Question about school going over PAN for past few years

[RaisinHell]

Just interested to know a bit more about how this works as I am wondering about the implications in a few years time.

Basically our school is a small village school with a PAN of 20 and mixed year classes (though not reception which is always kept seperate)but for the past 3 years we have had 2-4 kids over, not necessarily on appeal either AFAIK I think the head has been happy to take extras.

Prior to the past 3 or 4 years the school has not taken it's full PAN of 20 and kids have left so higher up the school there are spare places. So I think this is why the school has taken extras into YR as the school is not full overall.

However what happens now when the current KS1, all with over full classes become KS2? It will throw the class mixing a bit as for example normally we have a Y5/Y6 class but with these numbers that would mean around 45 kids in that class which surely can't happen? And what happens if the school continues to accept over PAN?

I can't work out if the school is somehow trying to expand??

Thanks for any info, I find it a bit puzzling.

The first thing to say is that since last September any admissions to the school should have been by the LA admission office and nothing to do with the head. But before that date the ehad would have been responsibile and things might have happened.
The school should not be admitting abouve the 20 PAN without the express permission of the LA or by appeal but I accept that you are where you are.
With a separate reception class of low 20s, the year 1 and 2 pupils will number more than one infant class and so will be presumably a year1/2 class and a year2/3 class to ensure they meet the ICS regs.
What they do in the future is going to greatly depend on how many classrooms they have and how many school teachers they can afford to employ. My guess would be they are going to be pushing it to employ 5 teachers and it is likely that the head teacher will have a 50% teaching commitment. Can you tell me how many classrooms they have,as I could then work out what is the likely scenarios for class sizes.

Admission, thanks for responding :)

I'm sure all admissions have been by the LA but when there have been numbers over 20, the head AFAIK has been supportive and I know of 2 places in this current YR where siblings out of catchment were refused a place but subsequently were given a place without appeal, this intake is 24 IIRC, I don't know about the other 2 extras.

Yes we have Y1/2 Y2/3 classes etc.

School has 5 teachers and 5 classrooms. It always seems to have been 1 YR class of 20 ish and 4 mixed classes of up to 30 (140 is the max no. on roll officially) If the numbers keep increasing I can't see how it will work the same.

If you only have 5 classrooms then a PAN of 20 gives you a reception class of 20 and then four classes of 30 spread across years1 to 6.
The reality is that if you have 2 more in each year group then you are talking about 34 in each class, which does not sound to bad until you realise that as soon as you get more than 20 in either years 1 or year2, the school is breaking the infant class size regs for the class which is mixed year1 and 2. The mixed year2 /3 class would not break the infant class size egs because the majority of the pupils are actually year 3, which is not pertinent for the ICS Regs.
The only way to avoid this is by having a mixed reception / year 1 class which you say you have not, so are the school breaking the infant class size regs, presumably with the connivance of the LA who are letting these extra pupils in ?

Admission, thanks again. No at prsent ICS regs are not being broken. Been thinking about it a bit more, it will work for this coming year but for next year something will have to change IMO, like YR will have to take some Y1s which has not happened before.

Or the Y2/Y3 and Y3/Y4 classes will go to 34 ish, I don't know if that's allowed for the Y2/Y3 class as I would have thought it would still be classed as an infant class as there would be majority Y2 in it.

Is there a maximum size for junior classes?

What's an average size in a junior class?

I think one of the reasons lots of parents send their kids to our school is because of the small classes, but actually after YR it seems that it is the opposite!

After another couple of years assuming the school only takes 20 a year, it will actually be over it's max no. on roll figure due to the extras being taken for a few years recently.

I do wonder if the school is trying to expand.

There is no legal limit for the size of Junior classes.

I don't have any figures on average size but 32 or 33 is not uncommon.

In a year 2/3 class whether the infant class size regs is pertinent is dependant on whether the majority of the pupils are year2 (yes) or year3(no).
The same principle applies for nursery / reception classes, where the picture is further blurred by whether the staff of the nursery provision are qualified school teachers or not.

Interesting. I would guess the Y2/Y3 class would be majority Y2 but perhaps only slightly, I think they will come close to a 50:50 mix. Tbh if I was a parent of a Y2 child in this sitution I would like to think they were still being treated as infants and would be unhappy about a class size over 30.