What is the pupil teacher ratio supposed to be at KS1 in England?

[duffybeatmetoit]

Is there an official maximum ratio? Primary school in village teaches Reception and Years 1&2 together with 1 teacher and a part-time teaching assistant. The PAN for each year is 9. Is this an acceptable ratio or should/could they have less/more pupils?

Pretty sure KS1 limit is 30, duffy.

Yes its acceptable. 30/1 usually and I think your saying its 27/1.

I had entry refused because they said they didn't have enough staff to cope with an extra pupil. I thought it was 30:1 but was hoping for an official regulation to throw back at them.

The school can't exceed the PAN it is up to the LA to deal with admissions

The legal limit is 30 children with a single teacher. That covers Reception, Y1 and Y2. The teaching assistant doesn't count. That is the upper limit. There is no lower limit. One child with one teacher would be perfectly legal.

Throwing official regulations back at them is very unlikely to get you a place. If they have refused entry the only way for that to change is if you win an appeal. It is sometimes possible to get a place without an appeal if there has been a mistake but being below the class size limit would not count. If all three years are full up to PAN they are entitled to refuse admission for your child even if they are below the maximum class size.

If there are genuinely 27 children in these 3 years that will make an appeal easier to win. However, it may be that previous successful appeals mean there are actually 30 children in this class at the moment. If that is the case you will only get your child admitted if you can show that they have made a mistake and you should have been offered a place. If there are already 30 children in this class that would explain the comment about not having enough staff.

prh47 thanks for that info. We are in a difficult situation as I had asked for the LA to consider early entry for my DD (3.9) as she had been badly injured at her nursery and we no longer have any confidence in the setting. There is no alternative nursery/childminder within 8 miles and she suffers from travel sickness. Most of her preschool class have started at the school and we wanted to minimise the impact of all of this by keeping her with her friends. She is well ahead of her developmental milestones and shouldn't have a problem educationally or socially with Reception.

As taking a year's sabbatical to look after her is not an option for either DH or myself and wouldn't help with preparing her for Reception, I am struggling to know what to do for the best. As far as I can see these are my options:

1. Appeal against the decision and hope that she gets in.
2. Send her to distant nursery where she will have to make new friends and then split her up from these friends by sending her to village primary next September.
3. Send her to distant nursery and then to the primary school there next September to ensure some stability.
4. Return her to the old nursery who we are taking legal action against and who we have no confidence in but where she has a couple of friends left.

It's all so unfair on DD who has had to deal with all the trauma and will have ongoing health issues as a result. I had several school changes forced on me when I was not much older than DD and the last thing I want for her is to have to go through everything that comes with that.

I think it is highly unlikely that you would get the school to accept her early and actually I think you'd be mad to do it. She's three years old and will be in a class with 7 year olds! My dd2 has just started reception at 4.1 and to me still seems far to young to be there. In your position I would either send her to the nursery further away then move her to your local school next Sept, or get a nanny, or drop yours/Dh's working hours to look after her. You can't expect school to take her early to suit your childcare plans. I'm sorry about the problems she's had at nursery and can understand you not wanting to send her back there, but there are other options.

I'm afraid you have no hope as the school would need to employ extra staff for your daughter due to the ratios attached to her age. Sorry but it is a totally unrealistic idea

As taking a year's sabbatical to look after her is not an option for either DH or myself
basically you are looking at school as free child care!

I think your only option is no 2. That's if they have any space.
No 1 -you haven't really got a hope here.
No 3 - you might not get in the school-depends on their admissions policy.
No 4 - don't see how this is even an option. I wouldn't want a child in my setting whose parents were sueing us.

I'm [shocked] that anyone would think it's about saving money. My only concern is that there is some stability for her. If DH or I gave up work to look after her we wouldn't be able to afford the roof over our heads (not that it is in any way palatial) and I don't see how that would help. If it would help I would gladly give up work.

Clearly I am insane to want some stability in DD's life in the aftermath of a major trauma and should just send her anywhere. She's just a child so what does it matter right?

What happened at the nursery? We might be more understanding if we knew what she had been through.

I really don't think if she is only 3.9 that she will get into a reception class on appeal.

Is there childcare nearer your work you could use?

Nobody is suggesting you "just send her anywhere" just not to school! Apart from the legalities of having a 3 year old in a class, (and the pupil;teacher ratios are different for under 4's which is where the extra staffing would come in), the practicalities and sheer nonsense of having a 3 year old in a class with 7 year olds just doesn't bear thinking about-it is hardly fair on the rest of the children, is it? A mixed R/1/2 class isn't ideal at the best of times, not sure why you would think it a suitable environment for a 3 year old.

Isn't there a childminder or relative you could ask?

I was going to say 'childminder' before spaniel beat me to it!

Call your local Children's Services team to get a list of local minders.

As an under 4 (rather than as a reception aged child) the adult to child ratios required for your child are legally entirely different - you are talking 1 to 8 in day care or sessional day care (e.g. pre-school) and 1:10 in nursery classes in school. The school is not going to emply extra adults simply to accommodate an under-age child I'm afraid.

Your title thread is misleading. It implies your daughter is of KS1 age and she is not. EYFS and not even reception age. Why are you so keen to start her at school so early?

Apologies, I saw that you already mention that there is no childminder within 8 miles - are you absolutely sure about this? Even when I lived in a tiny rural village there were registered childminders within this radius. Can Children's Services advise?

"I had entry refused because they said they didn't have enough staff to cope with an extra pupil. I thought it was 30:1 but was hoping for an official regulation
to throw back at them."

I suspect you had entry refused because she is too young to be entering the school setting in the first place. You have no grounds for appeal because she is not of school age so they are not breaking any regulation by refusing her entry even if they had an empty reception class.

She is three. She is not ready for school no matter how advanced you think she is, "She
is well ahead of her developmental milestones and shouldn't have a problem educationally or socially with Reception." and aside from that you are not thinking this through in the long-term. If she enters reception at three (turning four in reception year) then you're looking at a child who will be entering ks2 at just six years old (turning seven that year) competing with children who will be seven/eight. In reception there is already a massive difference socially between the eldest who turn five at the beginning of the year and the youngest who are just four, to put a three year old into the mix would put her in a very bad position socially and tbh I think she would probably struggle to make friends among her peers who will be socially and emotionally far more ready than she will be (and that's taking into account the fact that the youngest are often emotionally not as ready as they could be due to the fact they are still so young).

And she will have to repeat a year due to the fact that no secondary school will take her that young.

This is not a solution.

then get her some travel sickness bands and find a childminder. I do not believe that you never travel further than 8 miles with her.
have to say I think you are being ridiculous and hope the school says no.

I don't think you are being ridiculous (although there is no way the school system will allow entry at a point based on parental need-too hard to assess), but I do think you are worrying too much.

Very few Reception classes take people all from the same nursery and, when they do, this doesn't mean they are all friends. When my son's nursery class of 24 'graduated' only three were going to the same school as any other member of the class. I know your setting is small, but your situation and worries are common to all families in which all carers are employed beyond the home, we simply cannot use the 'school-based' or 'local' nurseries which run on school time, and our kids and us are therefore less integrated into our 'local parent' communities. But the kids cope just fine.

Basically 2 and 3 on your list are not disastrous-they're just part of the situation that is different for employed and non-employed parents (and non-employed parents face other challenges). Find childcare where you can that you are happy with, apply to the school you feel best for your DD, she and they will handle her integration into her peers' networks. Stability is important, but is it really the huge problem you think it is at this age, and is it worth considering settings solely through that lens?

If your child were to be allowed to start reception (which I'm afraid won't happen as she isn't entitled to full time education until the September after her fourth birthday. The school would have to employ another teacher just for her to meet the legal ratios. Your initial question is misleading and the answers you received were based on the assumption your child was old enough to start school.

As she is 3.9 and not 4.9 the answer is the ratio is 1-13 rather than 1-30.

I'm afraid I'm with mrz. Given your daughter's age there is no way she will be admitted to Reception. You can appeal if you want but I think you will be wasting your time.

Personally I think option 2 is your best course of action. My two sons both went to nursery in a completely different town to their school. It didn't seem to be a problem for them at all. It seems like nursery friends were forgotten within minutes of starting school.

Honey The nursery owner's son and his mates were experimenting with explosives in the playground out of hours and left some behind which ignited when my DD stepped on them. The explosion put her in the regional burns unit for several days. Hopefully this explains my lack of confidence in the setting.

Early Years Services have been great at establishing available care within the area which is why we know there are no childminder/nursery places close by and were supportive of keeping her with her friends as far as possible. The intention was not to fast track her through school but to do 2 years in reception. Had we lived in Wales she would have started Reception this September so we didn't think she was too young to cope with school.

Coccyx we do travel distances with DD but she is prone to throwing up even over short distances so we have to medicate her when we travel (the seabands are a bit hit and miss) and we weren't keen to be medicating her everyday or risk her throwing up on the way to nursery on a regular basis which would upset her.

Our family all live over a hundred miles away and have commitments of their own. So we have few options, if she doesn't settle at the alternative nursery we will either have to travel further to find something or one of us will have to give up work and hope that in a year's time we'd be able to find employment again.

As I have said before our only concern was to provide some kind of stability for her as her world has been turned upside down by this but this is clearly an unrealistic expectation.

Had you lived in Wales she would not have started reception she would be in nursery class (if the school has a nursery) just as in England. At age 3.9 she could not start school in any UK country

mrz we had been given different information.