Individual year classes v combined and large town school v small village school!

[McDreamy]

Your opinions please! Have had no education choices for DD until now. What are your opinions, experiences of any of it -tia!!

My dd's went to a very small village school and had a fabulous time there, far superior to the large schools I'd had experience of previously. This website explodes some of the myths that surround small schools.

A lot depends on how you feel about the school itself, when you go to visit. Sometimes a school just feels right, whatever the pros and cons on paper.

Unless there is something drastically wrong with a school I would always go for the LOCAL school, once that you can walk to, where all their friends are in the locality etc.
This would be my first reason for the choice.
If despite this I still had the choice (ie both schools were a drive away, and children in the locality went to both) then it would have to depend on the individual school - I don't think you can say that a bigger/smaller school is necessarily better than a small/big one.
My immediate preference would be for a small one, but that's a gut feel.
Our school (and ds is only in reception so I'm not sure how it will work yet) has 100 children and 4 mixed group classes - usually Rec&Yr1(part) / Yr1(part)&Yr2 / Yr3&4 / Yr5&6, although this year the reception intake is very big (21) and years 1&2 are small (22 combined) so they have just done a Rec class and a Yr1&2 class. Next year this reception group will almost certainly have to be split again.
The village in the next school has an intake of 60, 2 classed in each year and is generally full.
Some people in the next village send their children to our school, I don't know of any atm in our village who go to the bigger school.
However, both schools seem to be good.

Thank you, your opinions and experiences are gratefully received as I have no experience of this yet. DD will bedue to start Y1 when we get back to the Uk. The smaller schools seem to have a separate reception class and combined Y1&2.

I take your point about walking but all the schools are a short car/bus journey and I'm not sure which one the village children mainly go to but good point CS it would be worth finding out.

do you know people in the area that you can ask about the schools? I didn't realise that you aren't nearby atm.

From personal experience and as a teacher I really dislike mixed year groups. Didn't work for any of my 3 older children, all for slightly different social and educational reasons. I moved mine from a school with mixed year classes and with dd2 in particular it was the best move I ever made. I haven't even considered schools with mixed classes for dd3. Research shows that 2 classes per year group is ideal academically (or so I recall - can't remember where from). Wouldn't want that round here for dd, but larger primaries in villages close to town seem to be the best bet in our area.

Could you tell me why they didn't know (if you don't mind). I have never come across it before either during my education or up until now with DDs.

She is currently in a forces school which is quite big. The Pre School had 3 classes of 30 children and her FS2 year currently has 2 full classes.

Thanks for all your comments

Dd 1 is very bright and as a Y5 ended up working with the top group Y6. This meant she was on her own the next year and had already covered much of the work. There were only 12 or so children in her year group and there was no-one she got on with - teacher said she was anti-social but now in a large grammar school she has lots of friends.
Dd2 is bright also but more "questioning" - she was marked as a difficult pupil. Moved schools and positively thrived - could have simply been that by this point there was a new not such good teacher.
Ds is a year younger than dd2. He could have been in the same class - not good for either of them. He's also dyslexic and he would have either been in the 5/6 class where his writing wasn't up to scratch or the 4/5 class where he'd be with younger less able children - v bad for his self-confidence.
A girl I know never really made solid friends as she was with a different group of children each year. She has a summer birthday so didn't really fit in with either group = one year she was with her own year group, next year she was with the year younger.

Academically small schools benefit with teacher pupil ratio...however

Watch for pupil mix...(my dd started in a class of 3 girls 8 boys and you would not believe what problems this can bring)

Class splits....can vary between reception, yr1/y2 yr3/4.

If there is a problem in a small school then it is very much highlighted.

Social skills may suffer with lack of friends to mix with.

Other benefits of small school...combined classes can benefit bright children.

Teachers have a general knowledge of all pupils in the school inc the head.

Ability to have all school outings ..such as pantomine plus summer trip.

Parents are normally requested to have more of a hands on approach to any school activities.

Lottysmum, I think it's hard for bright children to be stretched at the top end of a very small school. I know one boy who spent 3 years in the same Y5/6 class and got extremely bored. I had the situation at one point where my Very able Y6 daughter and bright Y4 daughter were in the same group for literacy and numeracy because it was the top group with the most able from Ys 4 5 and 6 in it. It wasn't challenging for Y4 dd so had no benefit at all for Y6 dd!

Trips can be more expensive because cost of travel is shared between fewer pupils (swimming became ridiculously expensive simply because of coach cost).

There's less chance of sport - small numbers for netball/football teams.

I can see it may work for some children but moving mine to a larger class was the best thing that happened to them - just wish I'd moved them out much earlier.