Why are class sizes set at 30 (ish)?

[FiveFingeredFiend]

It's like it is a standard. 30 is ok

but OH my word if it is 33.

boastful mother " My Anna is in a class of 27, i was so relived"

I ask in relation to a market forces question Xenia asked. Teachers are relatively low paid she says becuase it is easy to become one.

So i wondered why they arn't paid more and we dont have two teachers per class, or why the standard isn't 15 per class.

Why that number? why 30?

Annas MUM relieved

Why are we not paid more? Because the government can get away with not paying us more. As the major employer there isn't much by way of market forces.

Many teachers are women. Jobs where women outnumber men are traditionally lower paid.

If you look at the logistics of 'running' a class you'd be hard pressed to cope with more than 30. Immagine 30 kids an a lab, for example. In scotland class sizes in science are set at (I think) 20.

I have taught classes of 30 and it is damned hard work. Particularly since you are expected to tailor your resources to suit each child's individual needs

Why not have smaller classes? because it would cost more.

imagine

coz it's the maximum number of kids one adult can have some sort of semblance of control over?

Not sure if Xenia's assumption that teachers are low paid because it is easy to become one, she's right, it is easy to become one, but it's also not valied much hence the low pay.

valued even

Not so sure about 'easy'

it takes a degree, followed by the PGCE year (or equivalent) which is quite demanding. You then have your NQT year before you have QTS.

So 5 years of study.

Not 'easy'

lol at smaller class sizes or two teachers per class, as if that would ever happen!!!!

At least, not while the wages are being paid by the government and they can get away with low pay and 30 kids per class.

Agree MB, not easy at all. Hmmmph.

I taught a class last year with 2 children with severe EBD, and three who had reading ages of 6 (they were 11-12 year olds). One Girl with EAL. many of the rest of the class had other SEN but were not quite as badly affected by their various problems. What support did I have in the class? None

martianbishop,I know, I was a teacher, but it's easier relative to say law or becoming a doctor, so maybe for graduates easy compared to some other options.

And yes, I know not everyone finds it easy, the drop out rate was high on my PGCE, but I found it easy, it was tiring, with long hours, but not academically taxing or anything.

I don't think quallifying as a teacher is easy at all. I think 30 is the Golden Number because it's the maximum the Education Dept can possibly get away with without general chaos and disorder. 3 extra five year olds is an awful lot of extra work from a teacher's point of view (I'm not a teacher BTW, but a School Governor and parent helper).

It is comprable with the time taken to train as an accountant.

Big difference in wages though!

Being a teacher is not easy though, and the pay should reflect this but it sadly doesn't. And there is very little support even though it is so stressful and emotionally draining.

I just meant becoming a teacher, getting the PGCE.

I found it accademically quite stimulating.

stimulating yes, hard and taxing no.

It's certainly not 'easy' becoming a teacher IME and the staying as a teacher iyswim is even harder. A fair number of students dropped out of my PGCE course who realised that it wasn't for them.Perhaps it was 'easy' for them to get on to the course but not so easy to stay the course, so to speak?

Yeah but I did find the ones who droped out where maybe not the brightest sparks to begin with anyway, so yes they did find it too hard.

For me personally, the PGCE wasn't hard academically, just full on.

Agree that staying a teacher is the hard part.

I found it 'hard' in so much as it was a lot of work. Not so much that I found things 'hard' to understand. Although reading Bruner is not something that I will willingly ever do again

lol yes agree that it was a lot of hard work, even more so with a newborn (he came early!!)and no partner (he'd been an arse and had to go) . No one minded me going to lectures with a baby though, and luckily I'd finished the teaching practice!

Those where the days!!

I started a PGCE course, but I didn't complete it. I found that I didn't like teaching. It looked a very easy job when I was observing, but the reality was that I suffered stage fright. I did manage to produce several reasonable lessons, but I hated standing up in front of 30 children. I found that teaching was very different to doing presentations in a previous job.

I think that a person has to have a certain X factor to be suited for teaching. It is unbelivably easy to get on a PGCE course provided that you have a reasonable degree. I think it would be interesting if potential PGCE students were interviewed by a panel of kids as well as the tutors. Maybe potential PGCE students should have to prove that they can act. Its really important that a teacher can project their personality.

Unfortunately many universities pick criteria that are easy to measure like degree classification or something completely pointless like insisting that an English teacher has GCSE science.

Its sad to think that my excellent physics teacher with her pass degree probably would not have been allowed to enter the teaching profession. I think its a mistake teacher education insitutions insisting on a 2.2 as a minimum qualification.

Teacher's pay isn't that bad compared to other similar graduate jobs. Its a vocation and prehaps its fairer to compare the pay rates to something like nursing or social work.

Climbing walls, I did mine when dd was 5 and ds 3, and dh was away at war for much of it!

So I know what you mean!

I think that teaching has little status because lots of people think they know what it means to be a teacher.

Just about everyone has been to school so they all know that all a teacher does is stand up and talk to the class (remember Claire Short trying that?). If only life were that easy

I think you just have be greatful your dd class is only 27. My dd on the other hand is in a mixed y1/y2 and their are 31 in total and a very part time assistant. Mostly just one teacher to 31 children.

Martianbishop...I went to school in Scotland, and class sizes were pretty much as they are here in England...about 30. I don't think that has changed since I left school, but I could be wrong

according to MIL, who used to teach in Scotland, science classes are limited to 20. But not other classes.

I will google.

MB that was certainly true at my Scottish school. The science labs all only seated 18 at a max. 6 benches of 3 seats.