Would you rather primary class was 16 or 30?

[Roxietrees]

DS due to start reception in Sept- due to complicated situation (long story and there are other factors of course) he has a choice of two schools. One where they’ll only be 16 kids in the class (one form entry) and the other has 30 (also one form entry). Both schools are good and have a similar reputation. Which would you prefer? Smaller class are obviously beneficial but as small as 16, I feel there may be less options for friendships etc?

DD went to a lovely little prep school - the main reason that we chose it was that rather than having 30 children per class they split it into 2 classes of 15 per year group. Means that all kids are given individualised teaching and no issues go unnoticed - they can’t get ‘lost in the crowd’ or just coast along which was important for us as DD was so shy and quiet when she joined. Absolutely no regrets - it was a fantastic school and all of the kids did really well both academically and socially. Almost all of them went onto the (massive!) adjoining grammar and had no issues with the larger class sizes at that point.

I think, given your update, focus on the size is something of a red herring. If I understand it correctly, both have a PAN of 30, so new arrivals and departures could easily even up the class sizes over the course of your child’s attendance, or mixed age classes of 30 could become your preferred school’s ‘new normal’.

Instead, focus on less arguable features:

• setting
• curriculum
• clubs and sporting opportunities
• wrap-around care
• continuity of peer group from nursery / pre-school

to make your case.

Check the admissions policy for the school with the smaller class, what PAN does it have on for the most recent policy?

Assuming this is in England, schools get funding per child so whilst a smaller class size is beneficial, in practice it can mean a lack of resource and opportunity. Where I am quite a few primaries have closed due to falling numbers and double dorms becoming single so there’d be a worry it could close. Less of a worry if it’s rural though.

Where I am there’s a lot of movement in reception but if the 30 places have already been assigned / agreed it’s
harder to add an extra child as the ratios are pretty watertight. There’s more wriggle room.

I teach in a reception class of 19. Choose the larger class.

I've not read the other replies yet so sorry if I'm repeating but schools are funded according to his many pupils they have. If the school with the class of 16 has a PAN of 30 and is just under subscribed they will be badly underfunded as they're running at just over 50% capacity for the year group. This will have a huge impact in terms of the opportunities the children can be offered, the resources they have etc as the school has much less to spend on them. They might not even be able to afford a full time TA, so far from better supported they would be worse off than children in the school with a full class.

That said, it's far too early in the year to say for sure how many will be in the class. We've only had first round of allocations. That 16 can easily rise to 20+ id their PAN allows for more. Apologies if I've misunderstood and it's a small village school but I'd still go for a larger school in terms of scope for friendships, personally.

I take it he currently has a place at the full school and you want to switch? If he doesn't have a place confirmed at either yet the full school is out of the equation anyway. If he does have a place there, I would keep it. A full class with better funding is far preferable long term. The other school will undoubtedly have to mix year groups in Key Stage 1 and 2.

In terms of education...smaller class

In terms of friendships/socialising...larger class

@Roxietrees

Has to be the smaller class. My village (primary) school has just 33 children, and it's 2 classes of 17 and 16.

17 who are 5 to 8 y.o, and 16 who are 8 to 11 y.o. They all do so well, and are really quite advanced for their age, and pretty much nearly all end up in top classes at secondary school, (or second from top.) Small classes are great. I would NEVER choose a class of 30 over a class of 16 (for my child.)

100% no issue with friends either. They all live within 15 minutes walk from each other, and are very close, and play together outside school too... Most children have half a dozen friends from school - and some have many more.

.

Parents almost always advise smaller class sizes.

Teachers don't.

Better 30 children + a TA, and one-to-ones for the EHCPs, and HLTAs who run quality interventions, and a behaviour lead to sort out the learning environment and any of the dozens of other things schools can spend on when they have more funding.

Smaller classes does not automatically mean better education. It is a complex picture.

There is loads of research around the impact of class size on a child’s attainment. Unfortunately the findings fall on both sides of the argument, depending which you read. So, you can cherry pick, I guess.
for example:
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7b08bfe5274a319e77c880/DFE-RR169.pdf

I spent many years teaching in a primary school with classes that varied between 16 and 20 students. The classes of 16 were ideal and the students seemed to make friends just fine.

In my country teachers strongly favour smaller classes, the teachers union always opposes increasing class sizes to save money (25 would be considered a large overcrowded class). I assume they know what they're talking about and have good reasons to prefer smaller classes.

Definitely the smaller class - more teacher input, behaviour issues easier to nip in the bud, learning will be more matched to the needs of the group as it is smaller.
16 is plenty for friendships. The school I work at only has 11 in reception (and that's a big year group for us!) and the children get on just fine.

= I do notunderstand the funding and staffing in British schols.

Small class sizes can be great. A small class that is 50% SEN, with wildly differing needs + no TAs in class + no interventions + substandard polucies means that my current class of 27 is far better served than my class of 14 in a previous school. I have way more time and attention for 27 than I had for 14, and children at all levels make better progress.

All unions support an upper limit on class sizes - there is a limit to how many books one human can mark and how many children can be heard reading. This does not mean that 16 is good and 25 is bad - there is a lot more to it.

It all depends on the child OP ..
Two of my girls, one when younger had 9 in her class , like that now friendships was the problem, so I moved her to a school with 30+ & that’s where she excelled ..
My other lady went to same small school as her sister had, & got on perfect there with the smaller numbers ..
It really does depend on the child ..

My DD is in a class of 18 (was 17 in September) and it's brilliant. All the children get along beautifully and even the ones who she doesn't play with often or has different interests to are always happy to see each other and speak highly of one another.

The opportunities are brilliant, they have weekly forest school, a kitchen garden where they grow vegetables, loads of visitors coming in to teach them about everything from water safety to dental hygiene and are always excited to go into school.

When I was teaching, 30+ kids was always overwhelming and I never felt like I really knew the children. Smaller classes usually had better relationships as they didn't get on top of each other and everyone was valued more.

People pay very high fees to go to private schools with small classes!

If you're going to convince the judge, focus on why the school is a better fit for your child specifically and avoid talking about what you like about it.

Sorry, but none of that was available in dc school. We were a class of 31 in reception- one teacher and a part time ta. Several children with extra needs, no additional support. I volunteered regularly in the class (they were highly reliant on parent volunteers to run programmes) and it was managed chaos. We ultimately moved private, and a large part of what we pay for is smaller class sizes. There is more to consider than class size, but all things equal I would choose smaller.

Well my sons class sizes were small and now the local council has decided there has to be a minimum of 50 children over a ‘year group’ so this year the school have changed to mix year group classes. My son is now in a mixed class of year 3 and 4 and the school have said it’s proven beneficial for peer learning and mentorship so I wouldn’t assume that small class size means it will stay that way throughout the whole school

I think they’d be likely to combine year groups if they had <15 next time, personally I wouldn’t like that but it does work in some schools. Various schools round our way have done this due to falling school rolls.

Funding is per pupil in the UK, same over here, so yes smaller classes equals less funding but the teachers still prefer it. But funding is better here. DD's primary class of 14 had a large proportion of children with SEN, that's why it was the smallest class of the year group, but they had a TA part time (I think maybe full time in 3rd grade) and the special ed teacher took small groups regularly for interventions which helped but even when the teacher was on his own half the time my DD got enough attention and she was a quiet good achiever so the kind to get less attention in a busy class because obviously viewed as not needing so much.
At upper school there's no TAs that I'm aware of so no extra help for teachers so smaller classes are definitely preferred.