to be unhappy with school's decision?

[OiHeadNooooo]

I have name changed because of the details in the post.

Dc2 is currently in Yr2. School are telling us that in September, when the year group are Yr3 & become KS2 pupils, they are going to divide them and keep roughly half in a shared class with Yr2, in the same classroom they are in now, whilst the others will move to the next class & share with Yr4.

We, along with most other Yr2 parents, are not happy about this as the year group will be split over the 2 key stages. This is bound to mean there will be differences in how they are treated and the level of work they will be exposed to. One major difference, that I think will mean a lot to the kids themselves, is that those with the Yr2s (as they are still in a KS1 classroom) will get an afternoon playtime, whereas the ones with the Yr4s (in a KS2 class) will not. This seems a very unfair way of treating children who are in the same year group. Particularly as friendship groups will no doubt be split & some kids will have to watch their friends go out to play when they cannot. Additionally, when KS2 or Yr3 group activities are planned the pupils in the younger class will have to leave their classroom to join in but then go back when finished. After Yr3, the year group would then come together again in Yr4, be split again in Yr5 (but possibly with different pupils in the 2 groups) & then be together again in Yr6. Essentially creating a complete lack of continuity for the rest of their time at primary school and having a differing effect on them educationally & socially.

There was a meeting for Yr2 parents where the Head gave a presentation about how this cohort split would work and it seemed to be to gauge opinion but, since the majority weren’t happy with the idea and the decision has been made to go ahead with it anyway, it would appear to have been presented as a fait accompli. It would also appear that financial considerations are more important than what is best for the children, as there are potential alternative solutions to the issue (which is an imbalance in class sizes) that could prevent splitting the year group but they would mostly create the need for an extra teacher &/or classroom space.

How would you feel if this was going to affect your dc? What would you do in response to being told about this decision?

I ask because we have a parents’ evening tonight where we will be speaking to the Head (as they are one of dc2’s teachers). Some parents had their meetings yesterday and have told me that they were informed that the decision (which was originally couched as an option albeit without any other options put forward) will be going ahead – so, never mind what the parents’ opinions are then! From what others have said, in the meeting tonight, the Head will be asking us where we would want our dc to be placed whilst telling us which class they will be placing them in and why that will be best for them.

OP, I'm sure if you are one of the bolshier parents, your child will not be put in that class. Seen it many-a-time, where heads pander a bit to difficult parents as it's just a lot easier.

I think the head teachers plan makes sense.

If the head followed your suggestion, what would the class sizes be?

I'd much rather my child was in a class of 20 then 31

I also don't think age within the year group should factor into the decision unless there's a particularly emotionally mature or emotionally young child that would be far suited to one class or the other.

Academic ability is how I would split it. The lower group would probably work at a similar standard to the top/middle end of the class below anyway.

I grew up in the 60s and for what would have been year 3-6 there were 3 classes containing years 3 and 4 and another 3 classes for years 5 and 6 in my class there were 56 pupils. The teacher would teach One half of the class then go to the other side and teach them. Very few questions allowed. If you didn't understand something then tough. Teacher had a heart attack in front of us.

Yes I agree if the split means the children are in classes of only 20/21 then that is much more preferable than being in a larger class size. People pay ££££££ to go private for classes that size. In many local primaries round here once they are in KS2 they are in classes of up to 40.

Splitting by ability is also a good thing in my opinion. The children already know where they rank in class. The ones remaining in the y2/y3 class will feel like they are top of the class. Generally the work set is different and across some primaries work is topic based so there is overlap on say doing The Tudors but just doing it to different levels. Most teachers set extension work for their more able pupils so they are used to setting different work for different pupils anyway.

All easy to say when its not your child though.

My daughter goes to a local rural school, although class numbers are fast increasing and the school is over subscribed most years now. They physically have no space to expand. So split classes are the only option. I am very much in favour over this over the alternative which is a potential class of 32! Whereas she is in a class of 24 now. I was apprehensive in the beginning, but it hasn't caused any issues in reality.

Merry, that's not how the split will work. The 22 is 'Some of Y3 + all of Y4', and the 21 in the class below is '12 of Y2 + 9 of Y3'. The upper class is still mixed.

teacherwith2kids , interesting that you mention about it maybe being a different situation if there were a couple less children in dc2's year group. There are currently 19 of them but only because school have accepted 3 new pupils into the already large year group over the last couple of academic years. I have been wondering whether they did any future projections of class size management before accepting those pupils.

The point is that they would have had very little chance of refusing those pupils. It wouldn't have been an infant class size appeal, and there is clearly plenty of space in the school as a whole (a 4-class, 4 teacher school has an 'economic size' of 120 pupils, 30 in each class. What is the school's PAN?).

Having to mix year groups in a slightly different way to normal, where mixed age group classes are already the norm, would have been a very weak reason for the school to refuse admission. the only 'stronger' reason would have been if no classroom was big enough for more than 20 children, so that there was a future pint at which the year group containing those children could not be accommodated in any classroom, unless very artificial mixing took place.

Tbh the schoolwas very lucky to get an extra classroom built with such small numbers - normally, an expectation of 3x classes of 30 - so 90 pupils in all - would be regarded as fine, and the current size of just over 80 would not have required an extra classroom. To be able to have 4 classes of such small size is a bonus, however they are mixed.

Our village school has dual year classes. Class 1 is Nursery and Reception: Class 2 is Y1 and Y2: Class 3 is Y3 and Y4 and Class 4 is Y5 and Y6. This keeps Key Stages and year groups intact and helps the transition from nursery to Reception. Class 1 has a Reception teacher, a Nursery teacher and aTA. Class 2 has a teacher and a TA + peripatetic music teacher and sports teacher. The KS2 classes each have a teacher and share a TA and the peripatetic teachers. Each year group is a maximum of 15 except for nursery which takes up to 15 in each of two groups.
Splitting Key Stages can't be good.

Do the teacher supervise play time? If not then surely it would be better to use the KS1 play time to do some more focused KS2 work with the Y3 children in the younger class.

I remember this happening to me when I was in juniors. My year was mixed with the two classes from the year below. I didn't notice too much at the time but I do remember being split up from my friends and the only reason I still recall it is because my friend to this day was always in the year below me at school until the year we ended up in the same class. I have no idea why they split our classes. My son is the youngest in his class so I think if he were to be mixed with year above I'd be very concerned but not so much if it were the year below.

Mouseinahole,

the problem is with the OP's school is that it has year groups of very variable size - from the class sizes she has provided, it looks as if the largest is 19 and the smallest 10 or even fewer. This means that the mix of year groups does need to be 'revisited' each year - the current Y2 is large (19) whereas next year's is small (12), so teaching Y2 alone makes sense this year but not next, for example.

The school can either go for a 'fixed mixing pattern' - which could lead to some very large / small classes - or aim for a 'consistency of class size', which entails mixing in different ways each year. neither is ideal, especially as the school is anyway in the slightly tricky position of having classe sizes of well below 30, which will make the financial situation very tight (essentially, 30 pupils covers the coast of 1 teacher, though small rural schools do often get an 'uplift' to their budgets to reflect the fact that economic class sizes are not always possible)

Thank you everyone for sharing your opinions and your own experiences. Some very interesting points for us to consider.

I can take some of the points raised into our parents' evening discussion, about for example, having some consistency with the afternoon break & expecting the school to do their utmost to make sure they minimise any sense of 'us & them' amongst the 2 groups of Yr3 children next year. As OhGodWhatThe says the psychological aspect for the affected pupils could be worrying.

I would like dc2 to be in the right class for her, where she can progress and not worry.

The school's PAN is 12

Thanks again, am off to the meeting very soon.

A PAN of 12 seems unrealistically low for a school of 4 classrooms! ('Full' at a school size of 84, whereas 4 classrooms have a capcity of 120, and 120 pupils are, ideally, needed to pay 4 teachers).

teacher yy, you have pupil number issue absolutely right.

I can see it is a real dilemma for the Head and the school but it doesn't stop me being concerned for my dc & their peers. The majority of them have come up from toddler group & nursery together and they are a lovely group.

Yep current capacity is 84

tbh, a peer group of 19 is very small, in the grand scheme of things (and especially in the context of a small school). being in a mixed year group class to widen their social circle would probably be a good thing.

I'm not a great fan of small PANs - my children are 'outliers' and DS in particular really suffered from lack of a peer group until he moved to a school with a PAN of 60 and a more representative spread of ability - though i do understand how in rural areas, small schools are inevitable if schools are to serve a local community. Mixing with as large a number of fellow pupils as possible seems to be one way of reducing the issues of a small peer group.

With 84 pupils, in the current financial climate for schools, you are REALLY lucky that they are not going back down to 3 classes of 28 next year, which is still below economic size.....

Most schools operate this way and have no problems, not sure what the problem is really.

I think I would just be so grateful fir the incredibly small class sizes you've been fortunate to have compared to the rest of the uk.

Those class sizes are on a par with a £10k per year private education.

Obviously you want the best for your child but finances have to play a part.

Carnassials - I had the exact same experience. It was awful! The year 5 class was big, as was year 6. The head made two year 6 classes, one year 5, and topped up each year 6 class with four year 5 students. So, I was one of four year 5s in a year 6 class. Why they didn't put all eight displaced year 5s together, I don't know. There was one other girl and two boys from my original cohort in my class. We sat separately from the rest of the older children. I would go ballistic if the same thing happened to my children at school, to the extent that I would move them to another school. It was the worst year of my time at school by far and this is speaking twenty five years on!

My DS would have been devastated to have been 'left' in the infant class while his peers went to the juniots, ie if they split by ability. This is not a trivial thing.
I appreciate the financial issues, our school is hanging on by it's fingernails with less than 40 on the roll and may have to consider a rejig of the classes itself next year, with only 1 nursery and 4 reception this year, 2 in year 3 and 10 in year 4, but there has to be a better option than one where 7 year olds will think they're being punished for not being clever enough, regardless of how you explain it to them.