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

This is ridiculous press gossip, being fuelled by the problems that do exist.
The bottom line is that legally the maximum number of infant pupils that can be with one school teacher is 30, that has been the law since 1998 act. It does not stop the class having more than 30 pupils, what it means is that if thee are more than 30 in the class then there has to be two teachers. As Tiggytape says there are exceptional circumstances by which the class can be more than 30 but not having enough school places is not one of them for a normal year of entry to the school.
There are all sorts of reasons why this is becoming more of a problem but what has not been resolved properly is how the new schools that are needed will be funded and built. It is no use the government saying that there will be 190,000 extra school places in SEptember, if a significant number of them are secondary school places when the level of pupils across secondary schools is currently dropping - that will be the crisis point i 10 years time, not now.

There were on average 42 children in my 1960s infants and junior classes.
No TAs.

Definitely in our area you can't get more than 30 in a class unless it goes through appeal at the county, and even then almost all appeals fail.

Having taught mainstream classes of 30 as well as classes abroad of less than 20 I have always felt that the single biggest contributing factor to improving standards in schools is class size. Actually it would probably be completely changing some children's family situations but that's out of our hands!

Admission - the crisis point in some areas will come far sooner than in 10 years time. The crisis point in my town is going to cone in September 2015, for both Primary and Secondary at the same time.

We will be 157 places short in my end of town for Primary, and 45 short in the other end of town - so nowhere to even send the DC's from this end of town.

These are pupils that will not get a Reception place in our town at all. The current solution (as the new primary is delayed and will now not be open on time) is to taxi these 4yo's, without their parents, to the next town over, 30 miles away, to 2 schools in Special Measures...

And for Secondary, our town will be 120 places short in my end of the town, and 50 short in the other end.

There is meant to be a new Secondary opening, as a second site of an existing school - but it's also running late and won't be open in time for the 2015 intake.

They haven't come up with a solution for this yet...

Why does this bother me, and why am I so interested in these facts? Because DS2 goes into Y7 in September 2015, and DS3 starts Reception at the same time...

And if you want to talk about placement shortages, there are already estimates that our town will be 70 places short for DC's requiring placement at SN school...

So should be great fun for everyone.

I accept that in 10 years time, there will be another massive shortfall of Secondary places, to allow for those born in the 2010-2011 Academic year, but it's not the immediate concern in my town!!

You can have enormous classes, but you need to sit children in rows and hit them if they don't comply with instructions. They will also need to spend a lot of time on routinised tasks. It's called a factory model for learning.

In my area two secondary schools have merged and a new school built in a central location to replace them ... for some reason the new school can accommodate fewer students than either of the old schools so creating an immediate shortfall.
The main secondary school where I teach has also been rebuilt much smaller than the previous school so is already at capacity.

Boffin shhhh! Don't give anyone ideas!

I think it's shocking. This year 31,32 which will creep up and up.
Even 30 is too many with a TA every morning in DD2's yr2 class and no (official) SN though there's about 6 kids who need a LOT of support and the likes of DD2 get left to get on with it by herself. Am close to telling the HT that on Fridays DD2 will not attend school as it is not feasible for me to get all the work covered out of school hours!

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1354424/School-teaches-pupils-classes-SEVENTY--says-pupils-learning-more.html

mrz we have exactly the same experience in our area, LA merged two schools and are building a new school (opens September) but the new school accommodates only two thirds of the pupils it is supposed to be serving (those currently housed in the two schools) The only other school feasible is already 100 plus over numbers. I can't quite get the reasoning behind it tbh.

Classes of 70? Learning more?

Learning more what, exactly?

How to queue? How to copy things down? How to teach peers in the absence of a qualified member of staff? How to cope in a bustling learning environment with the ambience of an airport departure lounge? How to sit in wet or dirty pants all day in the absence of age appropriate personal care?

FFS.

Many years ago when we first set up an Early Years Unit the consensus was that 60 children per setting was the optimal size IMHO this is still the case regardless of staffing levels.

DS reception last year was supposed to be 60 places two teachers - thanks to appeals it was 65.

DS was in the larger reception class of 33 - he made little progress - we weren't the only parents worried about that - and we felt his teacher didn't know him at all making bland generic statements about him that know one else recognized. There were two TA in his class.

Yr 1 fair few DC left before he in a class of 29 and has one TA I think mainly assigned to one DC - his teacher knows him well and he was identified for small amount of extra help and he gone from being below the average targets to being above.

Obviously I can't say its the class size rather than other things but I do think if you have a quiet well behaved DC in a large class they are the ones that are going be missed and the longer it goes on the harder for them to catch up.