Rural primaries - size

[Stumbleine]

Hello, I'm posting on here in the hopes of some advice please
We are an English family in the process of relocating to a rural area of the Republic. There are two schools near to the house we are buying. One is tiny (13 enrolled I think) and the other is larger (more than 100).

I have visited both schools with the dc and thought they were both great! However, I think we all came away from the smaller one with a lovely feeling, and my eldest seemed particularly taken with it. I have to say - the kids seem so friendly and confident!

I realise that there are both upsides and downsides to such a small school environment generally, but there might be other considerations which are Irish system specific that I'm unaware of.

I'd be very grateful for any tips/thoughts please.

Not in Ireland but we are very rural and have similar size school choices. I went with the bigger one, mainly from a social point of view - I have a v sensitive DD who needed to be around more kids to sharpen her social skills. And my thinking was there is more choice of friends at the bigger one too. Go with your instinct though and where you think would suit your DC best

Based off my experience having a similar situation in my village growing up.......

I'd be inclined to pick the 100+ pupil school, which is still relatively small. How many people will be in your child's class? You don't want them to be the only one in a particular class. They will be mixed in with different ages and abilities so at times may be doing work aimed at younger or older students, or may be given directed learning on their own while the teacher gives work to the others. Moving on to secondary school which are usually bigger in numbers will be more difficult coming from a smaller school.

Edited to add...if you go with the smaller school, I would suggest registering them to play with the local GAA team to broaden their friendship group and get to know people in the area 😃

My daughter goes to a small 24 pupil school which we chose over a. Couple of 50+ pupil options. 4 yrs in I don’t see any downsides, she’s very well socialised with kids of all ages, they all play together and so she is confident around older kids and always thoughtful and caring around younger ones.

We also share teacher support hours with another local school but even so, have more hrs than children requiring them which means that children not yet diagnosed or those just struggling with a particular area can benefit from extra support without having to compete for a slot with the resource teacher.

Mine went to a tiny infant school - it was lovely. All the years played together and they still look out for each other now they are in junior school. They have a lot of self confidence and ability to get involved and also to ask questions because they have been given the space and attention they need at a young age to develop themselves. I have no regrets. They are quite social out of school but it’s rare that children in the small school don’t get on - there are so few of them I think they have learnt their social skills more quickly or they would not have any friends. Equally they have had no problem making new friends out of school and when moving to the bigger school. Where kids really haven’t got on, it’s been a problem - usually a case of two neurodivergent children coming against each other. This hasn’t been any better in the much bigger junior school though.

i honestly don’t know how I’d feel about continuing at a small school through the junior years. I have a friend in this situation with one sen child and one neuro typical - both seem to have thrived. Academically I think it would be good, might be harder with friendships as hormones start to play a role, I’d look at what other support the school puts into place for diversity of learning as their budget will be very tight and I think this impacts more as they get older.

You do seem to get more sen children at smaller schools - this might be another reason they are good with other children as they learn to manage different behaviours. One of mine is sen, I don’t think the smaller school necessarily was better academically for them but it gave them interpersonal skills which are helping their learning journey at junior school.

Thank you so much for these replies, it's really helpful to hear people's own experiences.

We moved back relatively recently and had the choice of a small country school with 35 kids or the village school which is quite large for a rural primary with over 300.

You don’t say the age of your kids (I think), but we went with the larger school because we wanted to give our kids as much opportunity to make friends as possible, and especially as they were joining part way through school and it was a similar size school to the one they were leaving so less of a culture shock - in theory anyway!
They have thrived. Both are ND and we have been very lucky with great teachers, they recently got funding for an autism classroom since we joined and they have good facilities. Like you said there are pros and cons to both. Good luck.

We would have had a very similar choice in our village and went with the larger school. It was probably the right choice in terms of the variety of people, experiences and most importantly teachers they would have had. I think 4 years (possibly more) is simply far too long to have the same teacher. Great if the chemistry is right, torture if it isn't. The slightly larger classes - still only between 10 and 15, though combined with the class above or below - allowed some choice and opportunity to move around friendship groups and learn to get along with different people. My sons equivalents who went to the other school are actually a fabulous group but there unusually, there happened to be 6 in their year, my daughter would only have had one classmate who happened to be a boy.

On the wider point of moving from another country and already being 'outsiders' as such, Id be inclined to make the choice that will integrate your children into the community the most. That is likely to be the larger school. But these things are very individual!