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.