Only boy in class

[Muumm]

My son started reception class today and he is the only boy in his year with four girls. My husband is talking about wanting moving him to another school now. My other son is in year two in the same school. What would you do?

Im amazed they haven't already combined ks1. Its madness that they have a class of 3 and then they consciously decided to create another class of 5 instead of joining them together. If the other local schools are larger I would honestly consider moving them both unless they are quick to combine KS1. The small cohort will be pretty stifling friendship wise and limit other aspects of learning such as sport and school plays etc.

I would move him

@Kiari

My dad’s best friend through out primary was a boy. I wouldn’t worry about it too much

Presumably that is DD rather than dad. We have 90 per year group and whilst this is the case occasionally, it is not that common. There is a big difference between choosing to be boy/girl best friends and that being the only option.

The small cohort will be pretty stifling friendship wise and limit other aspects of learning such as sport and school plays etc.

Agree. I would never choose a school with a smaller intake than 30 per year.

Leave him there. He will make friends among his class regardless of gender, and still have his brother and other boys to play with at playtime and lunch hour.

In very small schools, there's far less social division between years and genders; that's one of their advantages.

If it is a private school I would be very concerned about its financial viability, and I would consider options based on that.

It won't be good for sports teams. With so few they will struggle to field teams for football, netball or whatever, or their age range will be so wide their teams will have so many younger & smaller people they'll get annihilated.

@ArtieFufkinPolymerRecords

The small cohort will be pretty stifling friendship wise and limit other aspects of learning such as sport and school plays etc.

Agree. I would never choose a school with a smaller intake than 30 per year.

My youngest started state school in a class of 13 ; and loved it. Plenty of parents pay thousands to private schools for small classes, and very individual attention from teachers.

My grandkids are in a wonderful (state) rural primary school with a total roll of 70 spread over 7 years (age 5 to 12,) in composite classes.

What's wrong with girls?

What's wrong with girls?

Because usually it's nice for children to be able to make friends and socialise with boys and girls.

My dd is in a boy heavy class. It's a problem. Doesn't mean I think there's anything wrong with boys.

My youngest started state school in a class of 13 ; and loved it. Plenty of parents pay thousands to private schools for small classes, and very individual attention from teachers.

My grandkids are in a wonderful (state) rural primary school with a total roll of 70 spread over 7 years (age 5 to 12,) in composite classes.

I admit I was thinking of state, rather than private, but I did say intake, so in a private school you may have an intake of 30 in 2 classes of 15. I personally wouldn't want my child being taught in a composite class that spanned several year groups.

I live in a rural area and there are plenty of schools with single figure yearly intakes around here. My children all attended a village primary school with less than 50 children in the school. As it happens they were all in "big" year groups with between 7 and 10 pupils. My elder son's year started with 10, 4 of whom were girls, went down to 6 with 2 girls at one point and by the end of year 6 there were 7 pupils, with 4 girls again. All my children's year groups fluctuated in both size and ratio of boys to girls over the course of their primary years. Plus they did a lot of mixed age group activities which I saw as a positive thing. In my experience, small schools are pretty good at dealing with this kind of thing.I wouldn't rush into a decision at this stage. The class make up now isn't necessarily how it will be all the time, and it may not be an issue even if it is.

It’s a semi rural area and the school is voluntary aided. Thanks for all your comments.

I don't understand all the school size comments. Plenty of schools have smaller intakes. I think he'll be fine OP they tend to get to know everyone in schools that size.

Thank you, I agree.

Personally I think it would be fine, nice even, in reception but definitely an issue if no more join. Just so limited in finding like minded friends.

I think you get a more "family" feel in a small school like that, and it won't be a big issue. He'll mix with the bigger boys as well as playing with the girls, and I suspect there's much less tendency for the class to divide by gender when there are fewer to start with.

I heard of a fairly ordinary sized year 6 class which was all boys! I think there had been a big imbalance in the year group in the village, and then once someone decided to move their daughter to the school in the next village, the rest soon followed. Possibly the next village had an imbalance the other way.

I don't think I'd worry about 1 in 5 (particularly if there are boys in the year above) as much as being one of 4 in 30.

Where we are there are 4 small schools within 5 miles of us with a PAN of 15. Some years some are under subscribed by as much as 5-10, often more than 1 of them.

What a great situation - only five children in the class! Surely he can play with the Year 1 boys at playtime, though he may enjoy the company of the girls. Girls and boys can play together really well.

No wonder these schools scream they don’t have enough money. They are all too small. Our rural schools are all bigger and the very small ones are KS1 only. The DC move on to larger schools for KS2. I think this works well. Sport and drama don’t suffer and DC make friends in time for secondary school. CofE never close schools though and they cost LAs a lot of money!

I don’t think 5 is ever great! Too little choice for play, too few options for teaching groups and who wants to be in a family this small for 7 years? It doesn’t offer breadth to allow DC to mature and become socially rounded. What happens if they all fall out? In y6, the older DC have left.

I'd keep a watching brief. What's cute at 4 is stifling at 10, as a friend of mine is finding out in the opposite situation. Her DD and 10 boys. It's been like that since year 4. She doesn't particularly like any of the boys. The kids in the other years have their own special friend so don't always include friend's DD. School have been pretty shocking in acknowledging the situation and potential issues. I'm deeply worried that the child will go off to secondary next year with zero idea of how to negotiate friendship issues as she's had no practice.

My DD is in a rural state school. Has 12 in her class. There’s only three girls but my daughter plays with everyone so far. They are all lovely and currently getting on very well.

The school goes up to year 6 and there’s only 100 or so students in total. They do mix years together for certain lessons though and I think year R have been been mixing with year 1 at play time. It’s reassuring at the moment to have such small groups due to COVID.

@TinySleepThief

So in year 2 there are 14 children In year 1 there are 3 children And in reception there are 5 children

A grand total of 22 children in the whole of KS1 is just mind-boggling, why doesn't the school do mixed classes? I'd be wondering how on earth they could justify hiring a teacher for just 3 children.

Are all the other local schools so tiny? I'd honestly consider moving them both.

My ds is at a school with 50 children in reception, ks1 and ks2,

My DD is in year 2 and across her year group (2 form entry) there's only 6 boys, the rest is all girls. It started out with fewer boys as well, I think there was only 4 across the year at one point. They're all in one class now as the classes don't mix due to covid. DDs in the all girls class.