Class size in prep schools

[JoJoSM2]

I'm just in the process of looking at a few prep schools and wanted to compare notes with parents from other areas. How big do classes tend to be n your prep schools?

My kids prep school has a max of 16 children per class

I'd be very wary of very small schools (less than 10 per year) as not only do you limit friendship numbers it also means the school is usually in a more precarious financial situation. My nephew's school was similar and shut without warning.

SchoolPanic, we’ve been busy on Companies House.

The main thing is to decide if you want transfer at 11 or 13. They are different markets. Class size from 16-22 really makes little difference with a great teacher. Too small is stifling and doesn’t help with social development. Look for all round activities. You never know what DC night be good at.

I have heard that many highly selective have quite large class sizes, as the kids are all at the same (high) academic level and can cope with the fast-paced curriculum.

The evidence supporting small classes is quite weak. It seems to make a difference mainly for kids under about 8. Even with, say, 15 kids in a class, any given individual child still isn't going to be getting much individual attention (a couple of minutes over the course of a lesson, perhaps?), and the attention they will be getting may not be very good quality because the teacher is probably continually distracted by the demands of other pupils. If I wanted a child to have more individual attention for their academic learning, I think it's more efficient to just pay for private tutoring in particular areas, rather than pay huge amounts for a private school offering small class sizes in every subject. That's not to say that private schools may not be worth it for other reasons, but I wouldn't pay private school fees solely on the grounds of small class sizes.

"highly selective prep schools", that should read.

22 in 2 different peeps. Whilst a tiny class might be nice in KS1, by year 4 I don’t think that less than 18-20 is big enough especially if the school is co-Ed or has more than one class per year group. 10-15 is just too small for a co-Ed year 4-6

Those who see saying 15 to 25 doesn't make any difference though, has your child experienced it? My children (very different and both senior school) moved from classes of 20-25 to 10 and it has made a huge difference. They are both bright.

Differences they quoted

Less disruption
More time for individual children to express views in class discussions
Less noise overall
Teacher being able to wall around and check individual work during a lesson
More individual feedback

They both loved the small classes so that's good enough for me.

The evidence shows that there is significant benefit (as far as can be assessed, given the number of confounders) for class sizes 20 compared to larger, but that the benefit does not continue to increase by going lower than that.

That's why I said in my earlier posts that, assuming it'll never be more than 20, the other factors (social, like number of potential friends and ability to get away from (temporary, one hopes) enemies) can really matter. Smaller than about 14-16 both those get harder.