class sizes to be allowed over thirty, what do we think?

[denialandpanic]

Did anyone see this seems to have slid out yesterday afternoon? there's an article in yesterday's guardian I need to try and do a link on my phone back in a moment.I'm not sure the undersized rooms in my dcs school could fit many more children

My DC were never in classes of 30 or less in their infant school so it wouldn't matter where we live.

I teach 33 pupils at the moment.

Only with at least 2 TA's

I don't think the infant classes have gone over thirty around here yet.I can see it will help friends with twins this year hopefully. there doesn't seem to be any detail on how it would be managed.

I still don't think there is physically room in older schools classrooms for? three adults and ? up to 33/34 kids.it doesn't say how far they are going to push it.

I have a classroom assistant for 45 minutes a week.

However it is an older class.

It's fairly normal where I am.

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/apr/13/primary-school-large-classes

It's normal here for classes to run at 30/31 in the infants (depending on successful appeals).

Very few classes are under 30. In fact my DD was in a mixed Y1/Y2 class, with no TA, with 36 other DC's, so she was the 37th DC in the class.

There was so little room in the classroom that there was 7 DC on each 6-seat table and the teacher had no desk to allow for extra tables, and there was no carpet for them to have carpet time either.

37 is too many.

31/32, possible to cope with if there are at least floating TA's, and no DC's with SN in the class. If there are DC's with SN in the class, then anything over 30 is too many!

It's not all that long ago that the infant class size limit was imposed - DD's cohort of 65 over two classes was one of the last, and she's now 23 - so most older schools will have had larger classes in them before.

thank you mrz

Part of me thinks its a cheap way for the government to sort out the lack of primary school places in some areas. Rather than spending money and building new classrooms or new schools. We have a booming birth rate so this isn't going to go away.

I suppose some people will be happy if it means their kids are more likely to get into their school of choice if they were borderline catchment. But parents well in the catchment area will be annoyed that their kids will be in bigger classes.

We used to manage with bigger classes when I was a kid. But now I suppose there's more targets, etc that schools are meant to be working towards improving levels.

I grew up in Ireland.in primary there were 40 in our class with no ta and very little special ed provision.I did fine.I was several years ago when my dad told me that at least five of the kids in my class arrived at his secondary unable to read write our do back maths.children fell through the cracks.

maybe I didn't do so well after all " out do basic maths"

Many LEAs are facing a shortfall in school places and this is obviously a quick fix when recommendations are that class sizes should be reduced for the very youngest children but the article talks of classes of 31 or 32 not huge increases in numbers. As a teacher IMHE there really isn't a huge difference between teaching 30 or 31

i'm guessing this is about forcing schools, such as the one my son is at, who limit their intake to 30 in each class, to take more that they don't want to take. some schools already do take more but those who don't will be forced to presumably.

his is a village school where people from well out of the catchment apply but only get in if there are spaces left that year. if they make larger classes the norm then schools won't have the option?

ds's classroom is tiny this year and they are year one's so it is quite a shock from them after the free ranging space of reception. they want to be able to emulate reception for the first term with activities going on around the edge of the room and children gradually getting used to spending more time sat on their tables working. that is near impossible in his tiddly room though even with 30.

I think it should help locally, village school those who have been number crunching reckon slightly short on places for "local"children. School seldom "full" and a decent drive to next nearest school which are unlikely to have places.

ds year 3 and has 39 in his and theres a TA who officially is for the 6 children with s@l problems ( including my ds) but she ends up being used for whole class

but in younger years more than 30 as only school in the area

beginning to think we're quite lucky. classes are 30 kids and each has a dedicated TA. only year one but both reception and this year that has been the case. think the TA is a genuine TA rather than learning support for a specific child.

Older school buildings are the ones that will cope - the 30 limit is fairly recent, and there were 40 (no TA) in my junior school.

It's a step to cope with the numbers crisis, I suppose. Many LAs know they will have a shortfall (huge in some places, especially those which were selling off 'surplus' school buildings in the 00s when scale of migration was becoming apparent).

There just isn't the public money to build enough new school in the right places and in time. And these children need to go somewhere - class sizes of 32ish won't prejudice the education and, together with bulge classes (if any schools are left with save for more prefabs), might keep numbers manageable.

depends where the school is auntie. just because there were bigger classes in theory doesn't mean there were more than 30 kids in what was once a small village so the classes were built small iyswim.

yes swallowed, our school is a sixties build and I have heard the head say the classes are considered "undersized"'. They certainly seem much smaller than I recall in my brand new eighties primary but then I'm a lot bigger .kids seem crammed into dds year one class.

Sounds confusing to be honest. Who decides if a school should take more than 30 per class. Surely parents would be in favour if preferred school is oversubscribed and therefore more chance of their children getting a place.

How annoyed would you be though if you were 1st on the waiting list, yet other schools have over 30 in their classes?

Minefield I think.

I think the difference is that in the past young children were much more static in the classroom and schools didn't have to fit in as many activity areas - sand trays, role play etc.
Generally older (pre 60s) schools have bigger classrooms but I would think class numbers will still be restricted by the size of the room.

I don't think this is competetely new though, is it not part of the new admissions code which takes effect from this September, and had been part of in-year admissions for the last year?

It's not changing much, just from 30 to 31 or 32. DS had a yr1 class of 31, he coped.

DC school has class sizes the same as national average for state schools, about 26 but sometimes down to 22 (DD's y3 class, and current y6 class).