That primary schools in Essex don’t have classes of 45 kids

[Dabralor]

Hello. Just read the most bizarre article in the Sunday times about a family - they pay 45 grand a year to fund their children through private school, supposedly to avoid them having to use the state sector where there are ‘often’ 45 children in a class. Surely this can’t be true? I’ve never heard of this is 25 years teaching primary, albeit not in Essex.

(For those concerned, the family can no longer afford gym membership, beauty treatments or more than one foreign holiday a year. And moving to Dubai is not an option.)

I'd guess not, I am concerned about the poor ones only having one foreign holiday a year though. How on earth are they surviving?

Would you even get 45 kids , 45 chairs and enough desk space in a classroom ?

It’s a sorry tale for sure.
I do genuinely feel sorry for them if they have made so many sacrifices on the basis of stats that are just obviously not true. However, I don’t know anything about Essex so maybe it is?!

The most I’ve ever taught was a class of 36. It was quite challenging.

I love the "real life" personal finance stories in the Sunday Times but the ones in the Telegraph are even more mental. They are fabulously tone deaf.

I'm torn between assuming they do it because one of the couple has an internet social media presence they are hoping to boost or they are entirely made up.

Private Eye has called out the Telegraph for making up some of them in the past - they've been forced to delete a couple when shamed about it enough.

@Octavia64 that does sound really hard. Where did you put them all?!
The most I’ve had was 32 and it was reception so they were free flowing a lot of the time.
But 45?! How can that be legal, health and safety/staff ratios wise?

I do wonder if it’s made up. Unfortunately my husband has spilled olive oil all over the article but it is suspicious that the names have been changed 🧐

I also doubt that kids are regularly being taught in classes of 45 in Essex. I know schools just over the border in East London and that isn't happening apart from perhaps the odd occasion where they do sports or drama as a two classes together but that is a specialist teacher accompanied by at least one specialist teaching assistant plus any usual SEND TSAs.
They did some massive floor mosaic art project as 2 class group with external specialist teacher. I assume the class teachers were doing prep time during it.

Maybe it's 1973 where they live as there were 42 kids in my class that year. It was a squash.

Our neighbour didn't send her child to the local school as she honestly believed it had 2 classes of 60 childrn per year.

It had 60 children over 2 classes per year. Actually often 25/26 or so. The "small" school she chose often went to 32/33 in Juniors.

Pressing all the right buttons here. NHS - check. Military family - check. Born on council estates and pulled selves up by boot straps - check.

I'm also not sure that sort of family has ever been able to afford private education for two children.
She is a "mum working in mental health for the NHS" and I am guessing she is not a doctor or they would have said that. So nurse/therapist perhaps.
He is a RAF engineer but it doesn't say officer/major/general etc.

They aren't really high earning jobs - I'm not saying they aren't worthy jobs but they aren't well paid.

A nurse and an non-senior officer military engineer have never been able to easily send children to a private school. The military may have paid in some circumstances if his career required him to be abroad or so on but outside that, they aren't really in the top 7pc of earners (only 7pc of kids go to private school).

I think DS1 (in Sussex) is in a class of 32. I've never known any other classes at his primary to get over 33 though and the infants are always 30 or less.

@MojoMoon it goes on to say that they forwent the opportunity to live on the base and therefore forfeited qualifying for the CEA grant. This was supposedly for her career.

oh well. Maybe they can take in some ironing, give up Netflix or make their own coffee at home.

Yeah they moved extra tables into the classroom. Fortunately it was a fairly big room. It was a reasonably well behaved class (hence it being loaded up with kids).

the homework marking took forever

They managed it in the 60s when I was at school 😉 theh also managed to get that amount of children proficient in reading writing and spelling at the age 7/8 as well

Back in the late 60's there were 48 of us in our class in junior school. 45 of us passed the11+. They broke the mould with Mr Kerr, he was a teacher in a million

It’s a typo for 35, the parents are exaggerating a more realistic number like 32 or the parents have mistaken an annual intake of 45 children to mean each class has 45 rather than it being mixed classes.

Well, if this isn't the consequences of their own actions then.

Failing to calculate the cost/benefit ratio of that decision is on them.

You can't live a champagne lifestyle on a lemonade budget.

I live on the Essex London boarder and my parents (who are teachers) and a lot of my childhood friend live in Essex and have primary aged kids. I don’t know anyone who’s kids are in classes of more than 30. In fact in my area we have the opposite problem and schools are struggling to fill the classes.

I live in rural Essex. Both my children had regular sized classes of around 25-30 in Primary school. I have not heard anything ever about classes of 45.

I've seen 35/36 proposed in mixed age classes. It didn't happen as a fair few people moved their DC to other local schools or the private sector.

My friend’s child is in year 4 (not in Essex) and is in a class of 43.

ETA - it was split into two classes until this year but was combined to one for this year due to staffing. Not sure if it will stay that way in years 5&6.

Our primary was built in the 90s and you definitely can't fit more than 35 in a non-reception classroom. They are really small.

We do have a 45 intake split into 2 classes. This year the birth rate was so low they took in 29 and only had one reception classroom.

Our local primary is two form entry and the classes are taught together and then split up through the day - the classes that are taught together are 60 kids altogether