Is this even legal - 38 kids in a class ?

[Nclemonbaby]

My child just started at a new school and the grade above her (year 3) has 38 kids per class (our grade has 30). I thought the maximum was 30?

I know parents on similar incomes (average) who manage private - usually just one child and maybe not from reception to a-levels, typically prioritising secondary and saving in advance to make it possible.

2 salaries of £35k give annual take home pay of over £57k. Spending £15k on school fees (many fees are less than that) leaves £42k per year, plus child benefit. Many families would be able to survive on that. There are almost 1.5m stay at home parents. They could afford private school fees if they returned to work.

Take home £57,000 means no pension contribution. Assume £100 net a month each so £2,400 a year. Mortgage for family of 4 on average £1,200 a month. So we are now down to £40,000 a year. 2 kids at £15,000 (that's a very cheap private school round my way) and you're living on under £1,000 a month for food, bills, travel and utilities. Even one child and you'd have v v little to spare if things go wrong (car breaks, boiler goes).

No, it's not doable.

That's not uncommon in rural schools. Many schools wouldn't even have enough classrooms for separate classes for each year group, let alone teachers.

It is doable as many families manage it. Some people don’t realise the sacrifices that many families make for the sake of their child’s education. Not everyone in private school is awash with cash. A family on that income could be on a means tested bursary as well, which means they won’t be paying the full fees. There are plenty of families at private school on very average salaries.

@Another76543 not in any I've taught or worked in. Parents all seem to still be having holidays and managing to heat their homes.

It absolutely is not ridiculous and is the norm
here.

The schools are amazing, the able kids are stretched and it’s really inclusive. I wouldn’t send my DD to some massive multi form
factory for anything.

Fortunately almost all the schools in our county are small, with mixed age teaching. We are very lucky.

We don’t have enough classrooms
but they don’t need them, with an average of 8 kids per cohort 3 classes is plenty. Most of the schools in our area have far less than 100 kids 4-11 with 3-4 classes each.

But they are all part of a trust and do sports tournaments, spelling bees etc together. So they are both small but well supported and resourced.

It’s not unusual for 20% of a school to be on means tested bursaries. There are families who don’t go on holiday, or perhaps go camping for a few days. I don’t know why people are so keen to deny that average families use private school.

Or have only 1 kid and a mortgage well below £1200.

Just to add, when I spoke to the new joiners, a lot were ex private but the parents were from average families working even 2-3 jobs to support but it got to the point where they really can’t afford it with the upcoming vat and no bursary at primary. And now we are the ones that have to suffer massive class sizes from this VAT policy.

Also speaking to a few parents, they have now scaled down their working hours since they no longer have to pay the fee - surely this reduces tax revenue for the state in a different way also and productivity.

The IFS says that over 40% of two-parent, one-child households have after-tax incomes of £42,000 or less, and 10% of two-parent, two-child households have after-tax incomes of £27,000 or less. I'm not saying that it's comfortable, or that I would necessarily make those tradeoffs, but a significant part of the population manages to (just about) get by on those amounts for housing and living expenses. And some people think it's worth trading off savings (pension contributions) when they have young families and plan hope to make it up later.

Unfortunately this was always going to happen. The wealthier families will carry on as they are (many have pre-paid fees to avoid the VAT anyway). The ones who suffer are the aspirational families who can’t afford the fees with the VAT. It makes private schools even more elite, the educational gap even wider, and those in the state system end up with bigger classes. No one wins with the policy.

In your position, I would definitely contact your MP to raise your concerns. The government needs to find ways of improving the state sector, not making it worse.

Also speaking to a few parents, they have now scaled down their working hours since they no longer have to pay the fee - surely this reduces tax revenue for the state in a different way also and productivity.

That slightly surprises me because I'd assume they'd be saving hard for private secondary or planning house moves to best catchment areas of state schools.

I could see with older kids when private secondary is completely out or they opt for state sixth forms parents would scale back - but they have 4 years to save hard to afford private secondary or buy in better catchment but they aren't bothering seems odd.

Most private school kids - not all - will do fine in state sector because their parents will get them into good schools and top up with extras. However it will do nothing to deal with state inequalities that exits - and super wealth will merrily carry on.

If there any scope for moving kids in other schools in region may find that happens or some families just moving out the area entirely - may whittle down slightly as parents realise it's not great having such a huge class.

It's uncomfortable, but it happens, especially when a child has SEN or was having difficulties at mainstream.

There are families who have paused pension contributions whilst their child is at private school and, yes, they have very little cushioning to fall back on when something goes wrong.

Taking mortgage as an "average" figure is misleading imo, as housing costs vary wildly across the country.

Our mortgage is under £600 a month.

We are average earners and I worked out we could afford private school for our daughter without making any massive cutbacks to our standard of living, but we don't feel it's worth it at present. We might revisit it when she gets to secondary school. For 2 children, we'd have to sacrifice a lot.

@Idontlikeyou You are being very rude about larger schools. I know none that are “factories”. Dc are respected and taught well by many teachers who collaborate and support each other. My DC had the opportunity, without travelling, to take part in a school orchestra, sports teams and other clubs. They had a wide choice of friends. Just 8 in a year would have been suffocating, I don’t want 38 in a class but 30 is fine with a good teacher and a good SLT. Small schools have nowhere to go if a teacher is poor. Dc just suffer. As dc get older they need wider social interaction and better prep for secondary school. Tiny schools csn struggle to deliver this.

I have never seen KS1 and 2 mixed up. I’m also of the opinion that very small schools should federate. In my LA we have 2 village schools where one is the infant and the other is the junior. This is a better scenario I think. Tiny schools are very expensive to run and certainly a well run larger school gives many more opportunities.

I haven't read all of the comments by Idontlikeyou, so I'm not sure if they were rude, but I do know that large schools don't suit everyone.

DD is at a tiny village school, she has 17 in her class, but she still tells me she feels overwhelmed and misses the much smaller ratio of children to adults she had at preschool and nursery, even though her teachers tell us that she's doing very well socially and emotionally.

My SD was stuck in a class of 34 mixed Y3/4s with undiagnosed ADHD, it almost broke her. Aside from having headlice approximately 200 times that year, she went from happy and positive about school in Y2 to saying she was dumb, stupid, bad, the teachers hated her (I'm sure they didn't, they were just overwhelmed), she hated reading, she hated writing, everything was boring. She frequently got stuck on her work and then couldn't get the teacher's attention for help so just sat there and then got kept in for break when the teacher realised she'd done no work.

I would have withdrawn her and found a different school if it had been my choice.

I wasn’t rude, but the person calling our school system ridiculous WAS rude.

In our local authority almost ALL the schools are small village schools, that is the only sort we have with exception of a couple in the 2 small market towns, which are still not large by urban standards (but are one form entry type rather than mixed). Our secondary schools are also not huge either, we only have 3 in the county.

You may only have 2 small schools in a LA, that’s an entirely different set up to here (and is also why our house prices and council tax are so high). It’s very sought after - Rutland.

Our school has just had to admit 12 children across different years into classes already with more than 30 children. I don’t know where these children are from. There is a local independent school which I know have lost children due to VAT but I don’t know for sure it’s these children.

Yep that's my experience too. I think the PP who is aghast at mixed year classes has no experience of them.

@Idontlikeyou Im in a fairly rural LA in its northern section. However the village schools are not all tiny. Urban schools are not all large either. However many offer far more in terms of enrichment and a broad education. The teachers are skilled in checking which dc are working and who needs help and dc are working in pairs or small groups. They should never just sit there. Most schools I know could never afford 17 in a class and be viable. Rutland must be a very wealthy LA when compared to us.

I was referring to saying a school was a factory. This is unfair and untrue and rude to those staff who set out to make bigger schools great. Many of them are. I’m not a teacher by the way but small can be very retinal to some dc especially if there’s an imbalance regarding gender.

"Rude"? Stating an opinion is not rude unless you are 9. I also would never want DC in a multi-form entry infants school or a school with 30 in a class. Small class sizes and everyone knowing each other is one of the big advantages of rural schools. And closing down village schools that children can walk to and know everyone there and instead bussing them miles to some fenced-in school with hundreds of kids in a dodgy town is inhumane at that age. It's bad enough when they have to do that at secondary.

I find this response far ruder than that which you replied to. You have no experience of small, rural schools and yet you are criticising them. I've taught in large and tiny schools and the latter is far more challenging (and equally more rewarding) - generally teachers in small schools are incredibly dedicated. The working conditions are so much worse, frankly, so teachers really do do it for the love of the school.

My child attends an infant school with a separate juniors but that model simply wouldn't work in very rural areas with these tiny schools - logistically you can't have the infant and juniors several miles away from each other on unwalkable roads.

I do actually. In my former job I had a lot. Whatever you think, you cannot offer the music, drama, and sports in tiny schools. Many small schools cannot, financially, survive on 8 entering a school and classes of 17. Rutland has hardly any schools and it runs as an academy trust. So it’s not a LA. Each to their own but schools with 90 or 120 pan are not factories and should not be described as such. Heads in these schools know all the children, will often do some teaching and have fantastic teaching resources. You might prefer small but you haven’t looked at a lot of larger schools either! You only experienced one.