Should I send my kids to a small school(21 pupils) or the bigger school(60 pupils)?

[RomyMadison]

Thanks for reading this first of all. :)
I have an option of sending my kids to one of two schools, one within walking distance which is the smaller school - what are the benefits and negatives of a very small school? And the other is a drive but it's larger - And again with the larger school which is still quite small - I'm thinking in terms of social life and school funding would be a major difference. If you have any experience with large schools or small schools I'd love to hear your experiences.

We were in the same position, and chose the larger school. It got even bigger! A very popular school the local authority expanded the school from 2 form entry to 4 form entry this year (son is in Y2) but splitting it into infants and juniors. Can't really complain as got a brand new school for the infants.

I felt totally overwhelmed by the size of the larger school. But other half went to a big primary and put this as a plus, saying it makes the transition to secondary much easier.

It is a well managed school, and I never felt like my child was lost. As you say there are advantages. It had extras that the small school didn't offer, like instrument lessons in class time, and after school activities.

In his reception year, his class had more challenging pupils than other classes, and somehow managed to be three quarters boys to a quarter girls. It was a tough year for the teacher! But the school took the decision to mix the classes up for year 1, to spead the genders out more evenly and to spread out the more challenging pupils across the classes (there were three as son was in a bulge year). That's something they wouldn't have been able to do at a single form entry school.

I think you need to clarify whether you are talking about 21/60 children in your child's year, or 21/60 in the whole school. We almost moved somewhere with a tiny school, and decided that it was too risky for our children (plus we thought they'd not enjoy being in the same class). I've a friend who lived somewhere where there were only three children in her dd's age group and she did find it tricky to manage friendships. Personally I like two form entry as it means there are options for moving children around if there are personality clashes whilst being small enough for every child to be known. In practice we've ended up mostly with 1 1/2 so lots of mixed year group classes. Next year ds goes to high school and there will be 200 in his year (and it's considered relatively small).

If you like the larger school, go for that one. There'll be more choice of friends, wider range of personalities to meet so learn how to be around, more kids working at whatever level your child is, possibly more resources too as it's a bigger school. My DS is at a 2 class entry school and it's great for all of the above reasons. It does feel big to start with, but not for long. There are definitely lots of positives.

As others have said is it 21/60 in total or per year?

My dd is in a smallish school, about 50 pupils YR to Y4.
She is in reception and has 8 in her class. There ( touch wood) haven't been any friendship issues, and don't seem to be any serious ones in the rest of the school, mostly I suspect because there is so little choice ;)

I could have sent her to a 2 form entry school a drive away but am very glad I didn't.

Look at the size of the secondary school you'd like to send them to. My son's moved from a small (80 children) primary to a smallish secondary (350 pupils) and he feels overwhelmed.

I'd usually go for walking distance every time, but if it really is only 21 pupils in the whole school, that's very small. The DDs school is considered a small school with 100 pupils.

Assuming that we are talking about 21 in total and 60 in total we are talking two very small schools! Even if I was talking about 21 and 60 per year group the same comments apply.
For me an issue would be how big is the secondary school going to be as pupils who are in small primaries tend to find it more difficult when they transfer to the "big" school.
Another issue which is going to creep up on schools over the next few years is the question of funding. With the kind of level of pupils that you are talking about I suspect that you are talking a rural LA and that the funding formula they currently use will have significant levels of funding designed to keep these small rural schools open. The problem is that the DfE are moving slowly towards a new national funding formula which is transparent to everybody - the current funding system is anything but transparent. To do this they are introducing a revised number of parameters that can be used for funding schools at an LA level and the number is very small compared with previous schemes. Much more funding will be directed towards pupil numbers. The inevitable consequence of this will be small schools potentially losing funding. Because of the guarantees in the system this will only be a loss of 1.5% per year on most of the funding, assuming the same number of pupils, but losing funding at this level for the next 10 years is like death by a thousand cuts.
What the future holds will depend on what individual LAs decide to do on funding but the future is not clear at the moment for small schools.

Walking distance would trump size issue, for me, every time.
BUT, if they were equally convenient, my prejudice is always in favour of larger. More resources, more experienced, bigger pool of friends.

Funnily enough DH and I have just been looking at changing DD(5)'s school due to funding changes. We picked the school because of it's small classes (2 classes per year, 20-24 per class) and good staffing levels (teacher+classroom assistant per class min). As of this September, due to funding cuts, they are creating 1 class for P5 with 1 teacher and no teaching assistant. Admittedly the current P4's who are going to be affected are 17 and 19 in each class, but they are effectively doubling the class and halving the support. The head has already said that they will continue to do this with KS2 classes if the numbers stay low. He hasn't ruled out KS1 classes being amalgamated.

DD is only P1 but we can see the way funding is going in our area ( few local schools that are in areas classed as socially deprived, DD's school in v middle class area) and as she is already needing support due to hypermobility in her joints (affects her writing). Our concern is that she'll get left behind as the school is very much 'traditional' in their teaching methods. The schools we have looked at are similarly small class sizes and not far from DD's current school but post code wise fall within the socially deprived area, and from our meetings with the various heads and talking to our LA, are less likely to be affected. We're pretty much decided on one of the schools but finding it hard to accept the change in teaching methods as they adopt a more 'Scandinavian' approach i.e little formal learning until they are 7-8. I've read the research etc and it feels more in tune with what I would do.......just very hard to step away from the way we were taught.

I wouldn't necessarily worry about secondary school, unless they are coming from the only small school in the area. My older 2 DCS are at a rural secondary school, and they are rightly very proud of the way they manage the whole business of integrating tiny village schools into an 8 form entry secondary school. My Dcs are extremely unusual as we have gone out of catchment and they were at a 2 form entry primary school. The vast majority of children they are now at school with would consider 100 pupils to be a large school.

My LA has just decided not to close its smallest schoo of 16 pupils!

21 pupils is a very small school, but unless there was something very specific that spoke against it I would always go for the local school.

60 pupils is also very small tbh, so any issues with the closer school wrt its size could be issues there too.

Just do check that the school is safe from any closure threat - how are the numbers year on year? - because 21 is v v v small, and often schools of that size are swallowed up by others, sadly.