how many children in your child's reception class?

[pofacedandproud]

Ds just started reception in a city school. Class huge, 32, and another class with open doors to his also has 30 ish children. They do most stuff together. They do have two teachers and two TAs [all very good] but it is just mayhem in there. Thinking about options. Small rural schools [would have to move] or private [would have to sell a kidney]

So, can you tell me, how many children in your child's class? Private and state? Trying to get a good idea of what the alternatives are.

[mankyscotslass]

30 in both reception classes, 2 teachers and 2 ta's.

This is state suburbia!

[Lizzylou]

25, state primary (He is in Yr 1 now though)
There are 30 in this years reception class, they were v oversubscribed.
1 teacher, 1 TA (think that there are 2 TAs in Reception iirc).

[RatherBeOnThePiste]

Mine had 30 (state )and was open plan like your sounds. They do have legal limits and I was under the impression at infant school age, class sizes were to be no more than 30. When they move into juniors that changes.

My friend has children in private prep and they have 16.

[RenderedSpeechless]

29 in reception class and 2 ta's.

state school.

[pofacedandproud]

Oh yes and are the schools two form entry or one form?

I wonder what to do. I think 30 [and in effect 60] is too big.

[Bramshott]

11.

Rural school.

[MedusaHead]

30 in 2 reception classes each with a ta. Similar set up with doors in the middle but the children were only allowed to go into the other class when they had 'free flow' time. State school.

[pofacedandproud]

11? That sounds idyllic.

[IWantCleanCarpets]

Was 14 when DS was in Reception (private)

[roundabout1]

One reception class of 26 one teacher & one ta

[MaMight]

13 children (max is 15, they have 2 spaces free).
1 teacher
1 teaching assistant
1 class nanny
Private.

[Ripeberry]

Only 7 children in Reception and 5 in class 1. So altogether only 12 in total. But then the school only has 40 pupils in all.
It is a village school a couple of miles from any town or village.
But then another school just two miles away IN a town is overflowing and the reception class is 33! .
It's all location, location, but most parents in the town drive anyway

[pooka]

30 (60 in year)

Works well. classes broken into smaller groups i.e.15 for some parts of the day, or banded into 3 groups of 20.

dd has lots of friends and loved R - still loving school now in yr2.

class of 11 would be too small imo. though depends on the children. i would worry about the pool of potential friends being too small.

[Bramshott]

11 is good I think, but then only 2 are girls (9 boys) which must be hard on them - very intense. My DD is in Yr 2, which is a mixed class with Yr 1 - 26 in total I think.

[FiveGoMadonTheDanceFloor]

DD startin next year but think there will be 14 and that is a big intake year, rural.Other 2 primaries that we could have gone to had 11 and 8 respectively.

[benfmsmum]

8 in assessment centre where ds is but attached to mainstream school where there are 19 in the reception, nursery and year 1 class and 27 in the other class which takes them to the end of infants. That makes 55 in the whole school!! Rural school and a very good one at that!! My neice however is in a class of 20 boys and 10 girls.

[pofacedandproud]

I was wondering if in rural state schools they just put two classes together until they had 30 [they did this in one village school on outskirts of city we went to visit] But here it suggests not. Private classes very small but I think that is a good thing, still think enough choice of friends in class of 15.

I wonder if smaller the class the fewer the viruses? Ds been almost constantly ill since term started.

[gorionine]

33 last year in reception, 2 teachers 1 TA

this year in year 1 : 34 children, 1 teacher seeral TAs (not the same ones every days)

It is a village state school but 3 years ago they have closed 3 schools in the area because they were not "full enough"(less than 125 pupils). Since then the numbers in each classes are going up every year.

[IveNowGotCleanCarpets]

Many private schools have 2 classes per year of say 12-16 per class. Often this is from Yr 1 onwards.

[Niecie]

28 at the end of last year - one teacher, one TA.

[pofacedandproud]

Private schools are so expensive. a friend told me to think of the fees and then double them, for all the extras

[lucykate]

30 is ds's class, 1 teacher, and 1 ta, state school. there are actually 40 in the whole year group though, the other 10 are in a mixed class with 20 year one's.

the school is open plan, 3 classes all in a shared area, and sometimes it is mayhem, but it seems to work. schools results are outstanding.

[redskyatnight]

2 classes of 30. One teacher and nursery nurse per class; 3 TAs shared between classes. open plan layout so really are 60 children in the whole area.
State school in big town.

[pofacedandproud]

Is is the 60 kids bit that gets me. It really is chaos. What to do, what to do. any other private school experiences?

[StillSquiffy]

DC's private school have a limit on class sizes of 16 from nursery until Yr 2, with a teacher and at least one TA in each class, though currently there are places in a couple of the pre-prep years, so class sizes are around 14.

DS's first year had just 8 in total at first, so every day some of the children from the year above came down to share the 'play' activity time. It meant that DS ended up socialising with many more than his own year, which has been great as he goes through the school - he has many more friends than I would have expected given the usual class size.