming also offered teachers the least contact with the ideas and practices of destreaming through professional development and opportunities to visit the classes of teachers already practicing destreaming elsewhere. Scepticism, and even anger about change, is greatest where teachers have had the least opportunity to observe, talk about or have training in the reforms they are required to adopt. This is understandable, but these experiences alone were often insufficient or inappropriate for helping teachers come to terms with the complex changes that now faced them. School leaders can do more to broaden the practical knowledge and experience of their staff that is relevant to changes like destreaming, such as dispersing contact with students in lower stream classes. Balkanized secondary school structures restrict opportunities for teachers to learn such things as the skills of mixed ability teaching from each other across subject boundaries.