To worry about primary class size of 22

[hooochycoo]

My DS starts school this year and his primary school has an unprecedented intake and his class will be 22. Reassure me that that's ok?

My children have 22, 21 and 26 in their classes (y5,4 and 2 respectively). It's a lovely size IMO.

Yes. Five classes of 22 apparently

I'm in Scotland. DD's state school class has 30 pupils. Last year it was 32. DS' private school class has 27. 22 would feel very small to me!

How many classes does the school have? In my DS's school, they have an admission number of 15 and therefore, in theory (if the school was full) they would have 15 in a Reception class, 30 in a mixed year 1/year 2 class, 30 in a mixed year 3/year 4 class and 30 in a mixed year5/year 6 class.

If this is the usual format in the school you are talking about, and if next year's reception intake is 15, then I can see that there might be an issue in a year or two. Although as other posters have pointed out, up to and including year 2 the class size must not go over 30.

Sorry x-post!!!

The other three schools were we live are about 55 ish entrants so two classes of more than 22. DS's school had about 12 but has mixed years due to its small size

We were lucky enough to have a primary school where they kept the classes to 22, it was fantastic.

Not sure why the op is getting stick for asking such a simple question?

Op, my ds is in a class of 30, I was very disappointed to hear that. It is unusual where I am for classes to be filled. My dd is in a class of 25, the year below her has 22 in each and the year above has 18 in each - it varies year to year. I would say 22 sounds ideal. I am in NI, teachers have to be qualified here to teach, it is different to the English system.

a good teacher is more important imo than class size. 22 is fine.

My DS has some special needs, so I was worried when other parents were saying it was a big class size, as I worried his teacher wouldn't have the time to help him effectively. Hopefully he'll get some audited hours too.

22, how lovely (dreams of lovely small class), there isn't any legal obligation to have a TA in the class though. I have 30 and have a P/T TA.

My nephew has 32 in his y5 class.

22 will be fine, don't worry.

Last year I had 38 year 3/4 ... full time TA though. This year I have 27 year 4/5 with part time TA. My HT has told me that the lowest viable number (economically) is 24. 24 is a great number; lots of variations in pairs, groups, etc.

I'm a state teacher with 22 in my class. Perfect size.

22! I used to pray for kids to be off so I could have 30 :o

Have very little to contribute other than that I was in a class of 42 in my last year of primary (for some reason, they couldn't/didn't break the class into two) Then I went to secondary, and all of the other kids came from country schools of 30 people in total. Good times.

Here at our school DS is one of 19. If it gets above 22 or 23 they add a teacher. This is the US though :)

As a primary teacher if say that's a perfect size. Small enough for children to get decent amount of attention but still be able to work independently. As far as friendships it's small enough to make close friendships and not vie for attention but big enough that they have other option of they fall out with their friends.

My DC have only ever been in classes of 30 (well, DD1 had 31 for three years). That's fairly normal, I think. 22 is below private school class sizes here too

5 classes of 22 is better than 4 classes of 27-28. Presumably nobody who is 'up in arms' wants to give up their place

I'm sure it will be fine OP. It's a good size for a class.

5 classes of 22 sounds like quite a large cohort, but the class size counts small to me (London). 110 children in an intake would be four forms of 27-28 pupils, and if a school anywhere near us, the SLT would be busting a gut to try to fill the remaining 2-3 places in the class for the funding!

Tbh I guess the impact depends partly on the teacher's capabilities but mostly on the school's resources. The teachers at my DC's school are well used to teaching 30 DC, including statemented SEN, but I guess a teacher historically used to teaching 15 DC at a time, with teaching strategies to suit, would need to adapt/rethink some of the material (I teach HE and I simply adapt stuff to different seminar group sizes). I'd be more worried about resources than teaching, tbh - do the classrooms have enough tables, chairs, access to IT resources, etc? Room in the hall for lunch/assembly? PE equipment?

• Sounds, not counts

There are 30 in my sons class and 28 in my daughters. Not ideal but fine. They do have a TA as well though.