How many children is average for year 1?

[Supernoodle1]

Our son’s school has just split 3 classes into 2, his class has 32 kids, apparently the legal limit is 30, is this right or parent hear say going around?!

It is 30 but there can be exceptions.

This. Are you near a forces base Op? A friend of mine worked at the school next door to an army base and (quite reasonably) they had to admit service kids even if it took the class over 30.

It is 30, but if a child has made a successful appeal then the school has to take them and they can't take away an existing child's place, so they end up on more than 30.

Not really, the nearest army base to us is about 45 mins/ an hour away which a good few schools nearby. Could there be any other exceptions? One of the teachers is leaving, could it be that maybe? The hadn’t be able to fill the post?

The legal exemptions are children admiired on appeal, under the Fair Access Protocol, or multiple births.

If there are 64ish children in the year, they probably can't afford another teacher as they are funded per child.

So are their 62 kids in year 1 for a 3 form entry?

We have 3 classes at the moment, they are being split into 32 and 31 for year 1, no changes to any child places though?

Technically 30, but as someone said, more is sometimes allowed, as long as the school stays on their NOR as a whole (number on roll). It's most likely for budget reasons as there is no money now and schools will have even less next year.

There is 63 kids across 3 classes at the moment, these are all kids that have been there since September so no new children

Was the PAN 60 or 90?

I wonder if it is a budget issue, this is sad if it is the case. It is a big school, there is multiple classes per year group

Ours had 31 as the last child admitted by criteria was part of twins so they took both.

So they were split into classes of 21 each in reception but will be 32 in Year 1?

Is this also you @Supernoodle1 ??

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5368543-feeling-down-about-daughters-change-of-class-from-reception-to-year-1

The birth rate is dropping. The kids starting September this year were the ones conceived during COVID when people were too scared to have a babies, appreciate this is Y1 but the schools are also struggling financially too

Three classes of 21 was never going to be sustainable in the long term. Schools generally work on a PAN in multiples of 30 (or 15 if mixed age classes) so if the PAN was 90 for 3 classes, it just happened for your daughters Reception year that not enough people applied. If PAN is 60, then the extras must have got in for a reason (LAC, SEND, twin, forces) but the school decided to go with 3 classes despite not really having the budget for it.

I’m a Year 1 teacher who has had 33 despite 30 being the legal limit. These things happen. We also have some smaller classes (around 20) and these classes concern us hugely because we have budgeted for 30 kids but only have an income for 20 kids.

We're going back nearly 20 years. There were 33 in DD's class, she was the youngest in the year!

Maybe she could have done better in a smaller class, but she went to university, studied a niche degree and got a job relating to her degree locally. What more could we want for her following on from school.

So that’s classes of only 21 right now.
School clearly can’t afford to run three classes that are under subscribed. Also possible that they’re low on staff and struggling to recruit.

It will be due to budgeting issues. I assume they won’t replace any children that leave. State schools can’t afford to run with 21 children in a class.

It's not sustainable for most schools to run a class of 21-budgets are very tight.

DD is year 1 and has 27
DS is about to enter reception and they'll have 23
The current year 2 only have 16

Reception goes from PAN 30 to PAN 45 in 2027 to account for mass house building locally. I imagine DDs year at this point may go to two classes if numbers increase much further.

They can go up to 30 for Year 2, more if any conditions apply. Then there’s no legal limit on numbers once you get into Year 3. You’d need a huge increase to justify 2 classes. More likely is they’d mix your DD’s current year with the current Year 2s to create one pure class and one mixed class.

That's really interesting thank you for that insight. It's a village school that's part of a three tiered system. It historically had three classes from year 5 but the first school feeders converted to primary so the numbers dropped to just one class per year. School is at half capacity now as it is. However the village in the last 5 years has doubled in population with another 300 houses due to be built shortly.

What’s the schools PAN? Do they have space for 90 (3 classes of 30 children) but only filled 63 places in reception? Or is the PAN 60 (2 classes of 30 children) but they admitted 3 over in reception and decided to split a usual year group of 2 classes into 3?

The above matters. 30 children is legally the maximum allowed in years R-2 as per Infant Class Size regulation, except in exceptional circumstances. If the school usually takes 60 children but they admitted 3 over due to twins/forces/parents winning appeals etc then that would be counted as exceptional and would be allowed.

If the PAN is 90 but they only took 63 I think there would be a leg to stand on to say they should continue with 3 classes, as legally they don’t have a clear exceptional reason to go above 30. But I’m not sure of the exact legalities because there is loads written into the infant class size regulation to allow circumnavigation and the school may well be able to argue exceptional circumstances.