70 children in a class

[Beetroot]

Jim Knight coming up with this gem

Guardian

If he is saying that the class of 70 is taught by 4 teachers, why not have 4 classes!?

Utter arse.

So a handfull of disruptive kids would be able to deep 6 the education of 70 instead of 30!

Bag of wank

the class of 70 taught by 1 teacher and 3 teaching assistants not 4 teachers.

yesx teaching assistants not teachers!

What is the man on

70 children in a class = home ed here and no vote for him in the next election (he is our MP)

70 children in a class is lecture, not a lesson. By their nature lectures are very passive form of learning. (Ie. lots of note taking and little interaction with the teacher)

Loads of educational research shows that passive methods of teaching are less effective.

and also , how are the SEN of the 10-15 or so children that you could expect to be in a mixed ability class of this type be met? with the 3 TAs 'delevering' the lesson to the kids?

He is furthering the causes of private schools with all this nonsense.

There are 18 boys of above average ability in my 7 yo DS's class ...

He is a good reason why politicians should have no say in education

Ruth Kelly's first public comment when she got the Ed job was 'The most important thing in education is parental choice'

Oh, so not actually educating the kids then Ruth? Choice is more important than the actual buisness of education, is it?

Wankers all

I was so shocked by this report this morning I laughed out loud. It's just unbelievable isn't it? How an these people with so much power be so completely out of touch with the realities of life in the classroom teaching 22 hrs per week! ... Actually, sounds rather like SMT doesn't it?

It's because they spend so much time in the House of Commons where it's 370 children in the class.
None of them have learned anything in years!

I don't think that these people have the first idea of how much things have changed since they were in school. As it is low level disruption wastes a vast amount of Teacher/TA time and that has an obvious detrimental effect on the learning of the children.

Putting them in a class of 70 is only going to make things massively worse.

And is the teacher expected to differentiate for all these children? We are looking at mixed ability teaching (which doesn't really work in large classes anyway) now being rolled out to even larger classes.

But the people making these pronouncements haven't see a 'real' classroom (as opposed to the nice top sets that will be trotted out for their inspection) since adam was a small lad.

It makes me despair

lol...

I know what you mean. Ruth Kelly forgets that parents are not experts in education and often make silly choices.

Do patients have a 100% choice when they get anti biotics or is the decision to treat an infection with anti biotics made by a GP?

I was having a discussion with my husband whether its better to have infant school classes with 20 children and one teacher or a primary school class with 30 children, one teacher and 1 LSA? My husband felt that children should have small class with qualified teachers even if it meant less LSAs.

However I felt that the school should be allocated the money and allowed to make their own decisions about class size. I think there is too much whitehall control. Prehaps headteachers should control schools rather than politicans.

I'm not against parental choice per se, I was just astonished that she felt the most important issue was parental choice!

Not Funding or behaviour or standards of teaching and learning. Parental choice!

Because they could open out choice without spending money! But putting the rest to rights would have taken cash!

There are 8 children in each of my sister's twins' class (age 6) in the private sector. Although actually if everyone is very clever big classes are not that bad. It's when you mix abilities they are more of a problem.

The problem with big classes is that it is harder for teachers to ask the children questions. It is harder to assess understanding. This is the case even if the class are 100% well behaved. How can a politican tell whether learning is taking place unless there is some form of assessment. Just because a child is behaving themselves does not actually mean they are learning!

Japan and Korea have very large class sizes compared with the UK. Supposely they get better results than the UK. However it would interesting to know how the bottom 20% Japanese kids do compared with the bottom 20% british kids.

Also a lot of countries with large classes use the cane to force children to behave. Does labour really want a return to that?!?!?

My Dad, who taught in a further Education college (not school) has long been in favour of larger classes for some lessons and making them more like lectures. This would then free up another 1-2 teachers to do very small group tutorial classes.

Can't for a minute see how it could work for young children though.

8 is too small imo. I teach a class of 7 and it drives me mad - so much I cannot do.

I have found 18 - 20 is the optimum number in my disapline

pmsl at teaching 70 - they would have to build whole new schools

total twonk.

1. Why 4 teachers with one large class? WHy not 4 smaller classes.

2. Children, no matter how bright or attentive, need adult contact and attention.

3. What about sen kids?

4. What about differeniation?

5. Large classes could only work if all the children are able, at the same level and very well behaved.(And of course we all know hell would freeze over before that was ever likely.)
   idiot!!!!

I like a class of 20 beetroot. That way we can do group work etc. I don't even like sixth form classes of less than 12, if I'm honest

My ideal would be 20 with a TA, but that doesn't happen!

Just out of interest, why don't you like small classes? When I was in 6th form, two of my subjects had classes of 6, and I rather liked it.

You can't get them to discuss and debate as well IME, unless they are very bright and/or opinionated!

They find it hard to adapt to the semi 'tutorial' atmosphere. You are still the teacher, but suddenly you are in a tiny group and they can find working with you at such close range hard.

They are not really old enough (most of them) to deal with the sudden shit, but are too old to be treated as a 'class' and the small numbers tends to make it worse, for some kids.

I like around 12. you can still teach from the front,. but they Can bounce ideas round more easily.

The 'vibe' is there.....sorry if that sounds vague!

I love working with small groups.
I do literacy intervention with groups of 8. They are generally very weak ability, high proportion of SEN: in my last group I had 3 with statements!

Many of these children just get lost and overlooked in a regular class, and end up mucking about, or just doing nothing and getting away with it.

In these sessions they have to concentrate and engage because they can't hide. I make them work really hard, and they love it! They come to me for 3-4 weeks at a time (3 1hr lessons a week), and are constantly asking me when their next unit will start!

Having just 8 also means I have time to mark their work thoroughly and give individual feedback to them every lesson.

You need a reasonable sized group to bounce ideas off each other. I was in very small classes of A levels and that wasn't so good. The schools my daughters were at - Haberdashers,. North London they tended to have about 20 - 25 girls at primary level which I always thought was a good number.

My mother taught classes of 40 after WWII in very poor parts of Newcastle and she said they largely behaved simply because of the ethos then - they tended to do what they were told and if they didn't they were in trouble at home as well as school, although I'm sure she would have preferred smaller groups.