Do schools actually want more pupils?

[neepsandtatties]

irSorry for my ignorance, but does the amount of money a primary school gets depend on the actual number of pupils, or is it determined by the number of classes?

We're moving areas and our DS is due to start reception in September. We're visiting two schools in a couple of weeks who both currently have, and expect to still have, a good number of spaces for September. I was just wondering how much the headteachers will want my DS to attend - do I need to prepare myself for the hard sell (if they get paid per pupil) or might they actually prefer to maintain a smaller (undersubscribed) class size which might translate into better behavoir/teaching/results for their next ofsted?

Funding is per capita - ie per head.

As I have always worked in inner London, I have no experience of HTs doing a hard sell to get a child into a reception class, but I know they do at Secondary and in the 6th form.

Yes please!

DDs primary desperately does. Apart from money which clearly they need, because school doesn't magically take less money to heat or clean just because there are less children. The teachers don't take a pay cut if they have 25 in a class not 31. The TAs do because their hours get cut.

The school runs mixed age group classes and this inevitably means wide ability ranges within groups, reducing support for the teachers and pupils is not ideal.

Sadly it's a vicious circle, parents worry whether their children are getting an age/ ability appropriate education (despite dedicated teachers doing IMO a really good job because they are of course acutely aware of the problem). One or two leave, classes get smaller.

Year groups of perhaps 9 or less seem to be very unstable. We have had classes which have become single sex over night because one or two children leave for good reason and then the single remaining girl or boy leaves because they feel uncomfortable.

Thanks! Startail that is such a shame with your DD's school

On a related point, one of the schools has a PAN of 75. The secretary told me they currently have 66 children who have been offered places so think they will have three (small) classes this year, but if numbers fall below 60 once parents confirm/reject their places (next week) they would just have two classes. In that second scenario, if they had exactly 60 children confirmed, would that mean that the LEA would close the admissions to that school, so we couldn't get a place for DS?

It depends on the number of pupils (full time I think) on a particular day in (again I think) January. So they should be happy to take your dc after Christmas anyway

Funding is complicated and each Local Authority has their own way of splitting up the funding they get from central government.
Essentially a minority of the funding is based around set amounts of cash for each school, the majority is based on the number of pupils on a set date in January.
There has been recent big announcements about funding. Many LA schemes are very complicated and the DfE is now saying that the funding will be much more simple and much more based on pupil numbers, LAs have to change their funding formula to start to meet the new regulations from April 2013.
Regarding the 75 PAN school, in a normal school admission year (reception) the school has to accept pupils up to the 75 admission number. If they only have 60 then they can run two classes but if they have 61 they have to have three classes or an extra teacher in a class of 31. They cannot refuse to take the pupil. However as soon as the normal admission round has finished (september) then there are some circumstances where the LA could say the school cannot take any more children if they were only at 60.

thanks admission.

So that means if by next week, the headteacher has heard that only 60 children have confirmed their places, they won't be busting a gut to get me to apply for their school (and in fact might subtlety try to discourage me)?

If they have space in the year they are obliged to tae pupils who apply, AFAIK.

That was my experience as a governor of an infant school anyway. An in-year application made a situation wrt class numbers rather complicated (one child had to work in Yr1 as the yr 2 classes were both 30) but as we were below PAN (80 in a year) in that year we had to take the pupils.

Hah! I see from yr later post OP that the situation I described has resonance for you possibly, a similar situation.

In Wales, I believe it takes 27 children to maintain the salary of an experienced teacher. Fewer than that in too many classes and you face a redundancy and restructuring to make mixed age classes.