1999|H5|, Ares Abalde, 2014[ij). The small number of students and teachers in these schools shapes the ways in which schools can use the time of teachers and students, and how these are grouped by grades and abilities (Mulcahy, 2009[ii6i). Parents may be concerned about their children learning together with children of different ages in the same classroom (Cornish, 2006[ii7j), but research suggests that multigrade teaching is not necessarily less effective than in age-specific classes.