Huge preschool class

[Weakmocha]

Hi all

Does anyone have experience of really big preschool classes? DD will be 4 in September and we're thinking of sending her to the preschool of the school she'll be attending the next year. It gets good reviews from local parents, has great facilities, outstanding Ofsted etc but the 3+ room is one huge class of 65 kids 😯

Apparently it's quite structured (they break into small groups for maths and phonics sessions in the morning and afternoon) which stops it falling into complete chaos. DD will be one of the oldest in the year (I definitely wouldn't have sent her there last year at 3) and she's relatively confident and gregarious, so I think if anyone could cope with it she could, but it still makes me a bit nervous.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Is this 65 kids full time? Or 65 in total doing a variety of sessions across the week? At my school the nursery has 42 places, but the children can do full time, or either 5 mornings, 5 afternoons, Flexi 1 (Mon-Wed lunch) or Flexi 2 (Wed lunch to Fri), so there are never 42 children there at once.

I saw a nursery like this and decided against it because it just seemed really chaotic when I visited.

@EddieVedderSingsToMe they can have up to 65 in the class at one time. They have kind of side rooms off the main space, and split into groups for phonics and maths, but I'm not sure if it's always the same groups of children (so like separate classes) or not. That's actually something I'd like to check

How many adults do they have?

@crumblingschools in think it's 2 teachers and 3 TAs

65 makes sense as it’s a multiple of 13.

The school will be maximising income as it’s one class, they can have 1 qualified teacher and 4 tas/nursery nurses.

Much cheaper than for example having 3 classes of 20-25, each one needing 1 qualified teacher and a ta/nn.

For me this would be a hard no though. Imagine the noise and stress.

This is pretty standard for nursery round here.

Actually that can't be right as the ratio is 1 adult to 13 children. I'm sure I asked in the tour but I'll have to double check

Sounds similar to our nursery, although it was officially two classrooms, it was free flow from one to the other at free play times. They often took little groups off to do ‘tasks’ and then at the end of the day they broke into groups of 13 for phonics and story time. These groups were always the same groups as they all had a colour and key worker but the groups for the tasks during the day were mixed up (I assume ability groups but never specifically asked).

That would be exactly right for 13 kids per adult.

I have heard of places that do this.

They are within ratio.

I wouldn't like it as too many other kids for my child to build relationships.

I clearly flunked my 13 times table. That's is the right ratio 🙈

Depends on your child. I think school nursery already asks a lot of 3 and 4 year olds, adding in the sheer volume of children you’re talking about would probably have been a bit overwhelming for mine. We went for a one-form entry primary for Reception because the other options locally were 2 and 3 form with an element of them all being in together and I wasn’t convinced by the explanations I was given of how they make it work.

However lots of schools do this so it obviously does suit some children.

Have you been to look during an average day during free play time, it should give you a sense of noise and interaction etc?

@FawnFrenchieMum yeah we did, and it wasn't too bad tbh. The kids were mostly in defined areas doing something "purposeful" iyswim, with adults sitting with the ones at tables. It was very busy, but it was pissing it down with rain at the time so they were all inside.
If she was 3 I'd think it was definitely too big and too much structured learning, but she's only a few days off going to reception this year instead, which is why I'm considering it.

@Caravaggiouch the reception for this school is 4 forms! There are no options for less than 3 near us.

@Octavia64 yes it's the relationship aspect that is worrying me tbh. Friendships are very important to my daughter and I worry about how she'll establish a proper friendship group.

I've asked them to give me a call so I can establish whether it is a similar set up to @FawnFrenchieMum describes, as that sounds ok. But if they're all mixed in together I'll have to find somewhere I think.

*somewhere else

My DD quickly made a little friendship group that often picked activities together so wasn’t really an issue. They find what they like pretty quickly.

That's fucking horrific. No way would I advise anybody to send their child to somewhere with over 40 in a "class". I've worked in a couple and they fail a lot of children. It's about crowd control, so children are often unable to follow their interests far more than a smaller class. Even with children being sensible it's quite noisy meaning some quieter children are unable to communicate. It's the ones who quietly 'get on with things' that suffer the most as there's always an urgent priority for staff elsewhere.
I work in the baby room of an independent (private) school's nursery. The school would proudly say that Reception classes were limited to under 15 children, but the pre-school room had up to 45. It's been reduced now luckily, but there is the belief about that class sizes matter in schools but in nurseries it's irrelevant. The lack of respect that nursery care, staff, and children get is not great.

And an "Outstanding" ofsted grade is meaningless.