To send my child to a school with 8 classes per year

[Mabelthebore]

This is a high school. It has a very good reputation but I am concerned about the huge size of the school. I believe there are 24 kids per class (8 classes per year group). Other alternative school has only 2 classes per year group, mixed reports about it and not as wide variety of subjects as the bigger school. I fear my daughter might be a bit lost in the big school. She is coming from a small village junior school.

That’s quite normal.

My dds secondary is about this size. It's been absolutely fine.

I doubt two classes per years means they can offer a decent range of GCSEs, a school locally have one form entry and offer no options at all for GCSEs. It also makes it harder to set children or properly differentiate for abilities.

DS school has just gone up to 7 forms per year and although it takes to to capacity I still wouldn’t class it as a large school.

That is a good size. You need a decent number for setting, sports teams, orchestras etc and also to support a choice of GCSE options.

Very normal, my current school has this many pupils. My last one only had 5 forms, but that is unusually small.

That’s very average for a secondary school. I have taught in a school that had 14 tutor groups per year group at one point.

My school had 11 tutor groups per year and when DC went there it had increased to 12 per year.

Completely normal and for me, preferable to having a small school as its harder to find 'your tribe' when there are only 20/30 other kids of your sex in your year.

The more kids the more clubs are run, the more chances there are to find kids with your interests (DD was hugely sporty and had found primary school difficult as most of the girls weren't), your friendship groups are bigger and there are more classes so they can differentiate the curriculum better in my experience so that your child can be taught with similarly performing kids.

Your know your DC best, but mine would have struggled in a small school and I wouldnt have sent them there to begin with.

I went from a small village primary school, to a secondary school with 12 classes per year group and it was absolutely fine.

Loads of children do this and are fine

My daughters school has 12 tutor groups per year, that is quite big but not out of the norm however 8-10 is normal anything else is small.

Our primary school has 4 classes per year so 8 doesn't sound that big for a senior school 🤷🏼‍♀️

To me that's small, my DC's secondary has a 295 pupil entry.

It doesn't feel big and I have never felt that they were lost in the system (and they are all middle of the road kids)

My secondary school was 7 forms, 30 kids in each (1980s).
My kids school was 13 forms, massive school, probably too big really but the only option for location/religious/feeder school.

This is a normal size I think? My DS attends a high school with 6 forms per year and that is a small high school, my DD’s are at one with 11 per year group.

That sounds pretty normal to me.

A two form secondary is pretty small - I would look into the range of options they can offer. They must need almost everyone to have the same choices.

This is completely normal for high school, I wouldn’t send my child to a high school with only 2 classes/ 48 children per year, that’s way too limited for high school. What happens when they get put into sets etc?

A really large school has been so much better for my dd. With a big enough pool of children, the unusual kids of better odds of finding their peers. There are also more clubs so more to appeal to a variety of types of children. Plus more course choices should not be discounted.

My school had 12 form classes per year group and none had less than 30 kids.

I can’t even imagine a secondary having only 2 classes per year, none of them near me do.

I went to a ten form secondary school. It was fine.

My boy is going to an 8 form school. I'm not concerned.

My DD's school had 8 forms per year. These were split into 2 'populations' , so they only really had subject classes mixed with 4 forms . This meant that here were some other students who she never crossed paths with( may have changed after options)

our secondary has 18 classes this year per year. But that means they have a great selection of courses and opportunities

I went from a tiny rural homogeneous village primary school from reception to year 6 with only 4 classes total and under 100 pupils to a high school in town from year 7 to sixth form with 9 tutor groups for each individual year group plus extra sub groups for specific lessons.

I can't think of a single negative of the size of the school, if anything I was benefiting from the vast spectrum of people I was with. Bullying and isolation where much more prevalent in the smaller setting whereas in the bigger school it was easier to find your tribe and blend in the the crowd.

Indeed - perfectly normal.

A secondary school with only 2 form entry is vulnerable to closure, especially as the birth rate is declining. And as has been mentioned, it means really a restricted subject offer.

That is relatively normal in my local area. When I went to school, there were 7 classes of 30 (organised as A-G) at my school. It never felt too big...

The closest secondary school to my home, where a lot of the children from my son's school go, has 10 classes per year group. That does seem very large but the site is vast and they have separate sections for each year group with socialising hubs etc.