Large Primary class sizes - has anyone successfully challenged an LEA and forced them to reduce class sizes

[theherbgarden]

My lea has for the 2nd year in a row allocated an extra five places for each reception class. This mean 35 children in both year 1 classes 2009 and 35 in both Reception classes. The calculation was base on there being 'space available'. There was a spare mobile classroom (currently used to do work when taking children out of the classes - the alternative being a corner of their current classroom, a table in the reception area or the school hall which is in front or reception area with people coming and going all the time) The way they calculate the teachers needed appears to be on the number of children aged 5-7 in the school across the years, so the LEA will fund another teacher so they will have enough teachers for the number of children across that age range. The extra 20 children that generated the need for an extra teacher are now half in year one and half in reception. (I am excluding the extra children in year two dds class was a 31 for much of last year)or the other class which has also run over at times. There are two choices for the school a. have mixed ability classes reception/yr1 or b. a work round which involves always making sure at least 5 children from each class are out doing specific numberacy/literacy work with a teaching assistant at any given time. Apparently the school has two higher skilled teaching assistants (one used to be a teacher) and 'normal' teaching assistants. I think this is wrong on so many levels. Has anyone or does anyone know anyone who has successfully challenged a school in order to reduce class sizes to 30.

Sorry no experience, but you've piqued my curiousity.

Our school would arrange 5 classes for 140 children. Why doesn't your school do that? One-Two classes of mixed oldest Reception-youngest Yr1 sounds reasonable to me. Just 5 pupils Working with a good TA would be brilliant, too, as that would be high adult:child ratio.

Is it a very popular school, or is the next nearest primary miles & miles away?

AFAIK if there are over 30 on the register for an infants class there have to be 2 qualified teachers for that class.not a fraction of a teacher 'shared out' Not sure though if the HLTA has QTS whether they could count her in.I don't think having 5 children out of the room would be make adifference as I am pretty sure that it is the no on the register for the class not the number in the classroom at any one time.

Katiestar The TA would have need to have 10 children at any one time to ensure 'legal' class sizes. If those children are ones that need extra help there is not much extra benefit. lljkk I am really anti mixed level classes for reception. My child would almost certainly be in that split class! The year 1 children have had twelve months to get used to being in school and the laws of the playground etc. Those reception children are in effect short changed on their transition period.

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Is it actually legal to do the 'overspills' with the TA though?

I dont know, I believe it may be a higher skilled TA. I have been led to believe that the TA is not teaching them per se but doing specific literacy or numeracy etc based additional work. Thats part of what I am trying to find out at the moment GPAC. I am sure this must have happened to other schools and am hoping that someone may have come accross this.

Based on my limited knowledge I would have said there should be 2 additional teachers.
3 reception classes of approx 23 each and 3 year 1 classes of the same.

Some info on this thread about TAs/HLTAs taking Foundation Stage children on a regular basis.

Ellingwoman - the school wouldn't be able to afford to have classes of only 23. As far as I know, clases "break even" when there are 28 children in a class.

Based on 6 classes of 23 children as you suggest, you only legally need 5 teachers. In this case, most schools would move towards a mixed age class model.

There is definitely not room to have have 3 reception and 3 year 1 classes though. Only one classroom available for use. Also another potential issue is that for this year there would be 23 next year they would max out the classes again.

Thanks for the link Littlefish. It made interesting reading. A lot of the schools with mixed years seemed to be smaller schools. Our school, has at least 60 children in each year and I believe some of the juniors classes have had more at times. My experience is that the teachers are currently spread way too thin at the moment with 30 children.

Under government rules any infant class that has a majority of Reception, Year 1 or Year 2 pupils must be limited to a maximum of 30 pupils to one qualified teacher in all ordinary teaching sessions.
An ordinary teaching session is every lesson during the school day, except for school assemblies, music, drama or sports lessons.
Any infant class with more than 30 pupils must therefore have at least two FTE qualified teachers.
A teacher must have been awarded qualified teacher status; any other adult in the class cannot be considered as a teacher.

MmeZ if the TA is a qualified teacher does that count as a Teacher even though currently working as a TA? Or would that force the school to have a mixed class, they have not announced what they are doing yet. Reading between the lines of what you are saying we are heading for a split year. Which I personally feel is so wrong for many reasons. My daugher and every other reception child should be with their peers, sharing the same experience at the same time.

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What are people's opinions of mixed age group classes?

Mixed age classes have pluses and minuses, ime. Our school is large (~350 students) but only has an intake of about 45 per year group, so they end up with mixed age classes.

DS is currently in a mixed yr3-4 class, like all the Y3s and most of the Yr4s (the others are in a mixed Y4-y5 class). I expect DD will be in a mixed Y3-y4 class next year, too.

They are streamed off for literacy and maths: they may move to another classroom for those subjects, with similar ability children, all from the 3x Y3-y4 classes, plus a few of the more able Y2s get mixed in with the streamed Y3-y4s.

In a mixed class, sometimes the more able children end up helping their classmates, this is a good thing I reckon if it happens to a small amount; you learn more by teaching than you do by listening.

DS complains about some of his dim classmates for other subjects (science, IT, etc.). But he is pretty intolerant and impatient anyway; I think a bit of learning to live with other people's shortcomings is good for him.

I think a class which mixes 2 years is Ok.We have a class which mixes 3 years and I think that is too wide an age band.
Last year DD was is in a mixed 2/3/4 class.It's ok for maths and literacy where the work is differentiated by ability , but it means that PE and DT projects have to be made safe and do=able for the little ones and then are not fulfilling to the older ones.
DS is a yr 6 in a mixed yr 5/6 class.Many of the Yr6s have done Y6 maths twice before and the school have arranged for them to go to the local grammar for a maths lesson once a week.So it can work if the school is mindful of the needs of all children

Also i help in a R/Y1 class .I think there is a lot more educational focus on the Y1's than reception because the R children play so much.The Y1s seem to have progressed amazingly well

I am worried that mix age group classes only work for children who are more able. I am wondering if say DS was meant to be in yr 1 for his age and was put in a year 1/2 class he would really struggle and it would knock his confidence.

What would your solution be though - pick 5 children from each class to throw out of the school?

Both my children attended a small village primary school (only three classes) so had mixed classes right through their primary years. My son had problems in reception but this was due to the teacher not the system and both thrived.

Soupdragon should the school be allowed to continue breaking the law?

Refer cases to the DCSF Fair Access Team ([email protected] ) if a school is in breach of infant class size duty but refuses to take remedial action.

That doesn't really answer my question does it?

I wouldn't need to pick 5 children from each class because legally it should be the 5 children admitted after the Infant Class Size Limit was reached. So yes these children should be found alternative places in other schools or additional teachers should be employed in this school.

So you are picking 5 children to throw out. In order to reduce a class size to 30, 5 children need to be thrown out of the school. At a time when all the close schools will, most likely, be full/over full. The children & parents are innocent in this so do you think that is the right option?

The only option is the extra teacher one and the school should be prevented from fiddling the ratios in future years and forced to create an extra class if they wish to admit more children. DSs school did just that, extending from 2 to 3 form intake (and it's still over subscribed).

No I am not throwing children out I am following the rules which state that in infant classes there should not be more than 30 children to one teacher and if children are admitted under the exception clause this only applies until the end of that school year and should not continue into the following year.
My school and the school my children attended asked for a reduction to the admission limit so this could be avoided. Both my children attended a small village primary with mixed age classes so reduced admission to 10 children per year group even though the school is high achieving and always over subscribed.