This information has been sourced from Manitoba Education's document:

Independent Together: Supporting the Multilevel Learning Community.

http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/cur/multilevel/

A multiage classroom is an environment where children of more than one grade level are

grouped together for instruction.  In this environment, the teacher provides a developmentally appropriate curriculum based upon each child's individual strengths, needs and interests. The term "developmentally appropriate" means that each child's own progress and growth are used to determine what he or she is ready to accomplish. This approach recognizes that students learn and develop at different rates, just as they do as they learn to crawl, talk and ride a bike.  In a multi-age setting, children spend two or more years with the same teacher.

• Teachers get to know children in depth, planning for their individual strengths, needs and interests. Time becomes a positive variable.
• Problems associated with the yearly transition from one grade to another can be overcome.  The teacher has a core group of students who remain with her/him from the previous year and are able to welcome and aid in the transition of the incoming students each fall.
• Students have an increased sense of stability due to consistency of routines, expectations and traditions that carry over from one year to the next.
• ​Children have a broader social experience with increased opportunities to lead and to follow, to collaborate and to make stable peer relationships.

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