Infant Class Size Regs

[whatsitallabout1]

Does anyone have any advice please. Is the following allowable:

Entirely KS1 children - no excepted pupils. Separate classes in mornings, each with own teacher well within ICS regs. In afternoons, either classes are combined (and over 30 pupils to one teacher) or remain split with a HLTA in charge of some. It is an academy. If anyone could link to guidance that allows this (if it exists!) I would be very grateful! Many thanks.

I am pretty sure that academies don’t have to use qualified teachers at all- everything could be done by HLTA.

It is correct that academies are free to use who they want to teach in the classrooms at any time . However they also have to abide by other legislation and the infant class size regs is one regulation that they are supposed to abide by.
However in reality all schools whether maintained or academy could do what the OP is saying has happened and it would probably not be obvious to the LA in the case of maintained schools for quite a while. As finance gets tighter and tighter, this will get more common.
All the LA will do is insist the school meets the legislation, I can' t believe that they would take it further, though I suspect they could legally.

How far over 30? 30 children to 1 teacher is fine.

When the classes are combined, does the HLTA (or someone else) help the teacher? Or is the teacher on her own with over 30 children?

My sister’s school is considering this. They have too many children in one year group in ks1 for 2 classes next year and can’t afford 3 full time teachers. They are considering two massive classes of about 36 but then using an extra part time teacher for the mornings to do maths/phonics/literacy. This isn’t an academy. Are you actually allowed to have that many on a ks1 register??

The afternoon combined class could in theory (based on PAN) be just over 40, but in reality, as year groups are rarely full, more like 35. There is usually a TA, if not a HLTA, also with this group. It actually seems to work ok, numeracy and literacy are concentrated on in mornings anyway. I'm more interested in the legalities of it, the answer appears to be that strictly it shouldn't happen, but no-one is likely to do anything and the school have little option due to budget restraints!

As it is an academy, and 2 people who cpuls act as teachers, for just over 30 children, it doesnt sound illegal.