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.

"I think it would be utterly wrong to split twins, to leave mistakes uncorrected" having a 30 limit doesn't mean that twins will be split or that mistakes can't be corrected. The 30 limit applies to number of pupils with a single qualified teacher the school can employ an additional teacher to work in the class (team teaching which is what happened here 15 years ago ) but that requires the government making sure that schools have adequate funding.

Another manifesto pledge carelessly proposed without having been thought through (this is not a politically biased comment, all the parties are guilty of mouthing off without considering implications and I am wholeheartedly and impartially critical of them all).

Our school has a PAN of below 30 (but above 20) being a small rural village school. It has to have single year classes in EYFS/KS1 due to ICS legislation. Classes in KS2 are all mixed years, the balance of each class changing each year according to current school population. We currently have classes of around 33 pupils in KS2. Obviously it would be lovely to have smaller classes (an oft-touted but sadly rarely existing benefit of small village schools); however, the reality is that if 3/4 was also limited to 30, then the other KS2 classes would have to be 36+. There is no space in the classrooms for any more tables/chairs at all - the teachers' tables have already been removed. I am not quite sure if the benefit to the Y6 pupils in having even more minority Y5 pupils in the classroom.

Many of the schools for which I serve on admissions appeal panels have similar set-ups or are infant schools (PAN 30) moving to junior (PAN 32/33).

Those of you who seem to think that 'over 30 is a big issue, unless your child is #31' are missing the point - a large number of schools are already, and must be in order to continue, over 30 in Y3/ mixed 3/4 classes. If this pledge became a reality, the knock-on effect for Y4/5/6 and combined classes in those years, and for the schools that have them, would be enormous. None of the schools can afford or justify an extra teacher in order to have a single Y3 class of

If you have a PAN of below 30 it's unlikely you will admit 30 it doesn't work that way.

That depends on how big your classrooms are. If they can cope with 30 you are likely to have to admit 30. If you don't admit them initially an appeal panel is likely to do so.

However, I don't think that is what the previous poster is saying. My reading of it is that they have one class per year in Reception, Y1 and Y2 with less than 30 in each class. However, above that they have mixed classes of around 33 pupils in each, so I'm guessing they have around 99 pupils in KS2 taught in 3 classes. If forced to limit Y3 to 30 they would, presumably, have a single class for that year. It sounds like currently that would leave them with 72 pupils across Y4/5/6, so they would have to be taught in two classes of 36.

mrz - you need to re-read the post. I'm afraid that your comment about schools with a PAN 30?

In an ideal world, schools with a PAN of 25 would simply have single year classes. In the real world, they can't, because they have neither the space nor the budget - which is why their PAN is set below 30.

In even smaller schools, e.g. PAN of 13-20 (not unknown in rural areas), a school may have two mixed infant classes and 2-3 mixed junior classes. Moving Y3 to ICS categorisation would leave a school with a problem, eg PAN of 16 would currently mean two infant classes of 24 and two junior classes of 32; but if 64 children had to be considered under ICS and 48 non-ICS, you would need to have three classes (2 infant of 24 and 1 Y3 of 16) and 2 junior classes of 24. That is, one more classroom and one more teacher for the same number of pupils overall as currently (a slightly higher PAN or average intake, with 5 classes in total, means that a mixed Y2/3 class becomes a possible outcome). Somehow, I don't think Corbyn has budgeted for school expansions and extra teacher costs with his promise that no 7yo should be in a class of >30, but for many schools, that is the only way that this manifesto pledge could be kept. Obviously, extra teachers and classrooms would indeed be the ideal solution; I just don't see any mention of that or any evidence of funding.

YY to prh47bridge. Apologies for X-post - distracted by RL earlier, didn't refresh when I came back

Your PAN of 20 was presumably set so that there would be 60 pupils in two mixed age classes reception/Y1/Y2 (possibly prior to EYFS?).
When infant class size was introduced 2001 my local school reduced their PAN to ensure that they could comply. The school where I was teaching at the time didn't which resulted in having to create new classes and employ extra teachers.
Legislation doesn't change overnight so if new rules are introduced schools need to be organised so they aren't caught out.

"That depends on how big your classrooms are. If they can cope with 30 you are likely to have to admit 30. If you don't admit them initially an appeal panel is likely to do so." As the poster said a PAN of 20 doesn't mean there are only 20 children in the class but that there are 20 pupils in each year group.

You still haven't read MostAppealing's post properly. She said their PAN is more than 20 and that they have one class per year in Reception, Y1 and Y2. I therefore stand by what I said - if the classrooms are big enough to take 30 an appeal panel is likely to admit 30. But, as both she and I have pointed out, this is not the issue she was talking about.

If the school mixes year groups in infants so that classes have 30 pupils even though PAN is less than 30 then yes, the school would not be forced to go over PAN.

And you still haven't addressed MostAppealing's point. At her school, extending the class size limit to Y3 would result in large classes in Y4/5/6. For a school with 6 classrooms and a PAN of 25, say, that would be the inevitable result. There is no other way of doing it short of building an additional classroom.

As ever, prh47bridge has given my response more concisely than I could!

I will try again, though, because the more I think about it, the more extensive the complications I foresee (and as we are in 'appeal season' for primaries/infants/juniors, I am spending quite a lot of my time thinking about PAN/ICS and future consequences). I had missed the implications of '7 year olds' in the manifesto.

Mrz, nowhere have I given an example of PAN 20. There are some numbers for which this proposed legislation would not create additional problems. Your PAN 20 almost always creates a class structure of (60 infants in 2 classes of 30 = YR/1, Y1/2) and (80 juniors in 3 classes of 26/27 = 3/4, 4/5, 5/6) or (80 juniors in 2 classes of 30 = 3/4, 4/5 and 1 class of 20 = Y6). This is not an issue as no class is over 30.

If you reread my post again, you will see that I demonstrated that for PAN of >20 but