infant class sizes

[mynamesnotsam]

Does anyone understand infant class sizes? DD starts school in September. PAN is 70 for this year. This is fine for reception as it has 3 classes but from year 1 there are only 2 classes in each year. If the maximum infant class size is supposed to be 30 does anyone know why the school seem to be able to plan to have 35 per class in year one and two?

Do they have mixed aged classes? 3x 70 means 210 infants, so 7 classes across the three years.

If they are genuinely intending to run classes of 35 in Y1 and Y2 they would be breaking the law. I suspect they aren't. A school with a PAN of 70 would typically have 7 classes covering R/Y1/Y2, so at least one of the 3 Reception classes would have some Y1 pupils in it and there would also be at least one mixed Y1/2 class.

There can be various manoeverings; DS school for example offered 100 places despite having only 3 classes, on the assumption that the number would drop down before they actually started. If that had misfired they'd have had some rapid juggling to do.

Is the PAN 70 every year or just this year? Do the current year 1/2 classes actually have 35 kids in? It could be the current year 1/2 classes had a lower PAN, or they had PAN 70 but only got 60 kids, or started with 70 but the numbers dropped down so they combined classes.

70 does seem an odd number to pick if you're not mixing years. Sometimes they publish the reasoning behind the PAN allocations in the admissions info. Or I'm sure the school wouldn't mind if you asked what their plans were.

DS school for example offered 100 places despite having only 3 classes

If they are in England that is highly debatable if not illegal. If they set PAN at 100 they must admit 100 pupils. If someone drops out the place must be offered to whoever is at the head of the waiting list. If PAN was 90 but they offered 100 places it could have caused problems in appeals. Parents could argue that the school can clearly cope with 100 without breaching infant class size rules otherwise they could not offer 100 places.

Yep, in England. I think original pan was even 60, but there weren't enough places locally and they agreed to take a further class and an additional10 allocations. The publication from the admissions authority at the time stated that it was with the intention of dropping back to 90, so guess that might have helped with appeals? Hey, never mind appeals, if all 100 had accepted they'd have been stuck with them too. I suppose as a last resort they could have mixed years, year 1 also had a not full bulge class.

Definitely no mixed classes at the school. The PAN last year was 70 as well and the school is normally oversubscribed. Sometimes they do have a bulge class but y1 only has 2 classes next year.

Odd. Do they have one class with two teachers in? One of the TAs a qualified teacher, something like that so they are meeting the ratios? I'd ask if I were you. Or can you glean anything from latest ofsted report if this has been an ongoing arrangement?

If there are no mixed classes and no excepted pupils they cannot run Y1 with 2 classes and 70 pupils unless the classes have more than 1 teacher in them. If you would like to PM me the name and LA of the school involved I will take a look and see if I can find out more.

There is no way that this is legal to have 70 in the year group and 2 classes of 35 unless they have two qualified school teachers in each class, which is very unlikely unless the LA are funding the teachers.
Are you sure that the school has not set 70 in years 1 and 2 in 5 classes, which would be 2 classes of year1, 2 classes of year 2 and 1 class of mixed year 1 /2 ?

Just been doing some detective work. Looks like last year was actually under subscribed so only had 61 in foundation so I guess they can get away with 2 y1 classes. Sudden flurry of classroom building might suggest moving to 3 classes per year in future.

Some schools are very dodgy. Eg make children go to a different class for reception so they pretend they are I n that class but in reality they're in another class.

I'd want to know their plans for y1-6 before applying. Unless you want 35 children in a class.

Ds has just finished year 2 there and informs me that they had 33 in his class last year. It had never occurred to me until I started reading threads on mumsnet that infant classes should only have 30 kids.

It's actually a really good school. Last ofsted was outstanding and this all seems to be being done will full knowledge of LA

Looks like last year was actually under subscribed so only had 61 in foundation so I guess they can get away with 2 y1 classes

Only if one of the pupils is excepted or they put one of them in with pupils from another year. Otherwise they have a class of 31 pupils with a single teacher which is illegal.

Not sure I want to get marked out as a troublemaking mum at school but I will try to find out what plans are for classes now PAN looks set at 70.

I think the number of children admitted in Reception depends on how much 'physical space' the school has available/ square metres. I know of one Infant school in my area where they have 27 children/Reception class and the remaining 16 (Reception class children) are mixed with 14 Year 1 children.

The Infant school in my neighbourhood also has a year 1 mixed with Year 2. The PAN is similar to yours OP, 70 children admitted in Reception. At the Open Morning I found out that the number of pupils/class was lower than I was expecting and the Head of the school explained to us that the children are actually taught in smaller groups. Contacting the school's Admission Officer would be the best I think.

I think the number of children admitted in Reception depends on how much 'physical space' the school has available/ square metres

Yes and no. The school will have a calculated capacity based on the number and size of classrooms plus some other factors. PAN (Published Admission Number) is based on the calculated capacity but is also driven by the need to ensure that no classes in Reception to Y2 have more than 30 pupils.