4 kids in the year (but 8 in the class), too small?

[1ittleb0yb1ue]

Hi,

I’m considering sending my daughter to a school that begins in year 3, where they accept only 4 girls a year (it’s a single sex school), but they do blended years until year 9 (i think, either that or year 7) - so it totals 8 per class until then.

It’s an all through school. Super friendly, very calm and cosy. I love everything about it, including the class sizes, but I wonder if that’s just because I personally hated big classes.

Opinions?

Sounds horrendous to me. Guess it depends on personality though. It would not have prepared me for the real world

Too small. One of the preps I looked at for my son had 10 in the year, 6 of them girls. They couldn't play any team sports, barely had enough for a choir and friendship groups were far too limiting. Another friend of mine pulled her DD out of a school with 8 in a class because of cliquey/bullying issues which are very hard to solve in such a small intake, even if the school are good at dealing with issues.....

I wouldnt like it myself. Only 7 potential friends - what if you don't get on with them, or have nothing in common. If there's a bully in the class, much harder to avoid them and no chance to move to a different class if you're not a good fit.

I wouldn't. I read an article a few years back that suggested 17 the perfect class size.

At DDs last school there was a year group of 7. Largest year group 21. Plus side... There was a lot of cross year friendships and working, for example my DD1 in Yr 1 did PE mixed with Yr6. Yr6 developed their leadership skills while the younger kids learnt from the older ones. The downside was it was very claustrophobic- this was all the kids in the area, so they did all the extra curricular stuff together as well.

The secondary school had 30-40 per year but could only offer limited options.

Wow that's unusual as a deliberate ethos.

I'd say that 4 in the year is definitely too small, even with classes of 8. It's also difficult to understand the theory behind combined year group classes of 8 rather than either admitting 8 per year or mixing across perhaps 3 years but with more teachers for breakout groups and fluid groupings of children ready to learn the same things...

On the friendship group others have mentioned there aren't enough options in such small groups.

If it's an all through school does this seriously limit subject choices? Do the children have any choice at all? What if one child excels at languages and wants to take three, and another hates languages but excels at maths, physics, chemistry and technical drawing?

I'd say 12-16 is the absolute optimum class size (former teacher - I've taught at state schools with classes of 30, a tiny parent initiative school with only 14 children aged 6-11, and also adults in all sorts of group sizes. There comes a point when classes are too small, all sorts of teaching methods work less well with less than about ten in the class).

I would send my child to a small school with mixed age classes, but I'd want classes of 15-20 children, so two intakes of 8-10 children. I wouldn't want a smaller intake or class size than that.

Stifling.

Far too small, we had problems with 15 in a year mixed sex (7 girls), too cliquey, lots of bullying.

Also is it even properly registered, seems too small to be viable, are the teachers qualified?

Of course it’s too small! No teams, no plays, no friendship pool, no academic sounding boards- it would be awful.

Personally, I wouldn’t. I attended a primary school with 8 in my year group but mixed classes, and it set me up with problems that affected me later in life. Part of this was down to the rest of the year all living in the village the school was in and me living in the next down along which made me feel excluded and left me with a deep rooted feeling of constantly being on the outside/edge of a group (I uncovered this in counselling later in life because something I’ve always struggled with was feeling as though I had lots of people in my life but always felt on the outside of friendship groups, no matter how involved in them I was).

As we got older friendship dramas proved difficult- if anyone fell out with one person, they fell out with the whole year as we were all one group rather than in a larger peer group where there are multiple friendship groups. It also impacted my self esteem hugely- I was slightly tall for my age and as I was a gymnast I had broad shoulders and was quite broadly built, there were no other girls who looked like me and this was something I became painfully aware of around age 9-11. In a larger cohort there is a broader range of body types so less feelings of looking abnormal, and It shocked me when I got to secondary school and realised I really wasn’t bigger than average- the other girls in my year at primary were all much much smaller than average which made me feel huge as I had no one else to compare myself to.

Academically however it served me very well as smaller classes meant the teacher was able to properly focus on everyone’s ability and help them improve. I started secondary school with a very advanced level of education compared to my peers and this was definitely down to attending such a small primary school. But the social impact of attending such a small school stayed with me long into my adult life so it really wouldn’t be something I would want for my child.

I appreciate that my view of it might not be the norm and my bad experience has probably tainted what might be great for a lot of children. If you do choose this school I can’t stress enough the importance of making sure your DC attends a few extra curricular clubs so that they get experience of meeting a more diverse range of other children and are able to form friendships in larger groups because this is very important for creating the building blocks of navigating through society and isn’t something kids get in small schools where they spend every day with the same 5 people for years.

Such a small year group could also mean your child is an academic outlyer. Our children went to the village school - only 17 in DD's year and only 1 child on her 'level'. Same for DS only 13 kids in his year and only 1 other on his level. Too small socially etc. We moved. Them age 8 to a prep school with min 12 in a year but average child was more academic and more emphasis on choir, sports team etc.

I really wouldn't. A child I know went to the local village primary with half size class intakes. 6 girls in her year when she started. Exodus in year 3 and 4 for various reasons, but some of which were to do with the friendship pool being too small. In year 5 she's now the only girl in her year... and has no real clue of the skills girls learn by this age to negotiate friendship issues as she's had no opportunity to practice. What is cute and nurturing at 7 and below can be utterley stifling a couple of years later.

Sounds rather restrictive. Ime girls from about 8 up tend to focus on those sharing interests and can be pretty mean to those who do not. What about group activities such as sport, choir, drama?

The relationship between class size and educational outcomes isn't linear, it's a bell curve. Smaller isn't better. The optimum is somewhere between 15-22 per class.

I wouldn't, for all the reasons previously mentioned.

If she doesn't particularly like any of the other girls, she's going to hate the place.
Socially it's a terrible idea. One of my friends sent her son to a similar place. Eight in the class, three boys, and he didn't like either of the other two.

A year later the place closed down with about two weeks' notice, leaving the parents scrabbling for a school for their kids. These places are rarely sustainable.

Part of school life is learning to socialize. So unless you have a great reason to send her there, I wouldn't even consider.

DD is in Reception at a small village school; year intake is around 8 per year; just under 50 children in total in the school. R, Y1 & Y2 are in one class & Yr3, 4, 5 & 6 are in another class.
Extracurricular stuff, sports etc actually means all children get to participate to make up enough for a team regardless of ability, so no children dominate particular sports, drama etc everyone gets to try. In the recent nativity every child had a role - no trees, grass etc.
Friendships operate across year groups, the school offers more opportunities to do Forest school, swimming etc than other local larger schools.

It really depends on the child & the school.