Infant Class Size and the Labour manifesto

[prh47bridge]

I happened to spot last night that the Labour manifesto promises that no 5-, 6- or 7-year old child will be taught in a class of more than 30. Assuming they really mean exactly what they say and don't intend to drop this promise if they get into power, it has some consequences.

Since Y3 includes 7-year olds, it means that the class size limit will be extended to Y3. If taken literally, it also means that any mixed year class (Y3/4, say) will be subject to the class size limit.

At the moment KS1 classes can only go over 30 if a child is admitted on appeal or via the FAP. It may be that Labour plan to provide an additional teacher and a portakabin in these situations. If not, the only way they can deliver this is to remove the concept of excepted children completely and make ICS appeals unwinnable. So, even if you missed out due to a mistake by the admission authority, your child won't get a place. And if you have a young child and move into an area where the nearest school with places is 30 miles away, that is the round trip you will face every day.

If Labour win the election I would strongly recommend lobbying the new Education Secretary to make sure this proposal is abandoned.

But I would prefer my children to be taught in classes no greater than 30.

I am a foreigner, and I always wondered why being under 30 pupils is so important.
I don't think there's such a limit in my country, and 1 teacher with no TA is normal. I don't think there's any disadvantage from this.

Over 30 is far too big, especially in the UK. We expect to have children with varied additional support needs in our classes AND we are expected to have all singing all dancing lessons.

Usually countries with big classes will have a higher % of children in special schools and are more likely to do formal chalk and talk.

Over 30 is a big issue-until your dc is number 31/on appeal, when suddenly it doesn't seem like it should be an issue at all.

The current way of no more than 30 except in exceptional circumstances is good. It allows room for council mistakes, or if the 30th and 31st children on the list are twins, things like that.

If its extended to year 3, fair enough I guess, but I would want the same thing about exceptional circumstances to stay. Mistakes do happen, families shouldn't be punished for it

Great, yes my country is one with chalk and talk.(whole class teaching.) But gets better results in PISA.
As for SN, no, my country is not as advanced as England to recognise SN, and they don't get special provision like kids in England do. I know this because my DN had spld but all the help he got was provided by parents and school did nothing to help him.
So, I do question the need for ability grouping and whatever most English school do, which prevents teachers to have more than 30 kids.

How do they plan to implement this?

Given the current shortage of places and the plan to remove VAT exemption on school fees it seems like a somewhat unlikely policy. I feel like they haven't though this through.

And we'll get another review into curriculum and assessment. It must be at least 5 minutes since the last one

So wait, are you saying this pledge would be good for the many but maybe inconvenient for a few?

However I would have thought it more likely that the vision is that classes won't be by default filled to the absolute maximum of 30. Wouldn't that solve your problem?

i just cannt see how they can mean what they say here.

The council makes a mistake and your DC isn't offered a place at the school you live next door to and have elder child at, even though you filled in the form correctly and the council admits it made a clerical error. But you can't win an appeal because the class size cannot go over 30.

Child with statement moves to area. One school obviously the best fit, but can't go there as all classes already contain 30.

Need your child to go to any school but X because of restraining orders relating to parents of existing pupils at X? Sorry, no you didn't qualify for any other of the schools within 5 miles so you have to go to this one because it's the onkyy one with vacancies; and you won't win an appeal even though that is perverse because they can't go over 30.

DC uses a wheel chair, and they've been assigned the only school within 8 miles which has doorways to narrow for full access. But you can't appeal for another as they all have 30.

Or will they expect schools/LEAs to fund an additional teacher in all these cases? (making a class of 31 into two classes of 16/15)

Why can they just go back to that children goes to the nearest school they live? (with special provision for ones with SN?)
English system is far too complicated for me.

"Wouldn't that solve your problem?"

Yes, but his are you going to fund that level of school expansion. Given that the projected shortfall of reception places is set to continue for some years yet, and it's a headache to create places to keep up with demand; it's going to be considerably more demanding to create places in addition to that to provide the margin of unfilled places to cushion (though nit entirely solve) this.

There's already been an extra central government spend of about £1b to create new school places to match anticipated demand. And there was some idea of where those places would be needed. For this, it would have to be everywhere.

I worked in an academy chain that allowed 32 in a Year 2 class. No appeal or FAP, they just let them.in. I questioned my union about it, but got a vague answer, so I'm assuming it's legal.

What none of them Epoxy?

So the school that gets 120 applicants for 30 places is going to be magically undersubscribed under the Labour Party. In order to end up with most schools being undersubscribed I'd imagine you need a large number of surplus places. Which will mean a lot more schools and teachers.

It's such a weird policy, with no obvious advantages (it's not like we regularly have KS1 classes of 30+) and obvious practical difficulties. I have no idea why and how they came up with it.

I think n some areas it is fairly common due to the lack of school places. Children end up getting admitted under FAP because there aren't enough places in the area.

But why not just say they are going to create more school places if that's the case. Insisting that no child is going to be in a class of 30 is just bizarre.

I questioned my union about it, but got a vague answer, so I'm assuming it's legal

As we are talking about an academy it is not illegal for them to go over 30 children as the law only applies to maintained schools. However, the academy's funding agreement requires it to comply with admissions law as it applies to VA schools. An academy is therefore in breach of its funding agreement if it goes over 30 children in an infants class unless the additional children are excepted. The categories of excepted children are:

• children with statements or EHCPs naming the school admitted outside the normal admissions round

• looked after or previously looked after children admitted outside the normal admissions round

• children who missed out due to a mistake in processing admissions

• children admitted on appeal

• children moving into the area when there is no school with places available within a reasonable distance

• children of UK service personnel admitted outside the normal admissions round

• for multiple births where one child is admitted normally the remaining children are excepted

• children normally taught in an SEN unit attached to the school or who are registered at a special school but attend some classes in the mainstream school

However I would have thought it more likely that the vision is that classes won't be by default filled to the absolute maximum of 30

Given that there is nothing in the manifesto to support this and no attempt to find the level of additional funding that would be required, I don't think that is the vision. I think it is far more likely that this part of the manifesto was written by someone who doesn't have a clue how primary school admissions work and thought this sounded like a good thing to say.

The other possibility, of course, is that Labour didn't think they would get anywhere near winning this election so felt they could make random promises like this, confident that they would never have to deliver them.

I think your last two sentences are spot on.

I think your last two sentences are spot on.

Irene it was common before the infant class size rule was introduced. I've taught reception classes of 36 without a TA in the past ...these numbers obviously continued throughout the school.
IMHO a class size limit of 30 should mean 30 or it's a pointless rule.

There's not pressure on reception classes everywhere we look like loosing a school or two locally due to low numbers.

Also wonder why have some of the rules we have and still lag far behind a lot of the world when it comes to education. But hey ho a new government is only going to fuck it up more for the next one to change things and still continue on our backwards trajectory in the world.

I can't see that it's worth bothering about. If they get into power, I'm sure the relevant minister will have the practicalities pointed out to him or her and will quietly drop or water down the proposal. After all, as the current government and its predecessor have demonstrated, manifesto promises are hardly regarded as binding come what may.

I'd rather see a continuation of 30 unless a few very specific exceptions.

I think it would be utterly wrong to split twins, to leave mistakes uncorrected, or to make those who move to an area travel miles to school.

And how will they deal with the existing 6 and 7 year olds? Will classes have to be reshuffled to make them compliant?

Or will this just be for new admissions rounds?

I thought one of the differences about Corbyn, thought, was that he was meant to live up manifesto promises. If he's unprincipled, what's the point?

But the drawbacks of this pledge -as it is written- seem pretty hefty.

I don't think it's unprincipled to acknowledge it if a manifesto pledge is based on an error. After all, no-one will have changed their vote based on this.

Admitting errors is fine.

But putting in a pledge which is definitely to be disavowed is inpribpncipled. And putting in a pledge which you do not understand is just plain wrong.