Maximum pupil numbers in an academy run primary infant class?

[Itspardonnotwhat]

As the title suggests, I wondered if anyone knew if academies are bound by the same legal maximum number of 30 pupils in reception, yr 1 and yr 2?

I can't seem to find a definitive answer online.

Many thanks in advance

"Do academies have to comply with the infant class size rules?

Yes. All academies with infants on roll have to comply with the infant class size rules in the same way as they would have as maintained schools. This requires them to organise classes of children of compulsory school age who are aged under 8 in classes of 30 or fewer per teacher.

To be clear, the infant class size duty does not apply to nurseries."

Department for Education Admissions and school places FAQs

Super, thank you very much. I've probably looked at that site half a dozen times today and missed what I'm looking for every time. More sleep needed I think! Thank you.

As an academy our school was allowed to increase its PAN (published admission number). If I understood correctly from the research I did online the PAN is set by the LA based on numerous factors including space per head in the playground etc.

Nothing about the school had changed & our school PAN has always been set by LA at 24. As soon as school became academy it was increased by the school to 30 and then they took one on appeal so Reception class of 31.
When we filled in the application form we expected max class of 24 as that was PAN at time of applying :-(

As they have raised PAN to 30 the previous low PAN cannot have been due to small classrooms. Unless something has changed allowing them to run larger classes I suspect you will find that the school had successful appeals most years so rarely, if ever, actually had a class as low as 24. Indeed, if the classrooms are standard size (which they should be given that they have now raised PAN), a PAN of 24 would have been an open invitation to the appeal panel to admit another 6 pupils.

The successful appeal will have been a child who should have got in but didn't due to a mistake.

This set of posts touches on what is a key element in many new free school's reasons for going to the school, small class sizes.
Well this is where the people running the free schools are either naive or telling a good story. Until recently there was a building reg which said that any new infant classroom for 30 pupils should be 63 sq metres, but before that it was 48 sq metres. The difference being down to the changing way of teaching in classes etc. That building reg has now been removed and in effect classrooms can be any size but the trend is smaller classrooms for the 30 pupils.
All admission appeal panels know these building regs and are still going to use them as a guide for deciding whether a classroom is full or not. So if any free school or academy has classrooms in excess of 63 sq metres (and quite possibly less than this) then they can say what they like about class size and having reached PAN, but they will get more kids on appeal. Schools may start off with classes of 24 but they will soon rise if there is the demand for places and appeals.
The other pertinent point is funding, free schools and academies from April 2013 will be funded in exactly the same way as community schools. On average a class has to have somewhere between 22 and 24 pupils in order to make the class viable and the school viable. So again free schools are on the brink of not being able to be solvent based on the funding they receive.
I believe that 4 to 5 years after a new free schools sets up, they will have a full school and there will be more than 24 in each class.