would you send your child to a primary school this big?

[barmouthdreams]

We are looking at schools for ds who is tiny - 2nd centile, shy, low pain threshold and can get quite anxious and very upset quickly.

We are looking to buy a house, have found one that ticks many boxes BUT all the primaries nearby are huge! I didn't know they got that big. Two are over 700 pupils and one almost 500.
I am really worried that he will feel intimidated and lost in such a big school. Any views or experiences of such large primary schools?

Actually just realised I have made my son sound worse than he is. He has got friends! SO he is able to make friends and play with other kids. He does go to a very small nursery though with a really nice sense of community.

Our school is this big and is currently the only one in our small town. It really doesn't feel that big when they are there.
The headmaster still knows all his students and even with a 3 class intake my girls know all the children in their year really well.
Our town was a village but is expanding and everyone still knows everyone and we have a small community feel and part of it is that all the children go to the local school.
Go and visit them, it's the only way to get a real "feel" for the school. I visited a smaller school in the next village but it didn't feel right and now has a worse Ofsted report and reputation than our larger school. Just because it is large it doesn't mean the children are not treated as individuals. They still are known by all the teachers, go on class trips by class not year, but it means that they have the benefits that large schools can provide, more funding means we have minibuses, after school & breakfast clubs, after school sports and dance classes.

My primary is 420 ish, plus nursery, so maybe 450 total?
But thats only 2 classes per year.

It sounds like a lot of kids but realistically your son would be mixing with his class / year. So 30-60 kids. Our playgrounds are zoned, so we don't just throw the reception kids in with y6. We also have staggered lunches with ks1 going in at 12, then ks2 starting at 12.30. So its not a big crowd of kids.

Look the the bright side, more kids = kore possible friends!

Thanks for the replies. . I worry a lot about DS really. If he were a bigger and more robust kid I think I would be calmer. We will be a city so not sure how much of a community feel the school will have. We are moving to this city from another part of the uk - i wish we had another year to live there before we had to make a choice. I can feel the clock ticking for buying a house in time for the applications to go in for schools!

Well managed large schools can be great because it's much easier to pool resources and there is the scope for lots of potential different friendship groups in each year.

Thinks to consider... Do they have a separate playground for the little ones? Lunches? Whole school assemblies? Dd's old four form entry primary basically split the school into three parts and 90% of stuff (assemblies, lunch, playtime) was done within those groups.

There are several primary schools where I live which have 3-4 classes per year. It honestly doesn't matter, it's fine!

It means lots of kids your child's age for them to get to know, and it's probably rare in a school that size for the whole school to get together all at once anyway. Most likely for example, the reception children will have their own playground or at least separate area of the playground.

Bonuses of big schools are you have more teachers on site so you get more expertise as they all have an area of interest - even the variety of clubs can expand
They are more securely funded (small schools really struggle)
Downsides are less of a whole school feel eg a small school can sometimes all sit for lunch together , whereas another might have 3 sittings.

Quite often larger primaries as well has having more resources, have a better chance of a friendship group for your dc, rather than a claustrophobic one class per year primary, with no escape

my dc went to both, firstly the larger primary then we moved house so the smaller primary. So i can see both angles.

We have a lot of 4 and 5 form entry primary schools round here, so I'm not considering your "big" primary schools particularly big! (DD's school only takes from Y3-Y6 and has over 500 children).

That said I understand that it might seem overwhelming to move from a small nursery. The main thing to realise is that your DC will not necessarily realise the "bigness" of the school - they will be put in smaller groupings where they get to know the staff and a small number of otehr children well to start with. They will likely get playground buddies (older children) to start with, and most schools will have separate Reception or at least KS1 play areas.

One advantage of a big school is that the school has more money so this equals more opportunities for them to get involved in different things. More children = more potential friendships (my non-football playing DS struggled to find like minded friends in a year group of 60 and was much happier in a bigger year group). Plus although bigger schools really come into their own by Y3/4 when smaller schools can start to feel claustrophobic (we have loads of DC transfer to DD's school from the small school nearby at this sort of stage). And bigger means moving to secondary school is not such a shock!

Some primary schools in East London are five form entry, now that is big! I think three form is ideal, you have enough in the year group to jiggle classes around , There are at least three teachers each contributing to the planning and resource sharing so three lots of expertise .More money for additional support, non teaching senco etc.

I think there are likely to be more problems in tiny schools with limited resources, friendship pools and one poor demented teacher planning and teaching a wider age range.

My dd1's primary has nearly 500 kids. She's going into p3 after the summer and there are 3 classes in her year group. We live in a city so basically all the schools are big but I think hers is one of the largest.

It's great really. They have a brand new building so the facilities are all good and all the teachers that we've encountered are wonderful. Somehow it doesn't feel like a big school. The office staff always know who you are and who your child is, the teachers are avaliable to talk to and know all the children well. Dd has made good friends that she has lots in common with. I went to a tiny school (35 pupils in whole school) so just had to be friends with the other few girls my age whether I actually liked them or not . There isn't any of the school gate cliques that I've read about on here either, I think because there are so many parents it's impossible to keep track out with the ones that you chat to/are friends with.

The only slight problem is that the playground is crazy busy but that doesn't seem to bother the children.

Thanks everyone - I really appreciate your comments. They are very encouraging. I feel a calmer about things now!

My experience is actually the little quiet ones get a better time than the bigger ones because the older ones want to pet them and look after them.

I think it depends on the school and it's a good idea to have a look around and see how it feels to you. My kids went to a primary with nearly 900 children and it was lovely and welcoming and a real community feel, there was a lot going on and loads of different opportunities. Unfortunately we moved and the new school was a more common 300 pupils. I haven't warmed to it at all, no where near as friendly and very limited in its extra curricular activities.

Thanks everyone - you have given me ideas about the sort of things to look out and to ask when I visit the schools.

The schools are all 3 (or 4) form entry around here.

Ours has formed a trust with another school and everything has to be identical - so it feels like 7 forms across 2 sites. That I'm less keen avout.

Mine are in 3 form entry. It's worked very well as there is a group of football-hating boys and of superhero-playing girls, small groups particulalry in y1 and y2 could be taken out for similar level group work, and the school is large enough to have a librarian, a French teacher, science teacher, full time SENCo, but also a field as well as sports pitch and different play areas.
Look at how they separate years in the playground and lunch etc and judge on how organised they are.

we've had fab sport and music extracurricular though and a good mix of students.

I don't like how they mix them up every year though.

That sounds a fairly typical 2/3 form entry primary-what were you expecting? A small village school?

There are plenty of 4 form and a fair few 5 form entry primaries around here (1000+ children)!

I was a child who had similar traits to your DC, I went to a lovely little pre school, with a dozen others. I then went to an infants school with four form entry, and then for juniors went to an all through 3-11 primary with 20 kids in each year.
I had a fantastic time in my infants school, but in juniors really retreated into myself, my mum said to me when I told her about my pregnancy only in the last week, that to this day keeping me in that small environment is the biggest regret she has about my childhood, and that she wishes she moved me.

Small schools are full of children who are often painfully similar to one another, they have less resources and there is less self awareness and awareness of others due to the lack of diversity.

I hope your DC thrives wherever they're at school

Thanks so much for sharing that Flamingo.

Roll on summer, two of the primaries I mentioned in my OP are the largest two in the city, by some way, meaning (obviously) the rest are smaller. Hence that size is far from typical. Where I live now ( a city) the primaries are nowhere near that size. So I don't think it is that odd that I am surprised by the size.

Larger schools also benefit from some economies of scale and are marginally less vulnerable to funding issues than very very small schools. With multiple classes in each year group teachers can work collaboratively and share planning and resources.

I'd rather send my DC to a 3 / 4 entry primary than a very small school taking 15 children or fewer each year.

Mine go to a big school but here are moments I envy the small village schools for their family ethos and kids playing across years and just the less need for institutional rules and systems and crowd control and target everything. It seems more free to be creative and more time to play. But I may be idolosiing it a bit!

How old is he?
Does the whole school mix all the time?

I work in an infant school of 270 children, so 3 form intake. Big for an infant only school. But our children all manage well with it, and there are some benefits from being a larger school.
The juniors is next door and approx 96% of our children go on to it for y3 but it is a totally separate school with own head etc - again 3 form intake, so 360 over 4 years.

I was worried about my DS starting school in a big school it was about 400 odd when he started but now reducing to 45 intake a year.

My DS is going up to year 6 now and the school almost feels too small for him.

I think any smaller he would of really struggled in the transition to high school.