Reception classes - how small is too small (prep school)?

[PinkPomeranian]

DD3 is due start Reception in September. Elder siblings have had pretty good experiences with their independent primary school. Both very happy at the school and eager for youngest to follow suit. Eldest starts seniors in September and had their pick of schools based on 11+ and independent entry results so a good academic outcome too.

Most Reception joiners move up from the school's Preschool but this year only 2 kids are intending to stay on, for reasons which are not a reflection on the school. Unofficially we have heard that there are another 2 external joiners. Obviously others may join before September and most year groups do pick up kids quite quickly, but with low birth rate/VAT/cost of living that may remain a challenge for this cohort.

I've heard on the grapevine that there is scope for Reception to join with Year 1 for appropriate activities, but DD3 is petite, young for the year, and has a speech impediment so I still have some concerns about this in practice.

I know there are advantages to small class sizes, but how small is too small? Are there strategies that have worked particularly well at schools you know with small classes?

What’s their normal intake. Less than 5 kids is minute. My biggest concern would be the financial viability of this. Will the year group always be the is small or do they have influx later on? Say in year 3 or 5?
I was going to say that anything less than about 10/12 is very limiting on the social aspects for your child.

How many are you talking? I wouldn’t want a class smaller than about 12/15.

If they are mixing with year 1, how many would that be in total?

That's ridiculously small and I would be concerned about the viability of the school.

We had 6 in our prep for reception, now up to 12 in y2. Coming off covid times when nursery had been shut there was a really low intake for that year. It was really good for our dd as meant more support and a very calm environment. Socially the class has one of the best dynamics in the school - they learned how to play as a group with very diverse personalities and preferences, and are great for inclusivity in their games. I do think some of this is down to teaching staff, who were very active in facilitating this.

They combined years for some lessons and for lots of activities like forest school, PE - in reception they sometimes joined nursery and sometimes y1, in y1 sometimes they were paired with reception and sometimes y2, and this worked really well. It means they have a much broader social group within the school that has persisted even as they do less combined year activities now that the class has grown. It depends on how it is implemented, I guess, but for us it has been all positive.

A few other year groups have started as classes of 5 in Reception and have grown to about 20 over time.

There are 9 in the current Reception class, and 10 in the current Year 1. These are typical numbers at Key Stage 1.

No concerns about the financial viability of the school, thankfully, for various reasons that aren't relevant to this discussion.

And 2 staying on from Preschool and 2 joining so far, so currently 4 signed up for Reception.

That is very small. Whilst the teaching ratio is fantastic, they aren't getting used to making friends and mixing with different people. Also depending on the number of each sex, it could force friendships onto your child.

I'd want a bigger class personally.

My DDs previous school found that 8 was OK... but 7 was very problematic.

But if the school is used to an intake of 5, I presume they have strategies for coping.

Sd went to a prep with ten in the class, even that was not great, just too small. If the others don't have much in common with yours or some other reason don't really get on, it can cause real friendship issues and it's not a happy environment for children. She did very well academically but wasn't happy. Four or five is crazily small, and I personally wouldnt even consider it unless I knew there was going to be a big size increase imminently

Our DD has 18 in her year, and it’s too small now in Y6. It was okay lower down the school but no way would I be happy with fewer than 10 children. The social dynamics are just weird at that point, and more so as they get older.

I wouldn’t be happy about that at all. What if your child fell out with the only other girl?! Or just didn’t get on. There’s not enough children there to have a healthy mix socially.

My DS was in a class of 8 in Reception, with a Teacher and a TA. It was great for him because he is August born and needed the higher level of attention and less busy environment. The numbers were up to 2 classes of 10 by Y2 and 3 classes of 16 by Y8. This increase is standard and the school supports a small pre-prep with the higher numbers further up.

If you are confident the year group will fill up later, I think it is OK.

Finding a friend who shares all your interests is great, but I think there is also something to be said for figuring out how to have fun with people you don’t have lots obviously in common. I also think we delayed / reduced a lot of the boy vs.girl self-segregation in a small class, as gender became less important. She’s not stuck with these 5 kids alone for life or even for very long- the class will grow, she will have a chance to mix with kids +/- a year, and if you are really worried about social stuff (though at the age of 4-6 friendships are pretty shallow) then you can sign her up for rainbows or something outside of school.

That would be a no from me. I personally think under 10 kids wouldn’t be the dynamic I’d like

There have been a few structural changes to the nursery provision which mean that the school won't handle this cohort in the same way. They're remaining tight lipped as to what their actual plans are, however!

It's a single sex school, for those mentioning a potential gender divide. The year groups do mix quite a lot and children from other year groups are familiar to DD from the nursery and through siblings. No getting around the tiny number of pupils though.

Our starting position is that we'd really like to stay as long as the practicalities are right. We're not sure what that looks like though. We have an alternative school lined up but that's not ideal either, and having kids at 3 different schools would be a mission. It's a lot to weigh up.

My DD started in a reception class of 8 at her prep school and when she left at 13 was one of 45. She was also one of 2 moving up from their nursery for various reasons and both of them stayed till 13 and are still friends (not besties but still!) now they’re both doing GCSEs at different schools. May not be applicable for your DD but mine was recently diagnosed autistic and I genuinely think this was why she coped so well at primary. There wasn’t a huge number when she started in her year and then it slowly grew year on year so wasn’t overwhelming for her. Her school did have a big entry points at year 3, year 5 and year 7, so we knew it wasn’t going to be 8 by the time she left!

I went to a school where there were 6 kids in my year (rural primary not private) and I wouldn't pick it for my kid. The friendship dynamics were always challenging.

However given it's a single sex school and your daughter sounds like she could do with some additional support re her speech I'd go with it for reception and take a call on how well it's going at the end of the academic year.

I went to a school where there were 6 kids in my year (rural primary not private) and I wouldn't pick it for my kid. The friendship dynamics were always challenging.

Similar experience although there were 9 in my class. I had to stick it out there for 2 years until I finally convinced my parents I needed to go somewhere else. My new school had 25 in the class and I was so much happier and made great friends despite joining at 9 years old.

I'd never send my own children to such a small school because of my own experiences but it really depends on the child whether it would suit them or not. Overall though I think a larger school has far more advantages.

My biggest concern would be socially. That is a very small pool of children to make friends with and not all children naturally gel. The lack of opportunities to mix with more children could lead to a relationship where classmates become more like siblings in that, although they might become very close in some ways, there is the potential for a lot of bickering due to them becoming sick of spending so much time with each other.

In mainstream, with classes of at least 20+ there is more scope for mixing with different children and having natural breaks from others while they play or work with different people. A school which often has such a low Reception intake wouldn't be for me at all. I know private schools have smaller intakes by nature but I would expect at least 12 in a class as a minimum. Any less seems very unhealthy from a social point of view.

My concern would be all the team stuff. Sports for instance, how do you get football teams/netball/cricket etc ranging from abilities A-D to give everyone a fair chance with such a tiny cohort? music ensembles??? how will it work? what about academic sets? how ill they set? i suppose its more one to one teaching so that might n ot be an issue.

I think it depends very much on the teachers and how the numbers are managed.
My children went to a state village school but the basic issues will be similar. The intake was never more than 10 per year and sometimes as low as 4. There are disadvantages as well as plus points to this obviously but it was something the staff were very used to which I think made a difference. Reception, year 1 and year 2 were all in the same class, though obviously with the work differentiated and it worked really well. I think mixed age teaching can be excellent but you need excellent teachers who know how to deliver it for it to be really effective. I'd be a bit concerned of this is the first time the school has encountered this issue as whilst the staff may well be great teachers, it will be a new situation for them and they'll have to figure things out as they go along. The other thing our school did which I don't know if is a possibility in the private sector is that we were part of a Small Schools Cluster, so for things that we didn't have enough children to join in we'd combine with other schools in the same situation.
If everything else is good and there's the prospect of more children joining later I wouldn't rule the school out just on this basis, as there are ways around things. But I think if I were you I'd try to have a plan B up my sleeve just in case things don't work out.

If it doesn't work out, how easy would it be to get her into another Private school mud way through?

It's very small but I guess better socially compared to home schooling??

I was in a class of 4 (3 girls and 1 boy). It was fine although PE lessons were odd and I was the only girl who had never played netball when I started secondary school.

It depends on the intake trajectory really. Our prep is an inverted pyramid in terms of numbers. DS1 had 10 in his year at first and there are now 30. Yr 7/8 have the most. I'd ask the registrar outright to let you know what the numbers will be and then you can make an informed decision. It wouldn't bother me as long as the school generally grows at higher intake points.