Small class size

[Twinschool]

DTD's today had their settling in session for reception at the prep school they are due to start at in September. The year groups are supposed to be 20 per class but it transpires that there will only be 13 in their class. I'm worried that this will be too small and pretty claustrophobic for them. I only last week declined their state school places for a school which is massively in demand so we'd never get those places back. I'd be interested in other people's experiences of small class size and how their children have found it especially in relation to friendships.

Having worked in schools for over fourteen years, state and primary I would say 18-22 is ideal. Perhaps you need to find out why the class is small and whether the school is in trouble and likely to lose more pupils. What are the class sizes like in year 1 year 2?

Often parents get jittery if class sizes start to fall and start pulling their child out so that they can secure another school place.

Class sizes in the year above seem more like 18-20 but I can see that the nursery is also currently very under subscribed. There are 3 prep schools near by and whilst this one isn't the most glamorous it has the best academic results (we live in a grammar school area). I'm starting to feel twitchy and wondering if we've made a mistake.

Hmm-are you sure the school is solvent? I would be worried about a private school that had so many spare places at this time of the year, to be honest-sorry.

Also look at Y3 class sizes. Lots of people move their children for prep rather than start at pre-prep. Which boosts numbers. DS2 was in a class of 9 for YR, which became 12 by Y2, and is now 18 in Y3.

Will they be in the same class? that would be frowned on in state school. is the split of boys and girls equal? it's a bit late to change now and children thrive in all sorts of different educational settings so be positive I'm sure it will be fine xx

My current dc teacher says that 14 is her optimum class size (slightly less in dc's which I'm not delighted about) however for our three local preps that's actually quite a usual size, many have less (not in south).

Hope they enjoy

It might be the optimum class size for a teacher, but if the school is geared up for a class of 20 and has only 13 it's not the optimum size in terms of a business. That's the concern here.

Im near a town that had two private schools until very recently. In one, clas sizes started to fall dramatically in the infants. Not long after, it became a free school. Established long-serving staff left. Now it is ‘requires improvement’.

But yes how usual is it for this school to have so few pupils in those years?

Are they starting in reception (pre-prep) or Y3 (prep)?
Reception those numbers wouldn't bother me at all, Y3 I might start to wonder. Mine are in private and the numbers in the year groups steadily increase as you go up the school. Not many people seem to do private all the way through, a lot move at Y3, more move at y5 and 6.
Also as you say class rather than year group, are there multiple classes in the year? That also makes a difference. In my experience a small class within a bigger year group is ideal. My dd at the moment is in a class of 11 but there are more than one class in the year and they do a lot with different groupings across the year and also with the whole year together.

Bert

I don't worry really in my case, dc's school has been there almost 120 years and certainly isn't struggling. Year 5 went up to 17 last year and
Parents were kicking off then. They can't win.

Thanks for all your comments. It is pre-prep (reception) that they are going in to. Out of the 11 children there yesterday, 9 of them were girls. There is only one class per year group. Classes in the year above appear to be at 18-20 pupils.
The longer term financial stability of the school also concerns me if they are not taking in the income level to sustain the school although I worry I'm getting ahead of myself. For now I think we'll need to sit tight and see if the class sizes start increasing over the next couple of years.

Oh and just to add to this, yesterday was the first time they've ever done a settling in sessions for reception - in all previous years it has been mainly formed of children coming up from the nursery. There were 7 'new' children there including mine.

Parents who complain about 17 in a class are very silly!

However only 13 in YR, including the OPs twins mean there are only 11 others, would concern me. In my experience of little Preps is they start off fairly bouyant because they are cheaper in KS1 and have taken children who don’t get the state schools they want as well as parents who would never go state. I have also seen schools that add a class at Y3 and this can take children from other Preps that are not as good. My DD left a prep at Y3 and the numbers dwindled from 34 in YR to 6 in Y6. The prep she went to had 50 in each year group. 3 classes.

There are all sorts of reasons not to choose a tiny school if you value sport, a wider friendship group, drama and music. I think, OP, that patents have chosen state schools and decided not to pay. Obviously you were always happy for DTs to be in the same class but I think it will be claustrophobic for them developmentally regarding friendships and socialising. However, nothing else about the school has changed and you don’t have much choice now anyway as you probably turned down the better option which other parents have grabbed enthusiastically. And more would if they could.

You will just have to see how it goes and if the state school remains popular, I cannot see how you will ever get two children in. I might look for a better prep though which does have more children when they are older if other children don’t arrive. For Y3 definitely to get the sport, music, drama etc.

So where have the nursery children gone? Why haven’t they gone into YR? It seems they have decided not to continue there, but why?

Our school has a nursery of which less than half the children move up to reception. The nursery is cheap/the same compared to other nurseries but the school is expensive compared to free state schools! I don't think children attending nursery but not following on to reception is an issue at all.

The local state school is an outstanding small infant school which unfortunately feeds into a HUGE 'needs improvement' junior school located elsewhere. The irony is that we only put them in prep school from reception as I was concerned about getting 2 places in the same prep school at Y3 as I very much don't want them to go to the state junior school.

Dc pre prep used to offer the free hours.

There would be a percentage who would use kinder and reception because of all the excellent wrap around included too but had no intention of staying.