Tiny reception intake, what will happen?

[Jollyphonics]

I'm hoping some teachers, TAs or school administrators will know the answer to this.

My DCs go to the local village school, which has about 70 pupils, usually around 10 in each year group. It's a lovely school, staff all great, kids very happily, had recent Ofsted which was "good" with several "outstanding" components.

BUT it's in a small village, and several nearby villages have their own schools, so maintaining numbers is always an issue.

I've heard from a friend (on board of governors) that they've only got 3 kids listed to join reception in September this year. I've heard from another friend (who used to be chair of board of governors) that they won't be able to run a reception class with only 3 kids, that it's likely to amalgamate with year 1, and that they're likely to make a teacher redundant due to the reduction in school income.

Is this true? Does this really happen? Do education authorities try to redistribute kids so that small schools don't face these problems, or is it just tough luck? Any inside knowledge is much appreciated. I worry about it as DS2 is only in year 1 so many years left, and I'm scared of what may happen.

If numbers drop drastically then yes, they will need to amalgamate with year 1 ( and even with 10, I'm surprised they haven't already)and yes, this may well lead to redundancies.
We have a PAN of 15 but quite often at this time have only 5-6 first place choices. By September we are normally up to 10-12 with second/third place choices ( although one year we only had 2 year 2 children, by the time they reached year 6 we were up to 15!) . So it could be that numbers will rise before September ( although local authorities won't actively redistribute children, they will take lower preferences into account if first preference schools are oversubscribed)
Presumably the school already has mixed age classes?

Surely with only 70 pupils they already run composite classes, they wouldn't be funded to only have 10 in a class. There will be a formula in place to say how many teachers they will be funded to employ given the number of pupils in the school. If numbers fall below a certain level, they will lose a member of staff, and that seems to be what will happen this year. In previous years, they may have been able to use the extra teacher to run a separate reception class but this year it is likely to be composite with year 1 (and possibly year 2).

Education authorities obviously can't redistribute kids (unless other schools are over-subscribed, which doesn't seem to be the case here) but they can redistribute teachers.

Thank you for the info.

The classes are combined - years 1&2, 3&4, 5&6. But reception is in a separate purpose-built classroom, and in fact Reception was reported as being "outstanding" by Ofsted, so it's a bit of a jewel in the school's crown.

The following September there are already a good number of names down for reception, it's just this coming year that's short. So would a school simply leave a classroom empty for a year?

You wouldn't want your dds to be in a class with just two other dc though! That would be awful for her.

If they can't afford a full time year r teacher , yes that classroom mat lie empty for a year . or year 1/R may use it. A empty classroom will get used for small group work or projects where a teacher wants extra space.

There is also the possibility that they will split year 1 rather than have a combined R/1/2 class ( so have a R/1 and a 1/2 class) but it would depend on numbers in each.

This is the perennial problem with small schools, that they are subject to dips in the cohorts joining the school. Whilst they may know how many parents have signified to the school that they want a place, the school should not know how many have actually applied to the school for September entry till after he closing date on the 15th. They will know shortly after that but until the actual allocation of places takes place in April, anything could happen and it would only need to 3 or 4 more children joining reception to get it up towards the normal level of admission.
Having said that the realistic situation is that the school will have to make a decision how they are going to handle this -they will not be funded for it. They have to accept the pupils who apply, so if it is only three they have to accommodate the 3. On average they are going to have 10 in each year group, so the probability is that the current reception / year 1 year 2 numbers will only be around 30 in total and that for next year in the 20 to 30 region. That would seem to suggest that they will run with 1 class across the whole infant years.

I'm surprised they manage to run so many classes with that number. My old school, which had the same set up, ideally needed 100 pupils and anything below 75 was considered unviable.

Sorry, completely unhelpful post!

How do they know that they only have 3 pupils for September? Closing date is Thursday and then schools hear in April.

Our school is smaller than yours. There are three classes with YR, 1 & 2 in one class. My youngest is in Y1 with three others. There are four in Reception & 6 in Y2. One teacher, one TA for 14. Some Y2 children may go up to class 2 if it better meets their needs. We have ~40 kids in total over the seven years.

It is a rural school, in what you might call an "aspirational retirement village", hence the low numbers of kids.

Small schools can be great schools.