The problems "attendance fluctuation and irregularity" will create in traditionally organized Sunday Schools that use traditionally graded classrooms and curriculum

--and how the Rotation Model is more suited to the needs of broadly graded Sunday School...

• If you have to combine age groups, most of your "graded" curriculum will either be too young or too old for some of your "suddenly combined" classes. Workshop lessons from our Writing Team are broadly graded and are focused on active learning, not "worksheets."
  
  
• Your teacher who "only used to teach the younger ones" will probably have a hard time dealing with the older kids tossed into their classroom. Workshop teachers get used to adapting their lessons for each grade group because they do it every week with a new group.
  
  
• Traditionally designed classrooms for younger children will make your older kids feel like they're being treated "like babies."   Workshop learning in the Rotation Model is more engaging, and its activities more broadly appealing. Plus, going to a new workshop each week creates anticipation.
  
  
• Traditional programs often face resistance to changing schedules and rooms from the teachers. Rotation Model leaders, teachers, and kids are used to changing rooms and schedules.

Seven Things Traditional Sunday Schools Can Do to Deal with Attendance Fluctuations and the Sudden Need to Combine Classes

Several of these ideas come from our experience with the Rotation Model.

1. Make sure the curriculum you've purchased is truly broadly graded. Rotation Model lessons from our Writing Team always are, and come with adaptions so you can adjust the lesson to who shows up.
   
   
2. Avoid curriculum that's dependent on worksheets. Worksheets have reading and puzzles that can be too hard for younger children in a broadly graded class. Rotation-style learning is focused on teaching with different creative media and activities, not worksheets, and such media is easier to adapt to different grades.
   
   
3. Slow down your rate of "story change." Avoid curriculum which teaches a new story every week, but instead, teach a series of lessons "about Abraham" for example, so that students who miss a lesson or two don't feel totally lost when they show up. Rotation Modelers stay on a single story for four to five weeks at a time, only changing the teaching method. The kids don't get bored with the story, in fact, they actually learn it.
   
   
4. Pick craft projects that are less about "assembly" and focus more on what each student can create. This allows older students to add more complexity of thought and creativity.
   
   
5. Teach with certain types of activities and methods that are less sensitive to numbers in attendance and age. Such methods and media include: video, cooking projects, singing, demonstrations ("science"), service projects, and actual "art" projects.
   
   
6. Plan a monthly "all grades" lesson that you can fall back on when attendance unexpectedly bottoms out, or when you can predict it ahead of time for a certain Sunday. These "all grade" lessons can have components of children's worship, with broadly appealing "demonstrations" (like those found in Rotation Science Workshops), service projects, cooking workshop activities (which are always broadly appealing), and Video.
   
   
7. Have extra help for the special needs of your youngest or oldest students.