Small village school with mixed age classes. What are the pros and cons?

[mishtake]

I went to a huge inner city primary so I cannot imagine being in a school with so few pupils that the whole school fits into just 2 classes.

This is what has been offered to my son when we relocate and I wondered what people's experiences/thoughts were on this kind of set up.

I am a little concerned because he is at quite a small school at the moment and finds being stuck with only a couple of playmates very dull.

Pros - everyone knows each other. No risk of being "just a face in the crowd". Teachers will be used to differentiating work for different abilities, and are more likely to tailor things for each child to at least some extent.

Cons - if you don't get on with a teacher, you could be stuck with them for a long time. Reduced number of potential friends, though they tend not to divide by age as they do in larger schools.

DS was in a similar school (thought 3 classes) and it worked very well for him, both academically and socially, but it does depend what your son is like!

Agree with AMumInScotland with additional:

Pros: children do mix with older and younger children so, for example, if a summer baby they won't always be the youngest in the class. This was great for my DS as although bright, he was very immature socially. He also disliked change so was quite happy to have the same teacher several years in a row, especially in KS1.

Cons: sometimes classes can be very unbalanced gender-wise and friendships can be limited. My DD ended up with just 2 other girls in her class, 1 of whom was a real queen bee and dominated the playground. Things got so bad we moved her to a larger school (single year groups) and she's thrived with a wider pool of children to chose from.

So swings and roundabouts really - depends on the child. Do you have any other options if it doesn't work?

I think it's definitely beneficial for summer-born children, for reasons mentioned by PP. I also think the integration between the years is really helpful, and means younger children trust and get on with older children who in return 'look after' them. I think it also puts less pressure on them academically, as all different levels are working in the same class, and the teachers have to accommodate that. Cons, like PP said, same teacher for v. long time sometimes, if you don't get on...??

Nothing further to add, DD only in reception year at present so we've only been at school a few months.

My 2 dc were first at a very small primary (29 kids, 2 classes) and then we relocated to one with 50 kids / 3 classes.
I have to say I am very much in favour as the teachers have a chance to really get to know the children and difficulties can be picked up quickly - and because the school is small tehy can be more flexible in how they support issues. (dd's dyslexia was picked up after about 2 months at school - and steps put in place to support her. THis has continued at teh new school)
Children are perfectly happy playing with diferent ages - and playing with different genders (never forget seeing P7 boys playing with P2 girls).
There is an issue with friendships as the "pool" is so much smaller - but I still think small is best!
Also, I was concerned as ds transferred to secondary after the summer and had to move from his tiny primary to a massive secondary. Both teh feeder primaries and the secondary schools have lots of measures in place to ensure kids transferring from small rural schools have a smooth transition - they had additional transition days etc and ds has had no problems transferring.

I think a couple of extra points are:

Transition to secondary school probably a bit more difficult/overwhelming. Depends on the school, obv, but even a small secondary is likely to have, say, 3 classes a year and a lot of people moving around/large area. That could be quite daunting.

Sports teams and games/music groups and choir (and to a certain extent plays/perfomances): these are always going to be dictated by the number of children available.

I think its a real horses for courses decision, tbh. One of my children, who has quite a, ahem, strong personalitty would loathe it - she needs to be diluted down by a larger number and wider range of children. My other child who is much more self contained would probably love it.

Academically each child is treated as an individual so is pushed to their abilities not their appropriate age average ability.

Its a large family and they tend to all know most of each others business, which as in any family has its advantages and disadvantages.

Teachers, in my experience, are more aware of each childs current home situation i.e. New baby, lambing so tired, job loss of parent etc and so can offer support.

More funding per child.

The key dissadvantages are if your child can't identify with others near their age/ ability.

Fewer team sports - not enough for a decent football/ rugby/ netball game.

Personality clash with a teacher or another child in effectively a confined space.

On balance i preffer a small school, i went to a large one, but as other posters i have seen a couple of cases where the children have been better in a bigger pool. (also vice versa)

My nieces went to a similar school for a few years

cons - too few children to play with. They were twins and only 1 other girl their age. Some sort of falling out/clash of personalities. Their mums advice was well stay away from x - school intervened and said they had to play otherwise x was left out. In a bigger school they would have played separately for a few days and all sorted out but it became a huge issue.

Check the requirements with record keeping etc for smaller schools. When they moved school took ages to release info to new school - some inference they hasn't needed to keep certain records due to the small size. Not sure if this is correct or just an excuse by the first school.

Would second everything said above - we have 60 children, 3 classes. Two summer born DDs seem to thrive and have lots of friends from other year groups and it has a genuinely lovely family feel. Lots of individual attention - there are friendship issues but the school has picked up on these and attempted to deal with them before I even noticed myself. The school does some activities with other schools to provide a larger pool for sport etc.

Another factor, which may not be relevant if you only have one son, is that siblings often end up in a class together, which can cause problems - though again our school is v.clued up about this, and takes steps to manage it.

One additional thing which perhaps hasn't been mentioned, however, is the financial precariousness of some (many?) small schools. Schools are funded on a per head basis, with various premiums. There is an infant class- size grant of £35k, for example, if you have more than 30 pupils in KS1. Our school is right on the boundary - some years we get it, some we don't. That's the difference between being able to keep a classroom assistant on and having to make them redundant, so staffing can be under strain. Also you get fluctuations in year group size, and these mean the budget can be under pressure - fewer children, less money - but you can't easily lose 1/10th of a teacher. So I'd quiz the head about the finances if I were you - but you probably won't get a very straightforward answer. We've gone down from 4 classes to 3 (last year), which in fairness to the school they did everything to manage well. But finances are still wobbly and I'd not be happy if we have to go down to 2 (because of the disruption, rather than anything necessarily wrong with 2).

ours go to a school of 60. It's like a big family - fantastically nurturing. Children aren't pigeonholed into ability sets or tables as differentiation is done on an individual basis. It's wonderful. :o

What about REALLY small? As in two classes, one with 13 children across three years. Is that just too restrictive for friendships? What about only children - does anyone find that their child finds it particularly hard?

Fantastic responses - thank you very much everyone.
Real food for thought.

I hadn't considered the issue of not having enough kids in the school for team sports - or the issue of funding.
My son is an only and he is finding life at his current school quite isolating because there are only a handful of boys in his class and he is not very keen on any of them! He also has sibling groups in his class which exacerbates the sense of being left out too.

As was mentioned upthread it all really boils down to the individual child and their circumstances. Although my son finds larger groups stressful I think he would probably prefer the sociability and scope of a larger school.
At least for now - we can always reconsider if he is unhappy.
Some of the schools in the area we are moving to are tiny - 33 children in the whole school from ages 4 - 11. It must be a real shock to the system when the kids move on to secondary school.

Although there are some schools who don't have enough children for a school team, many small schools have teams where anyone who wants to take part can do! So you don't have the problem of little "Fred" never being picked for the team because there are 25 "better" children in front of him. If "Fred" wants to play, he can do!

yes, mine have represented the school at cross-country running and country dancing despite being dire possibly only average talent-wise :o We look forward to when they're old enough for the football team - the team plays against other small schools in a local "small schools league" and it's pretty inclusive.

The only thing that would ring alarm bells for me was if it looked as though the school wasn't sustainable and was in danger of closing due to lack of numbers.

Yes there do appear to be a lot of schools amalgamating into academies. The smallest schools all appear to be CofE too.
I am expecting my son's current wildly physical play to manifest itself as sporting genius. He may of course loathe sport and not want to do it anyway!