Anyone with experience of junior school being expanded please..

[mckenzie]

Our local two form entry infants and junior school took a bulge class last September and will be doing the same this September.

Although the expansion hasn't been formerly approved yet I think it's fair to say it will be going ahead. The diggers are already digging up some of the field area to make way for a large all weather multi purpose play area!

Please can I hear from anyone with experience of this? What does expanding to a three form entry school do for the school and it's pupils that is positive? and what that is negative?

I have my own opinions but I appreciate that they may be (okay, will definitely be!) biased by knowing the school as it is now.

TIA

I sent my DC1 to a village school with 3 classes and 90 pupils (5-11). By the time we pulled DC4 out at the end of his Y2 just 6 years later it was a 10 class school, and they were thinking of expanding to 12 :( That expansion was so rapid it was a disaster.

In contrast, the school DC4 started in Y3 took 36 pupils in Y3 because they wanted to expand. It was handled very well, in conjunction with extra facilities, and was fabulous. The pupils got a brand new hall for assembly etc, new classrooms replaced the old portacabins- it was all good.

It really depends on the leadership of the school. In our case school A had a crap Head, and school B had a very strong one.

Agree that a lot will depend on the competence of the Head and the Governors. My youngest went to a 4 form intake Infants School, and is now at a 3 form intake Junior - and it works well. From the staff's point of view - more opportunities to share good practice, resources, ideas etc within a Year Group, which is obviously good for the kids. And where there are specialisms, they swap around - one teacher is very good at drama, for example, and will teach it across the year group. So there plenty of is scope for the quality of the teaching and learning to improve, but again, it depends on how it's managed.

thanks for the replies. How was it for your children while the work was all going on? When I asked my DD (year 1) what she'd done at the school the first day back after easter, which was also the first day that the diggers arrived to dig up the field, she said she'd looked out of the window all day watching the diggers .
Now I'm sure that didn't happen (teacher would not have allowed it plus DD herself would have been bored to tears) but I do wonder how disruptive it might be to the children's learning, having workmen on site, building noise, parts of the school out of use. I assume that a good teacher would be able to encompass some of the building work into lesson planning but will the children find the expansion work unsettling and emotionally disruptive I wonder?

Am I thinking about this too much perhaps?

Unfortunately I don't have much faith in our Head - I personally, rightly or wrongly, believe that she wants the expansion just for the personal kudos of being the Head of a three form entry school. And I can't blame her for that.

Or perhaps it's the only school in the area with the space to expand and she's been 'encouraged' by the LEA? It's a problem going on in many areas of the country, and that extra class of kids has to go somewhere.

The school has no real choice about whether or not to expand.

If they are really against it they can appeal to the schools adjudicator, but they'll probably loose.

So assume the school was forced to expand.

A 3 form entry has loads of advantages over a 2 form entry and I'd highly recommend it. They have more TAs to run interventions. More kids working at the same ability. More teachers to share the workload between. More after school clubs. More senior staff.

The building works will be disruptive. And again there is very little the school can do about it. Hopefully if it's started now by sep it'll be finished? Anyway it won't last forever.

And unless you actually have another school you can send your child to.....

We're in the process of expanding from one form to two form entry. We've already had a new Foundation building (lovely!) and building starts in July for another new building for Y5/6, a bigger hall, teaching kitchens, library and IT suite.
The changes are disruptive, AND exciting. Our builders last time were great - the building process was used in all sorts of ways by teachers, taking small groups of kids to talk to the builders, to look at various processes from a safe distance, etc. We had weekly reports for parents (helps with anxiety) and lots of opportunities for the whole school community to ask questions.
Expanding also means new staff, more complex relationships, different strategies...again, very exciting but also takes a while to settle down.
Totally agree that how its all managed is what counts - good communication, sensitive handling, forward thinking about practicalities (where do we eat while the canteen is being built? Where is the library going to go for a year? etc).
Also agree with Indigo - school probably doesn't have a choice.
Hope it goes well, OP!

thanks for the extra replies. You make it sound very exciting Elibean. I see that you are SW London - is your borough quite wealthy? Was there ever any question of the funding running dry? Do you know how long your building process will take from start to finish?

Indigo - we do have that option hence the dilemma. Luckily (or unluckily as the decision is terribly hard ) we do have the option of DD going to a different school.