Is a very small school ok? Even if it means siblings in the same class?

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There's 2 primary schools which my 2 DS are in catchment for. They are both lovely but one is large and one is small. The smaller one is closer and slightly more aligned to my values regarding education.

However my children are only 2 year groups apart and would be in the same class at the small school because they merge 3 year groups into 1 class.

Does anyone have experience of this? Was it a detriment to their eduction or development?

3 year groups in one class sounds like a disaster. Avoid

Personally I would go for the larger school. It gives a wider friendship pool, and larger schools often have better access to clubs and activities in my experience.

Another thing - is the small school at risk of closure, with falling birth rates?

Larger school, funding is based on head counts so you want more dc.

Larger school - helps the transition to secondary as well. I’ve seen kids struggle moving from small primary schools to secondary.

My kids go to a small school with mixed classes. It works really well - it means year 1 and 2 is much more free flow and play based than in other schools, they work together and separately depending on the work, lots of opportunities for the older ones to cement their learning by helping the younger.

It does need a really good teacher, and sufficient staff:child ratio (ours has full time teacher, full time TA, plus a second TA around 50% of the time. Ours has a much higher staff ratio than the larger schools.

Siblings I think depends on the personalities. I’ve been happy that mine are far enough apart to be in different classes and I know one parent who moved her kids because when the second started it was obvious that it wasn’t going to work. But there are a lot of sibling pairs and they are very happy with the set up. We have Reception/1/2, 3/4, 5/6.

My main concern about small schools is socialising. But actually what I’ve seen in my kids compared to friends’ is that they’re more comfortable socialising with older and younger kids, and they have friends with more different interests. So my Dino-mad son has learned to play dinos one day, Mario the next and Pokémon the next because those are the things his friends are in to. Whereas a child we know well out of school only plays with the “Dino set”. But mine are less comfortable in big groups. We’ve introduced sports and social clubs outside of school to expand their social network. The school also works closely with other primaries to make sure by year 6 the kids know more local kids who are going to the same secondary.

You know your children best, but three years worth of classes is a really big range and so I'd be concerned that at either extreme they may not get as much support as they need (including stretch for more able). Also although most likely it's really friendly it can be intense and that feels like it would be compounded by your children sharing a class.

All things being equal I'd go for the larger school but if the ethos at the smaller school is for you and miles off at the bigger one that's your decision isn't it

How large is the large school ?
I think that the small school sounds too small. I assume that it’s unlikely for a class at the small school to have an even mix of ages and sex meaning that the friendship pool of same age children could be non existent/ tiny. Is your younger child confident or would he expect his sibling to play with him ? That wouldn’t be good for either of your kids.

My kids went to a 2 form entry primary to 8 form entry secondary which was a straight forward transition. Small schools may be good for the very young but I think that older kids benefit more from a bigger school (at least one form entry) for social and activity reasons. By activity I mean enough kids for a sports team, more money so more opportunities to experience stuff.

It depends what you mean mean by ethos really. And big the bigger school is.

Larger schools can offer a wider range of activities. But you can have more chance of being able to do an activity at a smaller school (so the girls can play for the football team, or the boys don't feel odd in the choir) as the whole class does it.

And siblings will depend on the siblings... some will fight and get competitive, others would be fine.

My DM still says the difficult bit of her childhood was that her sister was the closest girl in age to her in school... but her sister was closer to other girls. So she was pretty lonely (the other three children in her year were boys, and the year above was all boys too)

My children went to a really small primary. It was very sought after due to it being small. In hindsight I wish we had gone for a bigger school. It was such a small pool of children to make friends with and just not very diverse.

My dc went to 2 very small (2 or 3) class primary schools. So first one was P1 - P3 in one class and P4 - P7 in the other and 2nd school was P1-2, P3-4, and P5-7. My dc were never in each other’s class. First school had really good pastoral care and the support my dyslexic dd received was great. However my ds says they never did maths and because it was such a small school the personal ethos of the teachers strongly influenced the education - so ‘music’ was hymn singing! Second school neither particularly liked - the atmosphere was not great, little learning support and education was not brilliant. In both schools the dc have to mix with different ages and it is such a small pool that disagreements have to be set aside or there will be no one to play with. That is good in some ways as dc learn to get along with different types of people. Spaeking to dd (now 22) she reckons the first school worked for her but the second one didn’t. So it’s not clear cut to say always the small school or the larger one. It really depends on the individual school.

I’m a teacher at a really tiny rural school. I love it. I think it’s by far the best environment I’ve worked in the. The children are known by every single member of staff. Any member of staff could cover in a classroom and know all the children’s strengths, weaknesses, needs etc. I’m a reception teacher and I find small classes incredibly positive at this age, I know every single child like the back of my hand, no one gets missed, we pick up any issues or SEND really early. I won’t lie it’s not the easiest, there are drawbacks. Siblings in classes together (although I’ve never actually known that to be a problem) lack of funding because we are so small, there are fewer children to choose to play with. I guess it boils down to what exactly you think your child needs, if you think more one-to-one attention from a teacher and a more family like environment is for your child go for the small school. if you think they need a wider choice of friendships and they’ll cope absolutely fine in a glass of 30 go for a bigger school.it’s dependent on the child and the family and your values.

I love the idea of small schools, and I think when they work, they do really well.

But I'd also avoid siblings in the same class.
We had (non-identical) twins in my primary. One was arty, academic, and the other was very slightly better at sports (think coming 2nd to his brother's 3rd/4th). They argued.
I don't think it made huge difference to the "better" one, but I think it made a big difference to the other. He was like a shadow to his brother, not in the sense of following him round, but his brother was louder, more confident, got picked for more things etc.

And I was the middle one of three. I hated being put in with my siblings. #1 would cling to me, and that would put off friends my age as they'd not want an older one hanging round, and I'd be in trouble for not looking after #3 because they "had it so tough". So it made it hard to make friends.
Tbf I think nowadays they'd both be diagnosed with ASD.

If your dc are sociable, get on well, but won't cling to each other, and can carve out their own tracks without one overshadowing the other, it might work.

My children go to a very small primary school (around 45 children in all). Mixed years works perfectly from an academic standpoint, no worries at all on that front.

A smaller pool for friendships is the bigger concern. Whilst both of mine have developed brilliant friendship groups (and none of the drama that my friends’ children seem to have had larger schools) there are 1 or 2 children in the school who haven’t really connected with others.

Perhaps this would be the case wherever they were but at least there would be more opportunities in a larger school.

If I could choose again I would still choose the small school though.

This

How can a reception child be in the same group as a yr 2

Or a yr 3 and 6th year

Must learn totally diff stuff !!

Larger school so can make friends and meet people

Or when they

Whoop hit send and can't edit as on app

They will struggle when go to secondary school and have maybe 150 in a year

Exactly this, and even if some children are behind say a year 6 pupil at the same learning stage as a year 4 pupil will need to be taught differently and require extra differentiation. The fact they would be with year 4 pupils doesn’t cover that differentiation.

You’d need so many teachers and TAs in one class to meet all the children’s needs that you may as well just have different classes.

I think it works better in small rural areas as the children will be more used to that way of life, and most likely continue living like that until 18+. Meanwhile for children who attend a tiny school in a big area it won’t reflect their life in any way.

At our school, reception, 1 and 2 are in together. They will discuss a topic and then each age group will be given an activity to explore that is appropriate to their age group.

They have a teacher and 2 teaching assistants to deliver the lesson, and a class size of around 18. It works just fine.

Really usual where I am to have two class schools (40-50 pupils on roll) Popular for family atmosphere and knowing children very well.

Often these smaller schools are part of a federation ( two, three or four primary schools with the same HT & governing board). This brings together a larger number of children at times, so best of all worlds, small family feel and contact/provision for larger groups.

Teachers are skilled at assessing and planning across a range of needs. Curriculum plans written for mixed key stage.

Maybe yours is too OP?

Composite classes are very common where I am. One of the highest-achieving primary schools has composite classes P1-3 and P4-6 usually (varies with class intake). For some children it's an excellent environment, but not so much for others. But definitely not uncommon or a red flag particularly here in terms of attainment.

3 year groups in 1...what's the adult/child ratio there and how big is the class?

I am finding it hard to see how any teacher with an age range that wide is going to be giving any child the right level of challenge, unless they have separated them into groups and are giving separate inputs to each group.

The youngest child in Year 3 could have just turned 7, whereas the oldest child in Year 5 could turn 10 on the first day of school.

An average just-turned 7 yo is going to have almost no educational overlap with a 10 yo, behaviourally, emotionally or academically.

Small school will be workable from an educational point of view, I wouldn't worry about that aspect.
The social side is riskier. I've seen it work well for kids who make friends easily or just happen to fall in with someone. But for those who are unlucky not to gel with another child or group of children, it can be extremely isolating, as there are far fewer alternative children to play with, and friendships tend to be more fixed than in larger schools. That's the main reason I've seen children move from very small schools.

My dc went to a school like this - PAN was 10 and they had a couple of classes with 2 year groups and one with 3. Dc1 at Oxbridge, dc2 applying to Oxbridge this year, so no-one suffered academically!

it was a lovely school - really nurturing, and felt like a big family. Every child was seen and known. I thought that secondary would be a jump, but they all settled very easily into much bigger schools.

As a teacher who has taught in small schools with mixed age classes, it's really not ideal for education purposes. Socially I have my doubts too. I'd avoid if you can.

I think it would have been a disaster for my two. DC1 is very much a school shaped child and finds every aspect of it easy. DC2 is less school shaped and struggles with various aspects of it. DC2 was aware of this enough from being in a two form entry primary and, despite all we do at home to give him confidence, home life without it being shoved in his face every second of the day at school too. I also think that DC1 would have taken more of a domineering mother hen role in his life than she already does and that she and her friends could have babied him more than they did which would not have been good for either of them. DC2's best experiences at primary where when he was with a teacher who hadn't had DC1 as then DC2 started as an unknown quantity rather than someone about whom they had certain expectations