Small primary school

[babyjames]

Please talk to me about your experiences of small (around 90+ pupils) primary schools.

My experience wasn't pleasant, although it was smaller than yours, approx 50.
It was just too small, too incestuous, for want of a better word, and I didn't like mixed year groups (I know they can be in larger schools too) There wasn't the opportunity to find a wider group of friends if there was someone you didn't get on with.

That is one of my concerns. DS may be offered a bursery / scholarship place at a local small Indie prep. I do like the idea of small class size for learning but I am concerned he would be lonely / friendships limited. DH feels it would give him a really good start but I'm not sure. We have ruled out our local Primary for a number of reasons so the other option we have is moving.

Have you had a look around the prep? What vibes do you get?
If you can supplement school with outside activities/friendships that might be a bonus.

We are looking round this week. We have looked at a number of State and Private schools over the last few months. I really liked the feel and ethos of one of the Independent Schools, but having now decided that we want a 2nd DC we couldn't afford to do it for both.

Our primary has 120 ish and imo is too small. Only 4 boys in ds yr group, and 5 girls in dd yr group.
Very limited sports and music opportunities. Mixed classes containing 3 yr groups.
I'm sure some small schools are excellent though, and as ever, you have to take each school on it's own merits.

Think what you would like your dc to experience at school, and send them to a school that can offer that.

Well hey, shit, move to an inner city area where the primary school has 420 kids
with 40% FSM
THEN complain FFS
this places is full of people wanting SMALLER schools and you are whining about it.
Get a life.
At least school is available to our children in the molly coddled west

My boys go to a village primary with about 120. Year groups are mixed, which means they are in the same class at the moment. This seems to be going OK, but I would not like to be their teacher!

Positives - there is a lot more mixing across year groups as they all play together in the playground. Class sizes are slightly smaller than the maximum.

Not-so-positives - there is a gender imbalance in both boys' year groups, with very few girls. Must be something in the water - but again this can't make the teacher's job any easier and might be tricky for the girls with friendships. I went to a similar school - there were five girls in my year, and the other four paired up, I was on my own.

No after school activities are offered, although they have started after school club this year, previously there wasn't one.

Boy 1 has had the same teacher for two years. This has been OK as she is a good teacher, but if she wasn't.....

thank you to those who have posted helpful responses. Didn't come on here for a bashing! Just want to make an informed choice on something I feel is important.

DD goes to a small primary school. There is still one class per year group, but the class sizes vary. There are between 90-100 children in the 7 years in total.

And it has been fantastic. DD loves it and is very attached to her school and her class mates. She is very close to the girls in her class, but also the girls in the whole school - she has friends in all the year groups and they all regularly play together and for some lessons classes may come together such as PE and orchestra. It definitely hasn't hampered her friendship circle - just that they aren't all just her age.

DD is now in Y5 so only has one year left, and she is a bit sad about that. It will be a wrench for her to leave as the school really is a proper community where everyone knows each other from staff to pupils. But she has had an amazing grounding ready for secondary school.

Ours wasn't great. We pulled DD out in Y2 - it was VERY limiting socially and just didn't work for her - she was very unhappy there. But other people LOVE that it's so small, so it's very dependent on the child..... Good luck making the decision.

90 is not small, 20-30 is. Plenty of those around here.

My children went to a small primary school, roughly the same size my daughter thrived and did very well there. Academically my son did well but his SEN wasn't acknowledge ...

We left a lovely indepedant school last summer because it was too small....60 pupils in all. DD was one of 5 girls and then 3 left...so she was one of only two in her year. Not enough girls to interact with made a huge difference in what otherwise was a great school.

Plus it worried me that we couldn't afford secondary at private and so she'd be going from a tiny indie to a massive state comp.

She's now well settled in a school with 200 pupils.

Check the financial circumstances, accounts from charities commission or companies house, those numbers may be too small to be viable in current climate, eg check a company website mentioned on another thread in here about small private schools. Offer of bursery can be a warning sign as not many private schools offer those at 4+.

Vino funny isn't it? We all loved the school...DD included but as she's so shy, it felt wrong to keep her there in a limiting environment...we felt that making friends and learning how to do so was major...she's not had it easy since starting her new school in Spetember but has made massive strides recently and is very happy...

Our local village (state) school is like this and everything I hear is very positive. Having said that, most of the children know each other before they get there - as do the parents. The local prep schools take the children that don't get a place and to be honest have similar, or larger. class sizes.

My main concern is that there are very few non-siblings in each year's intake, so, for example, in a class of 15 children only 2 or 3 will not already have an older sibling at the school. Not sure what impact this has on class dynamics or if that is an issue at the school the OP is looking at.

House that is almost exactly what happened to us - 14 in the class, 5 girls, 1 left......DD was just the odd one out with the remaining 3 others. She is now in a BIG school and has a lovely group of 5 or 6 others in her class and is so much happier. It has really taught me that you have to decide on the right school for your child rather than going for the "best school".

Dozer - It does ring a few alarm bells that they would offer a bursary so young. In the letter it said they are offering 5 as they are celebrating 100 years I think. I need to find out more information when we visit! The other school we would consider moving to be near by parents in laws has a 3 class intake so the other extreme!

Dozer a warning of what? We had a bursary...the school still gets very high academic results.

The academic results may well be good at a small school, but if pupil numbers are falling or too small to be sustainable, it won't matter.

Warning sign that school could close at short notice,at which point parents may well not have many state choices (assuming good state options oversubscribed).

Why is offering bursaries a sign of impending closure though?

INcidentally the one we left has been gong for over 100 years and has always been small...it's a Christian school....could they have funds from the church?

It won't always indicate problems houseonthecorner, but investigating finances always sensible just in case.

My DDs state school has varied between 120 and about 90 pupils in the time I've been associated with it.

My observation is that around 98 was the minimum that worked.

The problem is that although cross age group friendships do form children do like their main friends to be in their year group.

As others have said below a certain class size gender imbalances seem to occur and suddenly you'll have a class with only 3 or 4 of one sex.

Clearly any child that doesn't fit in that group is liable to leave and sadly other parents follow because the remaining DCs feel the lessons are biased to suit the majority.
We now have a single gender year in a mixed school which is far from ideal.

A small school with a balanced intake of 16+ a year is absolutely lovely. It may not offer the clubs and sports a larger one does, but the feeling of community compensates. Remember a school of 300 still only has on HT, but an awful lot more parents wanting to bend their ear.

DD1s enormous secondary works because they have a very clear pastoral care system and brilliant admin staff. I doubt all, but the largest primaries could afford this.

I wouldn't consider 90 a problem tbh. But schools differ and depends on what there finances are like (for independents) int he first place.

But you can check on the charities commission website and see the past accounts for independent schools. We did this and even though DD's school is a small school (90ish) it is very healthy financially. They aren't losing numbers either - infact they have increased a little in last two years, but it is the number they have pretty much worked around for a while.